Buzz

ACS helps launch new sustainable fisheries incentive program in Mexico

Admin — Fri, 25 May 2012 21:02:22 +0000

Through a multi-sector partnership with Grupo Tortuguero de las Californias, A.C. (Mexico), the social venture Shellcatch (Chile), Espacios Naturales y Desarrollo Sustentable, A.C (Mexico) and the Fondo Mexicano para la Conservación de la Naturaleza, A.C. (Mexico), ACS is helping to develop and implement a demonstration project for an artisanal fisheries incentive program with the goal of protecting endangered loggerhead sea turtles. The ultimate goal of the program is to facilitate net conservation benefits for imperiled species by allowing responsible, industrial fisheries to offset their residual impacts on sea turtles by financing measurable bycatch reduction programs in artisanal fisheries where bycatch rates are high. Our demonstration project will reduce sea turtle bycatch and create entrepreneurial oppurtunites for local fishermen in Magdalena Bay and Ulloa Gulf region located off the southern Pacific coast of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula.

Ecosystem Services and the Tourism Sector

Admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:38:22 +0000

ACS recently partnered with Vital Wave Consulting to present "Transforming Risk into Opportunity: Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services and the Tourism Sector."

Tourism and travel are vital contributors to the global economy, and increasingly important in Emerging Markets. The sector is particularly vulnerable to environmental change. Local communities and activities surrounding tourist destinations drive environmental conditions that can either attract or deter visitors. Given that tourism businesses use natural and cultural resources to create the experiences that they sell, operational risk surrounding local environmental degradation is common. Outcome-based programs are emerging in the environmental sector to encourage local environmental stewardship by explicitly linking it to economic opportunities. Advanced Conservation Strategies is pioneering new, innovative programs that link these incentive frameworks with entrepreneurial and market-based approaches to deliver financially sustainable programs. These programs allow businesses to cost-effectively mitigate their environmental risk, while concurrently providing strong financial incentives for local environmental stewardship. Christina Heyniger of Vital Wave Consulting and Josh Donlan of Advanced Conservation Strategies explore "environmental market" investments as a potential risk mitigation strategy in the tourism sector.

Click here for more information.

Click to listen or download the presentation.

ACS publishes WRI Issue Brief

Admin — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:26:00 +0000

In collaboration with World Resources Institute and as part of their Southern Forests for the Future Incentive Series, ACS publishes an issue brief on Insights from the Field: Forests for Species and Habitat. Todd Gartner and Josh Donlan report on their progress on developing candidate conservation species incentive programs and a pilot program with the imperiled gopher tortoise in the southern United States.

Interest in candidate conservation incentive programs is rapidly growing in the private, public, and nongovernmental organization sectors as changes in land use across the country spark new challenges in balancing ecosystem management with residential and commercial development, national security, energy infrastructure, and climate change. This issue brief reports on the mechanics of and lessons learned from an initial pilot candidate conservation incentive program focused on the gopher tortoise. Its aim is to inform the successful design and implementation of other candidate programs emerging throughout the southern forests and greater United States.

For more information, visit WRI Insights.

Download a copy of the brief here.

Island Invasives: Eradication and Management

Admin — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 16:06:52 +0000

ACS contributes to a new book focused on invasive species and islands by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. The papers and abstracts published in this book are the outcome of the conference on Island Invasives: Eradication and Management held at Tamaki Campus, University of Auckland, New Zealand, from 8 to 12 February 2010, hosted by the Centre for Biodiversity and Biosecurity (University of Auckland and Landcare Research), in collaboration with the IUCN/SSC Invasive Species Specialist Group.

ACS's chapter "Advantages and challenges of government, non-profit and for-profit approaches to eradications: leveraging synergies by working together" is availible here.

A Coastal-Marine Conservation Assessment in Chile

Admin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:14:20 +0000

ACS conducts a coastal-marine conservation assessment in Chile for the David & Lucile Packard Foundation. The coast of Chile stretches some 7,400 km from its border with Peru to Cape Horn. Chile’s coastal waters represent some of the world’s most diverse and productive marine environments. We provided an assessment of coastal-‐marine conservation in Chile, focused on the state of marine biodiversity, its current impacts and threats, and the organizations and programs focused on marine conservation and management. Download a copy of the report.

Mozambique

Admin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:45:27 +0000

ACS works with UNEP/CMS and local NGOs in Mozambique to design an environmental conservation program that incentivizes environmental stewardship in local fishing communities. The program focuses on illegal gill-net fishing and endangered dugongs, a marine mammal that is caught by gill-nets.

Biodiversity Offsets At-sea

Admin — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:30:54 +0000

Josh Donlan and colleagues at CSIRO-Australia published a paper in the journal PLOS-One that suggests that biodiversity offsets could help ease conflicts between fishing and seabirds. Click here for a free copy of the paper. Also, Conservation Magazine wrote about the idea.

ACS appears on the front page of Chile's El Mercurio

Admin — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 02:40:19 +0000

ACS and Josh Donlan are covered on the front page of the Science section of Chile's premier newspaper El Mercurio. The article covers Josh's work with his Chilean colleagues on conservation finance, market-based approaches to environmental challenges, and the Patagonia Restoration Initiative in Tierra del Fuego. More on the interview can be found here.

ACS gives talk at Fundación Chile

Admin — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 00:30:00 +0000

Josh Donlan gives a talk at Fundación Chile in Santiago, Chile, on environmental services, risk management, and the private sector.

Cátedra Magistral en Ciencias Ecológicas, Conservación y Desarrollo

Admin — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 01:42:40 +0000

ACS helps launch the first cátedra of red de alta dirección in Santiago, Chile.

La Cátedra Magistral en Ciencias Ecológicas, Conservación y Desarrollo es una iniciativa conjunta de la Red de Alta Dirección de la Universidad del Desarrollo (RAD), el Ministerio del Medio Ambiente y la Sociedad de Ecología de Chile (SOCECOL).

Decir que la protección de los ecosistemas debe ser parte de la estrategia de sostenibilidad de una Empresa es una obviedad. Pero lo que es fácil de declarar, suele ser muy difícil de integrar en los procesos productivos. Por eso quisimos combinar en un solo programa una sólida base teórica con las aplicaciones concretas que han implementado destacadas empresas.

Para lograrlo hemos reunido de forma inédita a un equipo de extraordinarios ecólogos y biólogos de Chile y Estados Unidos, y a un conjunto de empresas enfrentadas cotidianamente al desafío de reconciliar el crecimiento con la protección de la biodiversidad.

Estamos seguros que esta Cátedra es una gran oportunidad para que las organizaciones diseminen o afiancen en su interior una cultura de sostenibilidad entre sus ejecutivos, pero también entre los jóvenes profesionales.

Es también una excelente invitación para crear las siempre necesarias y saludables redes con el mundo académico, una fuente de conocimiento e innovación al que las empresas más exitosas del mundo siempre recurren.

La sostenibilidad es un desafío transversal que orienta las distintas prácticas y procesos de una empresa. Por eso queremos invitar a esta Cátedra a los profesionales diversos que hagan aún más fecunda la experiencia a partir de sus distintas miradas y backgrounds académicos.

Coverage by CNN.