resolution by F&ES students
A resolution formulated by students from ,the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) that establishes a young professionals program for the World Conservation Union (IUCN) was adopted at the organization's World Conservation Congress held in December in Bangkok, Thailand.
"The resolution was an extraordinary achievement, and the resulting program will be immensely valuable as young professionals enter the conservation world in increasingly large numbers and need to acquire the necessary skills to move into leadership roles and key decision-making positions," says Amity Doolittle, program director of the Tropical Resources Institute (TRI).
The resolution grew out of a course titled "Current Issues in Conservation: Towards the World's Conservation Congress and Beyond," which was taught last spring by Gordon Geballe, associate dean for student and alumni affairs, and Keely Maxwell, then a doctoral student and now a visiting lecturer in environmental policy at Bates College.
As a course project, students designed and implemented an international survey to assess the concerns and needs of young conservation professionals. At the congress, F&ES students lobbied voting members to support their resolution and led a workshop where they presented the results of their survey and discussed concrete recommendations to establish a young professionals program.
The F&ES delegation also witnessed two days of debates around the wording and implementation of resolutions that were negotiated on controversial issues in conservation. Debates were organized by local peoples, such as the Inuit, requesting permission to harvest and trade seal skins as part of their indigenous culture and traditional economy; by small non-governmental organizations requesting a moratorium on the further release of genetically modified organisms; and by large conservation agencies requesting that there should be times when aggressive conservation measures should be allowed to take priority over local peoples' livelihoods.
"These multifaceted debates demonstrated that the congress' theme, 'People and Nature: Only One World,' had different meanings for different participants," says Doolittle. "Seeing the debates between academic researchers and conservation practitioners, human rights lawyers and animal rights advocates, and representatives of indigenous peoples and Washington-based conservation professionals was one of the most powerful learning experiences for our students."
The F&ES delegation was composed of 18 master's and doctoral students and two faculty members. This delegation was the first to participate in the IUCN congress since the signing of a memorandum of understanding between IUCN and F&ES in January 2003, followed shortly by TRI joining the IUCN as a member organization. The F&ES delegation also hosted a reception for alumni, prospective students and friends.
"We hope that Yale's attendance at the congress is the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship between the F&ES and the world's premiere conservation organization," says Doolittle.
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