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MARINE SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP FORMING: PLANNING MEETING IN MISSOULA

The Society for Conservation Biology is taking the next steps toward developing a strong SCB focus on marine issues. The response to the symposium on marine conservation biology at our 1997 annual meeting is just one indication of the interest among many of our members.

We propose to elevate the importance of marine conservation biology within SCB in three ways. First, with funding from the Pew Charitable Trusts, we will convene a symposium on marine conservation at the 2001 annual meeting in Hawaii. With adequate support from SCB members, a marine symposium could become a tradition at SCB's annual meetings.

At least for the initial symposium in 2001, we want to build upon the work of COMPASS, a partnership among SeaWeb, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Island Press, and a group of scientific experts. The COMPASS board meets annually to determine which marine conservation topics to target in the coming year. COMPASS recently chose to focus on zoning of uses in the marine environment, potentially including any types of marine managed areas. Therefore, we have adopted this theme for the 2001 SCB marine symposium.

In order to form a marine committee to work with the organizing committees of the 2001 and subsequent SCB meetings, we will hold a planning session at the annual meeting in Missoula from 7:30 to 9:30 P.M. on Sunday, 11 June. The location will be announced in May on the meeting web site,http://www.umt.edu/scb2000/.

Second, we propose to use SCB's new publication, Conservation Biology in Practice, to disseminate the issues discussed at the symposium to conservation practitioners and policy makers. The symposium will be an ideal forum to share case studies and state-of-the-art science in marine conservation. We expect that many of the presentations will serve as starting points for articles in Conservation Biology in Practice.

Finally, we hope to increase the exposure of the science developed and discussed during the symposium and published in Conservation Biology in Practice to a much larger lay audience via the popular media. These efforts will be coordinated with SCB's new Media Committee.

Please let us know if you are interested in participating in this project or that you plan to attend the 11 June meeting in Missoula by contacting Dee Boersma (boersma@u.washington.edu) or Burr Heneman (burr@igc.org).

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