Pre-Congress Focus Groups

All pre-congress focus groups will be held either the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel or the Sheraton Inner Harbor Hotel.

Conservation Forensics: Linking Research, Forensics, Technology & Analytics to Conserve Biodiversity
Connecting social and ecological systems through public participation in scientific research (PPSR): Understand conservation and community outcomes
Banking on MPA Sustainability: What Does Our Balance Sheet Really Tell Us?
From best practices to proven impacts: scaling-up conservation benefits of agricultural eco-standards in tropical production landscapes
 

Conservation Forensics: Linking Research, Forensics, Technology & Analytics to Conserve Biodiversity
20 July / 08:30-12:30
Organizer(s): Haines, A., Millersville University; Wallace, J., Millersville University; Webb, S., The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation
By Invitation Only

The purpose of this Focus Group will be to bring interdisciplinary professionals from the field of forensic science, criminology, law enforcement and conservation biology to discuss the integration of current forensic evidence collection and analysis with efforts to conserve plants and animals from illegal harvesting and trafficking. Globally, overexploitation is the second largest source of biodiversity loss, just behind habitat loss or alteration. The negative impacts of illegal wildlife trade are increasing internationally and in the United States (US). Globally, the illegal market of rhino horns, elephant ivory and tiger parts are now estimated at $5 billion per year with heavy ties to organized crime. In addition, it is estimated that in the Rocky Mountain region of the US half of all game species are taken illegally. In response, recent studies have identified ways to mitigate poaching activity. These current techniques (e.g., DNA analyses, hair comparisons, analysis of poaching patterns, soil testing, high-tech surveillance etc.) are designed to mitigate poaching activity and illegal trafficking of plants and animals by providing conservation enforcement entities with ways to identify, curb, and prosecute illegal activity that affects biodiversity. However, there has not yet been a venue to bring all constituent groups together.


Connecting social and ecological systems through public participation in scientific research (PPSR): Understand conservation and community outcomes
20 July / 08:30-17:30; ; maximum participants: 24
Organizer(s): Phillips, T., Cornell Lab of Ornithology; Ballard, H., UC Davis
By invitation only

Citizen science, or public participation in scientific research (PPSR), is a research methodology that engages the public in gathering information used for research, monitoring, and conservation-based decisions, often across large spatial and temporal scales (Dickinson and Bonney 2012). Despite large numbers of conservation-focused PPSR projects globally, few projects evaluate outcomes at the socio-ecological level (Jordan, Ballard, and Phillips, 2012). This may partly be because PPSR tends to affect conservation indirectly through application of research findings, education of stakeholders, and individual and community-level actions, rather than directly through site and species management (Kapos et al. 2008). We propose to assemble a focus group of leaders in conservation, social, and biological sciences, PPSR, and evaluation, to discuss how adaptive management practices used in traditional conservation biology, (Salafsky et al. 2002), can be applied to achieve conservation and community-level outcomes of PPSR. Through discussion in small and whole group formats, we will define the challenges and opportunities for measuring conservation outcomes of PPSR. With expertise from many disciplines, we then examine recent work in conservation biology and adaptive management to determine the methods and tools successfully applied to measure biological and social conservation outcomes elsewhere, and determine their applicability to PPSR contexts.


Banking on MPA Sustainability: What Does Our Balance Sheet Really Tell Us?
21 July / 08:30-17:30; maximum participants: 20
Organizer(s): MacPherson, R., Coral Reef Alliance

Funding is always a limiting factor in marine protected area (MPA) management. But are we at a point as a conservation community where we can identify those economic conditions that enable sustainable MPA outcomes and those conditions that hinder it? Does MPA success always boil down to funding? Can payments for ecosystem services be scaled-up to sufficiently cover conservation needs? When it comes to economic sustainability, how do you know you're "there"? Can the conservation community ultimately find the financial "sweet spot" across a breadth of protected area sites and circumstances? These and similar questions are at the heart of this focus group. A small, diverse group of thought leaders and practitioners in conservation economics (scientists, social scientists, economists, conservation practitioners, and investment brokers) will evaluate traditional, non-traditional, and emergent tools and mechanisms to generate and manage short-, medium-, and long-term funding for driving conservation interventions and meeting MPA management needs. Our intention is that this focus group will critically/skeptically explore whether our assumptions about financial sustainability (and about MPAs as our "best defense") are leading us in the right direction from a conservation perspective. Beginning with sustainable financing, we intend to develop a process for exploring a larger suite of questions that ultimately help define those systems that yield durable MPA conservation outcomes.


From best practices to proven impacts: scaling-up conservation benefits of agricultural eco-standards in tropical production landscapes
21 July / 08:30-17:30; maximum participants: 35
Organizer(s): Milder, J., Rainforest Alliance; Gross, L., EcoAgriculture Partners

Agricultural eco-standards seek to improve the environmental and social consequences of food production, ultimately supporting ecosystem conservation and sustainable livelihoods. In recent years, adoption of such standards has skyrocketed, but this growth has not been matched by commensurate efforts to target, monitor, and evaluate the impacts of these standards, particularly with regard to biodiversity and ecosystem services. Improved scientific methods, data management systems, and analytical frameworks are needed to understand the direct and indirect impacts of agricultural eco-standards at multiple scales. This information, in turn, is critical for improving the standards; communicating impacts to consumers, corporations, and other stakeholders; and understanding how eco-standards may be combined with other strategies to meet key conservation goals in tropical production landscapes. To address these needs, this session will convene experts in tropical biodiversity and landscape monitoring together with scientists working on conservation dimensions of eco-standards to advance a scientific agenda in support of effective eco-standards and rigorous evaluation thereof. By cross-fertilizing ideas and sharing methods from multiple regions of the world, scales of investigation, taxonomic groups, and agroecosystems, the session will support current efforts of the eco-standards community to scale-up conservation benefits in critical landscapes throughout the tropics.