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INTERNATIONAL NEWS: SECTIONS, PUBLICATIONS, MEETINGS, AND COLLABORATIONS

New sections for the marine realm and Australia, New Zealand, and Islands of the Pacific

During our annual meeting in Hilo, "ad hoc steering committees" were formed to pursue creation of our first two international sections: one for the marine realm and one for Australia, New Zealand, and Islands of the Pacific. If you are on SCB's email list you should have already received an invitation to join these sections; if you would like to join now (at no cost), please send an email to marine@conservationbiology.org or OzNZ@conservationbiology.org, respectively. (You can be an official, voting member of just one section, a non-voting member of any number of sections.) Background information on international sections can be found under the Activities section of SCB's website, www.conservationbiology.org.

Europe, Africa, and South & Central America & the Caribbean

It is likely that we will establish "ad hoc steering committees" for three more regions before the end of the year. More than 20 members with African interests met in Hilo and in September, about 30 conservation biologists from throughout Africa will gather in Nairobi for a four-day workshop sponsored by AAAS, SCB, and the International Livestock Research Institute and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation. Similarly, nearly 30 people from Latin America met during the Hilo meeting and started a dialogue about forming a section for that region. On 14 September Georgina Mace will host representatives from several European countries at the Zoological Society of London for a discussion that we hope will establish a European section before our 2002 meeting in Canterbury, England. We are still waiting for leaders for Asian and North American sections to volunteer.

NeoCons goal: 1001 subscribers by 2002

NeoCons, the Neotropical Conservation Biology Bulletin of SCB, will publish its fourth issue this month (see http://www.conservationbiology.org/SCB/Publications/NeoCons/). Distributed to people in more than 40 countries across the American continent and beyond, NeoCons has elicited major interest among SCB members and non-members alike. Subscribership has grown so rapidly in recent months that we would like to issue a challenge to our current readers and to those that have not yet joined: help us to achieve 1001 subscribers by 2002. This may seem difficult since we currently have 575 subscribers. However, if each one of us invites just one additional person to subscribe, we will have not only met our goal, but easily surpassed it. We'd like you to think particularly of beginners in the field of conservation biology, who wish to establish links with other colleagues in the region and who could use encouragement. There are also of course many veteran scientists, workers in private organizations, and governmental employees who have just recently discovered conservation biology as a component of their professional practice. All of them are ideal candidates for a subscription to NeoCons--help us make them a part of the 1001 for 2002!

Jon Paul Rodríguez, Editor, NeoCons

SCB present at the first binational (Argentina-Chile) ecology meeting

With more than 750 people in attendance at their first joint meeting, the ecological societies of Argentina and Chile are alive and well. At the invitation of Andrés Novaro and Andrea Premoli of the Laboratorio Ecotono, CRUB, Universidad Nacional del Comahue, SCB co-sponsored a symposium on conservation biology in the southern cone. The symposium was held on 25 April 2001 in Bariloche, Argentina, a city in the Andean mountains just a few miles from the Chilean border. Eight speakers from Argentina, Great Britain, United States, and Venezuela outlined the main problems faced by conservation biologists and presented a variety of approaches to address them. SCB's presentation focused on encouraging the fledgling Southern Cone Society for Conservation Biology to join efforts with recent efforts to create a neotropical section of SCB. After the symposium, more than 100 people gathered at a workshop to discuss the SCB proposal and consider whether they would adopt it or proceed in another direction. After an intense discussion, it became apparent that although there is solid support for the SCB model, the majority of those present believed they should first explore the creation of an independent regional society and later consider whether to join SCB. It was an excellent meeting, full of genuine interest in conservation and a passionate crowd of both academics and activists. We wish great success to the Southern Cone Society for Conservation Biology, and are certain that they will play a key role in strengthening the discipline of conservation biology throughout the region and beyond.

Jon Paul Rodríguez

Cuba collaboration

We invited five Cuban conservation biologists to come to Hilo, with travel support from the MacArthur Foundation, but only two were able to come due to visa difficulties. Nevertheless, they gave first-rate, well-attended talks and a group of SCB members is now planning a reciprocal visit to Cuba. More news about SCB's continuing efforts to network with Cuban colleagues will appear in the November newsletter.

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