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INTERNATIONALIZING THE SOCIETY FOR CONSERVATION BIOLOGY

When a group of U.S. biologists met in 1985 to form the Society for Conservation Biology, they envisioned an international organization. Many of these founders had worked outside the U.S. and they were well aware of the global scope of biodiversity loss. For several years now the leaders of SCB have realized that we have not outgrown our U.S. origins to become a truly international society. A few steps have been taken to change this but they do not seem to be doing the job. At a recent meeting of the Board of Governors we discussed at length new ways to further internationalize SCB. Before describing the outcome of these deliberations, let's consider some background information.

The primary statistic is our membership distribution, and this reveals that we remain heavily weighted toward the U.S. (80% of our 4995 members) and North America (adding Canada and Mexico brings the total to 86%). Overall, 82 countries are represented, with 6% of members in Europe, 5% in Asia, Australia, and Pacific island nations, 2% in Central and South America, and 1% in Africa. Governance of the SCB also has been dominated by U.S. members although one slot on the Board of Governors is reserved for international members and non-U.S. members have occasionally been elected to other positions.

We have a long-standing policy of holding 25% of our meetings outside the U.S., and in practice 33% (4 of 12) have been outside the U.S. However, with two meetings in Canada, one in Mexico, and one in Australia, one could argue that we have been conservative about following this policy. We do not have statistics on attendance at meetings, but it is our impression that participation reflects a balance between the overall membership and the population of biologists who live within a few hundred kilometers of the meeting, many of whom are not necessarily members of SCB.

To evaluate the composition of Conservation Biology we tallied articles for 1998 by country of origin using the address of the senior author. U.S.-based authors accounted for 64% of the articles; 18 countries were represented. It is interesting to compare these statistics to the Ecological Society of America's Ecological Applications (83% U.S. authors and 13 countries) and the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology (44% British authors and 21 countries). Biological Conservation, which has a main editorial office in England and regional offices in the U.S. and Australia, is the most international with 28 countries represented and British, U.S., and Australian authors accounting for 17, 20, and 17% respectively.

There are two rather different ways to interpret this information. One could argue that if our journal and meetings are designed primarily to serve our members, 80% of whom are in the U.S., then having 36% non-U.S. articles and 33% non-U.S. meetings exhibits some tangible success at being more international. Alternatively if you reckon that most of the world's biodiversity and people who care about biodiversity are outside the U.S., then we still have a long way to go on all fronts, especially membership. The SCB governors tend to take the second view, and thus some new steps to internationalize SCB are being taken.

First, we recognize that one of the greatest impediments to membership of people outside the U.S. is the cost and thus we will, starting in 2000, provide a 50% subsidy to membership cost for people in developing countries. (We have long tried to meet this need by providing free subscriptions to about 60 institutions in developing countries; this program has had some problems and will be reevaluated.) Second, because postage is a substantial portion of the costs of providing overseas subscriptions, we are moving ahead with plans for an electronic version of the journal. This also should reduce costs for members in Europe, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

The journal is a third arena of change. Seeking to increase submissions from outside the U.S. might seem like a logical approach, but given the ever-increasing rate of submissions (and concomitantly, rejections), this seems ill-advised. Many non-U.S. readers seem more concerned with the U.S. flavor of the journal because editorials, letters, and other opinion pieces often focus on U.S. conservation policy. We are exploring ways to bring some balance to this aspect of the journal and would welcome your suggestions.

Lastly and most importantly, we have come to realize we probably cannot become a fully international society despite our best efforts. We can shift SCB in that direction through the actions described above, but to become truly international would require a complete revamping of our governance structure, reining in our growing ambitions to become key players in U.S. conservation circles, and other difficult actions. Consequently, we have decided that our best strategy for promoting conservation biology around the globe is to facilitate the creation of a suite of new, related organizations. We envision a day, perhaps several years from now, when there are conservation biology societies for Europe, South America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. These might be independent partners or they might be regional sections operating under a broad SCB umbrella. Hopefully each such group would sponsor its own annual meeting and every three or four years we could all gather at an international meeting hosted by one of the continental groups. Eventually these groups might also sponsor their own journals. Furthermore, having continent-scale groups would greatly enhance the prospects of conservation biologists becoming important sources of relevant information for conservation managers and policy makers.

If you have reactions or suggestions about how to proceed from here please email one of us. We will collate the responses and try to develop a plan for moving toward a time when all of the world's conservation biologists are closely tied to a vibrant professional society.

Malcolm Hunter
hunter@umenfa.maine.edu

Georgina Mace
g.mace@ucl.ac.uk

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