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UPDATES FROM REGIONAL SECTIONS AND WORKING GROUPS

• AFRICA
• AUSTRALASIA
• EUROPE
• MARINE
• NORTH AMERICA
• FRESHWATER WORKING GROUP

AFRICA

The first regional meeting and conservation science-policy conference of SCB's Africa Section, From Conservation Science to Policy in Africa, will be held 28-30 January 2009 at the Centre for African Wetlands, University of Ghana. The meeting will be hosted by the Ecological Laboratory Unit, University of Ghana, Legon, Accra, Ghana. Complete information is available at www2.ug.edu.gh/ecolabconference or from scbafrica2009@conbio.org.

Policy issues have become central to conservation of biological diversity in Africa, in tandem with attaining the Millennium Development Goals, e.g. MDG 7, to ensure environmental sustainability in reversing the loss of environmental resources. If properly managed, conservation of biological diversity can provide livelihoods for the vast majority of the poor. However, the gap between scientists and policy makers, and gender tenure rights, have limited the potential of conservation to support growth and development on the African continent. This meeting will offer solutions and steps forward.

The meeting's scientific program will include workshops and non-certificate short courses, plenary sessions and concurrent sessions of oral presentations, policy forums and round-table discussions, a public lecture, posters and exhibitions, and field trips. Three workshops and short courses already have been invited: Mainstreaming gender, natural resource management and poverty reduction, Fundraising and marketing your work, and Practical lessons for creation and restoration of wetlands. The meeting is directed at conservation professionals, local community groups, students, and media and communications professionals.

The deadline for submission of abstracts was 4 November 2008. Early (discounted) registration will be available until 20 November. Regular registration will be open from 1-31 December. Participants also may register on site. Discounts are available for students, members of SCB, and individuals of African identity.

If you are interested in exhibiting or sponsoring the meeting, please contact the meeting chairs, P.K. Ofori-Danson and Delali B.K. Dovie, scbafricameeting@conbio.org.

AUSTRALASIA

Report from Craig Morley, Section President

Kia ora everyone

Today, I just wish to reflect on a few items from the past and for the future. I was fortunate to have some dedicated and cooperative people on the Section Board, particularly Karen Firestone and Richard Kingsford, who helped to run and organize our inaugural regional meeting in Sydney back in 2007. This successful event bodes well for our upcoming meeting in Tasmania in 2009. I would also like to extend my thanks to all the other board members for their service and commitment over the past three years.

When I became President of the Section I had no idea I would travel so much and I didn't know who I'd meet along the way. However, I've met some truly dedicated conservation biologists and some wonderful characters. I also would like to extend a huge thanks to Alan Thornhill, SCB's Executive Director, and SCB's staff in our Executive Office. I hope that SCB's Board of Governors will be able to offer more assistance to the Sections in the near future. However, we too in our own Section need to develop our own membership bases further through regular information services, development of policy, and frequent regional meetings. Only then will we be able to bring some critically important conservation issues to the forefront in our own region.

Other than our regional meetings, we have dedicated considerable attention to our relationship with the journal Pacific Conservation Biology. Harry Recher and Ivor Beatty have done a wonderful job of advancing the journal and its conservation cause in the Pacific. The journal deserves more support than it currently receives, particularly from academia and the Australian government, so I ask everyone in the region (and beyond) to support the journal, not only with articles for submission but also as reviewers for manuscripts.

Next year the Australasia Section will hosting a regional SCB meeting in Tasmania. I also encourage Section members to attend SCB's 2009 global meeting in Beijing. Pending approval by the Board of Governors, the 2011 global meeting will be held in Christchurch, New Zealand. This will be the second time that the global meeting has been held in the region (since Sydney in 1998). If anyone wishes to help with this meeting, please contact incoming President James Watson or myself. James will become President in 2009 and already has a strong set of plans and ideas.

Finally, my thanks to all of the SCB members in our region. If you know people who are conservation scientists, practitioners, or just interested in conservation, please invite them to visit SCB's Web site and encourage them to become involved in SCB. The more members we have, the more we can accomplish. I wish you all the best and thank you for making my presidency of this Section so pleasurable and memorable.

Student Prizes

We are pleased to announce the SCB-sponsored prizes for student presentations at the New Guinea Biological Conference in Jayapura, Indonesia. First prize for oral presentation was a two-year membership to SCB, including online access to various journals. This prize was awarded to Barbara Lokes of the University of Papua New Guinea Remote Sensing Centre in Waigani. Her presentation was Detecting and delineating forest cover change in the lowland rainforest of west coast Manus using GIS and remote sensing techniques. Second prize, a one-year subscription to Pacific Conservation Biology, was awarded to Ira Aldila Putri from Jayapura. Ira presented Putative orchid mycorrhiza of Spathoglottis plicata Blume at University of Cendrawasih Campus Waena, Jayapura. Ben Barr from Massey University won SCB's prize for the best student talk on a conservation topic at the New Zealand Ecological Society conference. Ben presented Investigating chevron skink (Oligosoma homalonotum) ecology and the impacts of rat control. Many thanks to SCB's Executive Office and the publishers of Pacific Conservation Biology for these prizes.

New Funding Enhances Conservation in the Pacific

Nature conservation in the Pacific received a major boost with the launch of a new $7 million, five-year investment in the Polynesia-Micronesia Biodiversity Hotspot by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF). CEPF is a joint initiative of l'Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan, the MacArthur Foundation, and the World Bank. This effort aims to conserve the region's biological diversity by engaging and building the capacity of non-governmental organizations. The investment will be managed through a partnership of CEPF and Conservation International's Pacific Islands Program based in Apia, Samoa. A first call for letters of inquiries for grants was issued for ten countries and territories in the hotspot -- Cook Islands, Easter Island (Chile), Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Tonga and Tokelau -- with a deadline of 10 October 2008. Other funding opportunities will be announced in due course.

Only 21 percent of the original vegetation of the Polynesia-Micronesia Biodiversity Hotspot remains in pristine condition. Regional stressors include non-native invasive species, alteration or loss of native vegetation, and exploitation of natural resources. Low lying islands and atolls may disappear completely as climate changes. The fund will focus on three main elements: the prevention, control and eradication of invasive species in key areas; strengthening the conservation status and management of a prioritized set of 60 areas; and building awareness and participation of local leaders and community members in the implementation of recovery plans for threatened species.

Calls for proposals for projects in other countries and territories in the region including French Polynesia, Marshall Islands, Pitcairn Islands, and Wallis and Futuna are expected to be issued in the future.

EUROPE

The major event for the Section this year was the Conservation Biology Summer School in Papingo, Greece (www.cbcd.eu/gss). Papingo is located in the core of Pindos National Park, the largest mountainous national park in Greece. The summer school, which ran from 31 August to 7 September, was organized by the Section's Education Committee in collaboration with the University of Ioannina and a local nongovernmental organization, the Center of Biological and Cultural Diversity. The summer school brought together an international team of conservation biology instructors and 15 undergraduate and postgraduate students from all over Europe. The course, Introduction to conservation biology: an international summer school to promote conservation science, was funded by the Greek Ministry of Environment and Public Works.

Professors and students involved in the summer school immersed themselves in the world of conservation biology, taking part in interactive lectures, field sessions, and mountaineering. The group also experienced local culture, dances, and gastronomy in the mountain landscape of Papingo. The rector of the University of Ioannina awarded certificates of attendance to the young conservation biologists, who also received a two-year membership to SCB and subscriptions to SCB journals. The Section's Education Committee now aims to organize the Greek Summer School on an annual basis, and the Section Board congratulates all those involved on the success of this project. Planning and fundraising for the 2009 summer school is already underway. To help and for further information, please contact the chair of the Education Committee, Vassiliki Kati (info@cbcd.eu).

Other Section committees also have been active. The Policy Committee represented the Section at the Carpathian Convention workshop in Bucharest and the Economics of Global Loss of Biodiversity workshop organized by European Commission. A representative of the Section also was an invited speaker at a conference on climate change and biological diversity that was organized by members of the European Parliament.

The Communications Committee has prepared new promotional posters, flyers, and portfolios for the Section and the upcoming second European Congress on Conservation Biology (ECCB), which will be held from 1-5 September 2009 at the Czech University of Agriculture, Prague. If you would like to help distribute these materials within your country, organization, or at an event please contact the European Section Coordinator (Europe@conbio.org).

In September the Section Board met in Krakow, Poland. Our meeting included members of the local organizing committee for the second ECCB. Proposals for symposia, workshops and training sessions were reviewed. A full list of accepted symposia will be available on the congress Web site (www.eccb2009.org).

The call for abstracts for ECCB will be open until 31 January 2009. Abstracts for oral presentations, speed presentations and poster presentations should be submitted online (www.eccb2009.org/index.php/callforpapers). Abstracts for symposium presentations are by invitation only. The local organizing committee will notify all authors by 1 April 2009. Presenting authors must register and pay the registration fee for the meeting before 30 June or their presentation will be dropped from the program. If you cannot submit your abstract via the Web site, please email your abstract to Vendula Ludvíková (conference@eccb2009.org).

As you read this the Section is in the midst of our annual elections. This year four positions on the Board are open. Profiles of the candidates and voting instructions are available at www.conbio.org. All Section members are eligible to vote, so please visit the Web site and exercise your democratic right. If you are an SCB member who is not affiliated with a Section, why not visit the Web site and update your profile? There is no additional cost for Section membership and you can join two Sections as a voting member. While you are updating your profile, please update your entry in the expertise database too!

As always the Board encourages the participation of Section members in the activities of the Section. Voting in the Section elections is an important element of Section membership and we look forward to seeing a much improved level of participation in this year's election. To contact the Board with any questions or comments email europe@conservationbiology.org. Details of committee activities and opportunities to get involved are at www.conbio.org/Sections/Europe/.

Owen Nevin

MARINE

Chris Parsons will become President of the Section on 1 January 2009. Two new members of the Section Board also will begin their three-year terms on 1 January. Please remember to vote when you receive an announcement that ballots are available.

The Section's Board convened in San Francisco, California from 20-21 September to further plan activities of the Section and the International Marine Conservation Congress. We were joined by telephone by Larry Crowder (Duke University) and Steve Gaines (University of California, Santa Barbara). With respect to the Congress, we discussed fundraising, side events such as policy outreach and a workshop on communications, and our opening reception at the Smithsonian Institution. Please visit the meeting Web site for up-to-date information on registration, submission of abstracts, and sponsorship. The Board will meet again at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia -- the site of the Congress -- in March 2009. If you live in the greater Washington, D.C. area and are willing to assist with the meeting, please contact meeting chair John Cigliano (jaciglia@cedarcrest.edu).

The Board further agreed to initiate a program to recycle name tag holders for use at the meeting. If you have name tag holders from previous meetings that you would like to donate, please mail them to Chris Parsons, Department of Environmental Science & Policy, MSN 5F2, 4400 University Drive, Fairfax, VA 22030-4444, USA.

The Section Board approved a letter written to the U.S. Council on Environmental Quality on President Bush's Memorandum for the Pacific Marine Conservation Assessment. The letter was originally drafted by board member Jen Smith and was sent by SCB's Policy Director, John Fitzgerald, to Council Chair James Connaughton.

Phaedra Doukakis

NORTH AMERICA

On 18 September 2008, the Section and the National Center for Conservation Science and Policy jointly submitted comments in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture's efforts to preparing for climate change at the federal level by identifying necessary actions and research direction as part of its Climate Change Strategic Plan for Research, Education, and Extension. We submitted these scoping comments on those actions and direction with the aim of identifying effective and expedient approaches to addressing undesirable consequences of climate change. The full text of our comments is available at www.conbio.org/Sections/NAmerica/NAPolicy.CFM

On 29 September, SCB, the Ornithological Council, and The Wildlife Society jointly submitted comments critical of proposed regulatory changes that would eliminate the requirement that federal agencies consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether their activities or decisions likely will affect species protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.

Under the proposed rule, published on 15 August 2008 (73 F.R.47868), federal agencies could avoid consultation with the Services because the rule delegates to the other agencies the initial assessment of potential impact. In our comments, we emphasized that the proposed rule may remove credible science from the assessment process.

Members of the Section participated in drafting the comments, but SCB's Policy Committee agreed that the issue was of global rather than regional importance. Therefore, the comments were signed by SCB's Executive Director rather than by the President of the Section. The full text of our comments and a press release are available at http://www.conbio.org/activities/policy/.

Erica Fleishman

FRESHWATER WORKING GROUP

Beijing 2009

As this newsletter went to print, members of the working group were discussing several potential symposium proposals, including Quantitative integration of biodiversity from rivers, wetlands and subterranean aquatic ecosystems in freshwater conservation plans; Freshwater Ecoregions of the World (Abell et al. 2008): is a fish-based global bio-regionalization adequate?; Global conservation assessment for freshwaters: how representative are the world's protected areas?; Effects of climate change on freshwater ecosystems; and Restoration of large rivers for the benefit of humans and ecosystems. We are also working with a former member of the working group's Board who is based in China, Changqing Yu, on a proposal for a freshwater field trip.

Working Group Elections

Voting for the working group's President Elect and four other members of the Board continues until 1 December. Please log into SCB's Web site and vote. At least 10% of our members must vote for the election results to be validated. This may not seem like a challenge, but we nearly have failed to meet the minimum requirement in past elections. Please visit the Web site to learn about the outstanding candidates who hope to serve the cause of freshwater conservation, and vote. Do it now!

Global 100 Questions Project

Along with all of SCB's Regional Sections and working groups, our group was asked by Bill Sutherland of Cambridge University (and a past member of SCB's Board of Governors) to contribute to an effort to identify 100 scientific questions that, if answered, would have the greatest impact on conservation practice and policy [see Society for Conservation Biology Newsletter 15(2):8]. We submitted more than 100 questions related to freshwater conservation, several of which were included in the final, global 100. A manuscript will be submitted soon, and publication announced in this newsletter in due course.

We continued working with John Fitzgerald, SCB's Policy Director, to incorporate freshwater considerations into many of SCB's policy initiatives.

Ken Vance-Borland and Aventino Kasangaki

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