lori_eggert@hotmail.com,/a>).
Communication
Three permanent volunteers have made our communication with the public more efficient, cohesive and manageable. As a result, replies to email messages directed to africa@conbio.org should be issued within one week of receipt. Many thanks to Gerard Hertel (ghertel@wcupa.edu) for assisting with messages in English and to Garth Mowat (gmowat@telus.net) and Nicole Gross-Camp for assisting with messages in French. Please keep in touch. We need your opinions, information and requests to build the section and increase conservation capacity.
Website
A new website with a professional touch has been developed. The site, coordinated by Delali Dovie and maintained by SCB's Executive Office, provides relevant sources of information to promote and facilitate the work of researchers, development workers, managers, students, tourists, and others. After the administrative process is completed, the site will go online. At that point, we welcome suggestions to improve the site, including recommendations for sections that should be translated into other languages.
Newsletter
The interim editor, with support from other members, has developed guidelines for content and is now developing guidelines for submission. We have agreed to solicit help with mailing hard copies to those who do not have electronic access. Please contact Erika Barthelmess (barthelmess@stlawu.edu) if you have any thoughts or wish to volunteer.
Membership and Subscription Fees
The section has successfully arranged with some organizations to support African conservation biologists, especially young ones, who would like to become SCB members and subscribe to SCB publications. If you can, please volunteer to support a young professional. Contact Beth Kaplin (bkaplin@antiochne.edu) for more details.
World Parks Congress
Andy Plumptre and Michel Masozera were among the Africa Section members present at the World Park Congress in Durban, South Africa in September 2003. They are willing to share their experiences with anyone who is interested and can be contacted at aplumptre@aol.com.
Fundraising
If you have suggestions about fundraising activities, access to potential sources of funding to help us accomplish our objectives, or wish to help develop fundraising strategies for our section, please contact our fundraising coordinators, Steve Caicco (Steve_Caicco@r1.fws.gov), Lindsay Magnuson (lakual3@yahoo.com), and Beth Kaplin.
Announcements and Reminders
1. We need a logo for the Africa section. Submit designs to Delali, Beth, or Nobby.
2. Please write to us about your experiences with our mentorship program to link researchers and assist African students or conservation biologists new at writing manuscripts, proposals, or abstracts. The program is coordinated by Matthew Kauffman (matt.kauffman@mso.umt.edu) and Julia Jones (jpgj2@can.ac.uk) and is not restricted to SCB members.
3. If you are interested in helping with our training program for African women in conservation, contact Judy Oglethorpe (judy.oglethorpe@wwfus.org).
4. Any member of SCB can join the Africa Section as a voting member. You may join up to two sections as a voting member. The Africa section is open to all SCB members.
5. The Africa section web page is currently located at http://conservationbiology.org/AFRICA/.
6. Africa Section Members are encouraged to join a standing committee or to suggest a focus group that may become a standing committee.
Acknowledgment
On behalf of the Africa Section, I wish to thank all those who have assisted in diverse ways (including goodwill messages), from formal structures (e.g., our standing committees) to individuals. Your participation has sustained us to date. Let us continue to work dynamically toward better dissemination and discussion about conservation issues in Africa.
Delali Dovie
AUSTRALASIA
There has been a lot of activity within our region during the last few months. Section members and others interested in regional activities are encouraged to check our website periodically to keep informed: http://www.conbio.org/Australasia/. Please contact any board member if you wish to get involved at any level. We are always looking for people to actively participate.
Latest News
Fifth New Guinea Biological Conference. In August 2003, the Fifth New Guinea Biological Conference, Conserving Biodiversity through Research and Education, was hosted by the Wildlife Conservation Society, Papua New Guinea Program. The meeting was held at the University of Goroka, Eastern Highlands Province, PNG at the new lecture theatre. The annual meeting brings together individuals working on a broad range of topics in the biological sciences from throughout the New Guinea region, and presentations covered the full range of biological sciences. The meeting organizers were pleased by the participation of overseas biologists who work in New Guinea or on topics related to the island because the meeting is the best venue for sharing information with national biologists and conservationists who have little access to other international meetings. The Australasian section provided funding to help support students presenting papers, and sponsored a number of awards for both students and academics. Details about the winners will be posted on our web site.
Symposium at 2004 SCB meeting. The Australasian section will be hosting a symposium at the 2004 SCB meeting in New York City. Contact Andrew Huggett for further details (Andrew.Huggett@csiro.au). If you have ideas for other symposia for this or other meetings please contact Rob Davis (rdavis@cyllene.uwa.edu.au).
SCB-Australasia Prizes. The most recent awards were presented to students and other scientists at the Fifth New Guinea Biological Conference. The section sponsored eight different awards. Miriam Supuma won the award (a two-year SCB membership) for best oral presentation with a conservation theme by a student for her paper "The dynamics of a Papua New Guinea submontane forest." Look for her abstract on the Australasian section web page. We will be presenting further awards at the Australian Ornithological Union conference (Birds Australia) 2003 in Canberra, Australia, and at the Third International Wildlife Management Congress in Christchurch, New Zealand. Abstracts of the winning presentations will be posted on our website.
Pacific Conservation Biology. SCB and the Australasian section are formalizing links with the journal Pacific Conservation Biology. We aim to have finalized arrangements with the publisher, Ivor Beatty, and editor, Harry Recher, by the end of the year. Pacific Conservation Biology will be one of the journals available to SCB members.
Bring SCB back to Australasia! The Australasian section is looking for people to help plan a bid to host the 2007 SCB annual meeting in the Australasian region (Fiji has been suggested as a location, but we need people interested in forming an organizing committee). We plan to submit a proposal in conjunction with the Marine section. If you have suggestions or would like to become involved please contact Karen Firestone (kfirestone@zoo.nsw.gov.au), Menna Jones (menna.jones@anu.edu.au), or Rob Davis.
Committee Involvement. Section members are welcome and encouraged to become involved with committees. Please contact the chair of the respective committee for more information. In addition, as part of the internationalization of SCB, many committees are actively seeking to broaden their international representation. There are a number of opportunities for Australasian members to be involved in committees at the SCB level. Please visit the SCB website or contact Karen Firestone for further details.
Membership expansion. Section membership currently stands at 304 (we are among the smallest sections within SCB). There is a real need to increase the active membership to attain a critical mass for our section. We will be targeting membership drives to conservationists working within PNG and the Pacific region in 2003 and 2004. Conservation biologists are dispersed across a wide variety of disciplines but only a fraction are currently members of SCB. One benefit of membership in a focused international conservation biology society is access to a global network of conservation biologists with common concerns and a global mission. We ask that Australasian section members who are attending conferences in their specialty discipline or who can distribute or post notices on their institution noticeboard please contact Menna Jones for brochures and information.
Job Board. If you have a job/studentship that you would like to post on our website, contact Angie Penn, apenn@unsw.edu.au.
-- Karen Firestone
Conservation Committee
Our section is forming a conservation committee. Our bylaws state that the purpose of the committee is "to keep Section members informed about current conservation issues on a regional or global scale and help facilitate awareness of regional conservation issues by Society members outside the Section." Because our section is still young, this is the best time to get involved and help shape the committee's activities. We need to know what would be most useful for the membership. How could such a committee serve your needs? What broader needs do you perceive we could help fill?
My personal thoughts are that most of us are painfully aware of many of the issues and that there are many web sites, newsletters, and so forth that keep us informed. We probably do not need another monthly update. However, many people outside the core Australia / New Zealand / Hawaii membership are not as well informed. I am particularly interested in finding ways to enhance communication in the less well-connected nations in the Pacific region. I think we should devote our initial attention to issues that span the region so we are not perceived as Australia-centric or Hawaii-centric. We would like to provide a service that is not redundant. We want to promote the science of conservation biology across the region and to make our organization and activities more broadly inclusive. And, of course, we want to promote conservation. I am particularly keen to identify one or two discrete projects that a newly formed committee could complete successfully. We want to accomplish something tangible. But these are my thoughts. I welcome and solicit the thoughts of the membership.
I am particularly seeking input about how the committee could serve the membership, how the committee could serve conservation across the region, ideas for realistic projects (given no budget and little time), and volunteers to get involved with the committee and help implement our ideas.
Please contact me at P.O. Box 277, Goroka, EHP, PNG, FAX +675 732-2461, amack@wcs.org (I may be in the field for several weeks with no email contact, so please be patient).
-- Andrew Mack
MARINE
News
The Marine Protected Areas Advisory Committee, which includes Marine section president John Ogden, held its first meeting in June. The committee was established by U.S. Executive Order 13158 on Marine Protected Areas, approved in May 2000 at the end of the Clinton Administration. More information about the committee and other activities mandated by the Order is available on the Marine Protected Areas website, www.mpa.gov.
Building on information in the Pew Oceans Commission Report (released in June 2003, see www.pewoceans.org), the U.S. Oceans Commission on Ocean Policy will be submitting a report to the president and Congress in late 2003. The report will covers a broad scope of issues and result in a comprehensive and coordinated ocean policy for the United States. For more information, see www.oceancommission.gov.
Section Update
Electronic newsletter. To update our members on section activities, we have begun to distribute a quarterly electronic newsletter. The content of the newsletter also will be posted on the marine section website, www.conbio.org/Marine/.
Section elections. Three positions on the Board of Directors will be open for election in November 2003. Email reminders will be sent to registered members of the section with instructions on how to vote. Online elections will be held from 1-30 November. Nominees' statements and voting information will be posted on the Marine section webpage. Please contact Alan Thornhill (athornhill@conbio.org) if you would like to receive a hard copy ballot.
The six board members (three newly elected and three continuing officers) will determine the officer positions (President, Finance Officer, Communications Officer, Policy Officer, Science Officer, and International Officer) at their first Board of Directors meeting subsequent to the elections.
Listserv information. You may have noticed a lack of listserv postings in recent months, or had trouble sending messages to the marine listserv. To fix some problems and to move the listserv to a new server host, the listserv address has been changed to marine@list.conbio.org (previously marinelist@conbio.org). All subscribers have been transferred from the old listserv to the new listserv. To access subscription information, go to the listserv webpage, http://list.conbio.org/mailman/listinfo/Marine/.
Symposia and workshop proposals for SCB 2004. The Marine section submitted a number of proposals to host symposia and workshops at the 2004 SCB meeting. We submitted both proposals related to the conference theme of conservation in an urban environment and proposals that were co-sponsored with other international sections.
Committee involvement. Section members are welcome and encouraged to become involved with as many section committees as they would like. Committee descriptions are available in the section bylaws or from the committee chair. In addition, SCB committees welcome participation from Marine section members. Please contact marine@conbio.org if you are interested in becoming more involved.
Website update. In conjunction with the update of the SCB website, we are updating the section site. Please check the website occasionally for updates on section activities. We have added a section of "marine" job announcements to the website and soon will be adding links to funding, policy, science, and other issues related to marine conservation. If you have additional suggestions about what should be added to our website, please let us know.
-- Carolyn Lundquist
