North America Congress for Conservation Biology

Scientific Program: Symposia and Workshops

The DRAFT Program listing all oral presentations in the symposia and concurrent sessions, as well as posters, is now available. (You may display the entire program or search by session title, abstract ID, day, or author)

Symposia and workshops are listed and described below. (click Workshops to advance past Symposium listings)

SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE
Full descriptions of symposia are below this summary table (click the SYM# to advance to its description).

SYM#	DAY & TIME	SYMPOSIUM TITLE	ORGANIZER(S)
SYM8	Monday 16th 3:00-5:00PM	Pikas in Peril? Distribution, Population Trends and Resilience of the American Pika (Ochotona princeps)	Andrew T. Smith, Erik A. Beever
SYM9	Monday 16th 3:00-5:00PM	Towards Conservation Assessments for Climate Adaptation: Presentation and Evaluation of a Framework	O.J. Schmitz, Anne Trainor, Paul Beier
SYM10	Monday 16th 8:30-1:00PM	Conservation vs. Sacrifice: Weighing the Consequences of Utility-scale Renewable Energy Development in the California Deserts	James Andre, Margaret Fusari
SYM12	Monday 16th 3:00-5:00PM	Monitoring for a Changing Planet: What Can Climate-informed Monitoring Teach Us and Why Do We Need It?	Lara Hansen, Carolyn Lundquist
SYM13	Monday 16th 8:30-1:00PM	How Can Conservation Science Create a Bio-Logical Capitol and Biological Capital?	John Fitzgerald
SYM14	Monday 16th 3:00-5:00PM	Floodplain Conservation to Sustain Urban, Agricultural and Natural Communities: Case Studies from Two Coastal California Watersheds	Sasha Gennet, Kirk Klausmeyer
SYM15	Tuesday 17th  8:30-1:00PM	Cultivating a Role for Wildlife Conservation in Energy Development	Megan T. Cook, Gabriela Chavarria
SYM16	Monday 16th 8:30-1:00PM	One Health: Recognizing How Human and Wildlife Health are Connected	Gabriela Chavarria, Megan T. Cook
SYM18	Monday 16th 8:30-10:30AM	Identifying and Protecting Resilient Ecosystems: New Directions for Conservation in a Changing World	Catherine Burns, Mark Anderson
SYM19	Monday 16th 8:30-1:00PM	Moving Beyond Fortress Conservation: New Approaches for a Changing World	James R. Miller, Diane M. Debinski
SYM20	Tuesday 17th 8:30-10:30AM	Managing Novel Ecosystems: Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice	Jeffrey Corbin, Marilyn Jordan, Myla Aronson
SYM21	Tuesday 17th 8:30-10:30AM	Conservation Value of Non-native Plant Species: The Science of Exceptions	Deborah Rogers
SYM22	Tuesday 17th 3:00-5:00PM	The Art and Science of Climate Change Planning	Marni Koopman, Brian R. Barr,  Dominick A. Della Salla
SYM23	Tuesday 17th 3:00-5:00PM	Bridging the Gaps: Linking the Sources, Flows, Recipients and the Benefits of Ecosystem Services	Brendan Fisher
SYM26	Tuesday 17th 8:30-1:00PM	Science as a Second Language: Getting Science Used by Policymakers, Practitioners, and the Public	Christina Swanson, Andrew Gunther
SYM27	Tuesday 17th 11:00AM-1:00PM	Tools for Planning for Climate Change in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems	Sarah Carr
SYM28	Wednesday 18th 8:30-1:00PM	Delivering Conservation Through the Collaborative Forum of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs)	Stephen Zylstra, Doug Austen, Sean Finn
SYM29	Wednesday 18th 8:30-1:00PM	Connecting People to Freshwater Conservation through Citizen-engaged Science and Analysis of Ecosystem Services	Paul L. Angermeier, Anna L. George
SYM31	Tuesday 17th 3:00-5:00PM	Climate Change Adaptation through Natural Community Conservation Plans (NCCPs) in California	Brenda S. Johnson
SYM32	Wednesday 18th 3:00-5:00PM	Public Participation in Scientific Research: Key Issues and Findings to Bridge the Gap Between Conservation Science, Education and Communities	Heidi Ballard, Alycia W. Crall
SYM33	Tuesday 17th  3:00-5:00PM	Conservation Development: Challenges and Opportunities for Integrating Private Land Conservation with Residential Development in North America	Sarah E. Reed, Liba Pejchar, Miranda H. Mockrin
SYM34	Wednesday 18th 8:30-1:00PM	Applied Science for Conserving California's Bay Area Ecosystems in the Face of Climate Change	Lisa Micheli, David Ackerly
SYM35	Monday 16th 3:00PM-5:00PM	Conservation in the Anthropocene	Peter Kareiva, Michael Shellenberger, Ted Nordhaus
SYM36	Wednesday 18th  8:30-1:00PM	The Future of Conservation Planning	Vicky Meretsky, Robert Fischman
SYM37	Wednesday 18th 3:00-5:00PM	The Causal Effects and Mechanisms of Protected Areas on Poverty	Paul J. Ferraro
SYM38	Wednesday 18th 8:30-1:00PM	Geospatial Approaches to Support Pelagic Conservation Planning and Adaptive Management	Pat Halpin, Daniel Dunn, Jason Roberts, David Hyrenbach, Lisa Wedding
SYM39	Wednesday 18th 3:00-5:00PM	Monitoring Strategies in an Era of Rapid Climate Change	Peter Dratch, John Gross

SYMPOSIA DESCRIPTIONS

SYM8  Pikas in Peril? Distribution, Population Trends and Resilience of the American Pika (Ochotona princeps)
Andrew T. Smith and Erik A. Beever

The mascot for the NACCB 2012 is Stony the Pika. As we highlight in this narrative, the American pika is an excellent candidate species to examine potential effects of climate change on an alpine mammal. The pika has also been proposed (several times) for consideration as an endangered species at the federal and state (California) levels, although these reviews have determined to not list the American pika. The pika aptly illustrates the nuance and complexity of conservation and management challenges in the face of broad-scale contemporary climate change. This often-common alpine mammal, whose distribution spans much of western North America, has exhibited vulnerability to multiple aspects of climate, yet several recent studies from other domains have documented its apparent resilience in the face of a changing climate. The goal of this symposium is to bring together a suite of major long-term and/or comprehensive studies that have been conducted on the pika throughout much of its geographic range in the Intermontane West. The participants will highlight what we know, what remains poorly understood, and priorities for future work on the pika. The topics are listed by geographic region (thus showing the reach of the symposium), but this shorthand belies the diversity and sophistication of field methods and analyses that have been undertaken by each of the participants that relate past and current pika populations to issues of climate change, population persistence, and resilience.

SYM9  Towards Conservation Assessments for Climate Adaptation: Presentation and Evaluation of a Framework
O.J. Schmitz, Anne Trainor and Paul Beier

Global climate change is projected to drastically alter the spatial distribution of species, the structure of ecological communities, and ecosystem function. As a result, conservation planners need strategies to identify areas that support wildlife adaptation to climate change. To address this need, the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Sciences convened a working group of conservation biologists, modelers, and policy makers. This group developed a framework to provide guidance on aligning geospatially referenced wildlife, habitat, climate, and land-use data with modeling and analytic approaches to support climate-savvy conservation assessment and planning. The framework recommends that practitioners consider six major adaptation objectives (e.g., protecting current and future patterns of biodiversity, maintaining ecological processes and connectivity) and three ecological levels (landscape, ecosystem, and species) to develop comprehensive strategies to conserve biodiversity, ecosystems, and landscapes during global climate change. This Framework is currently being evaluated by six independent analysis teams that are test-running it in their own conservation assessments. In this symposium, we provide an overview of the framework, and five of the independent teams will present case studies addressing issues ranging from the effects of sea level rise on conservation areas in Florida to reconciling wildlife habitat protection with renewable energy siting in arid southwestern USA.

SYM10  Conservation vs. Sacrifice: Weighing the Consequences of Utility-scale Renewable Energy Development in the California Deserts
James Andre and Margaret Fusari

Collectively, the California Deserts represent one of the largest remaining intact ecosystems in North America. Two key anthropogenic processes, global climate change and the rapid deployment of renewable energy projects in pursuit of reversing global climate change, currently threaten native desert species and ecosystem processes. Presently the Department of Interior is reviewing several hundred applications for renewable energy development on 70,000 ha. (2,700 sq. mi.)of public lands in the California Deserts. While focusing on solutions to the global climate crisis, scientists and land managers may be ignoring or even creating ecological impacts that will undermine the intended conservation benefits of reversing global climate trends. Detrimental impacts to desert ecosystems by massive utility-scale energy development over extremely large areas are likely to be severe, and far more complex than are broadly understood. Many of the projects are being implemented without full assessment of the best available science. Viable alternatives, such as the use of already degraded lands, rooftops, and adoption of energy conservation measures, would resolve the conflict between meeting renewable energy goals and adhering to sound conservation practices are available and need to be fully considered. Our papers will clarify the types and scale of impacts to California's desert ecosystems based upon currently proposed renewable energy projects. Conservation practitioners need to understand the levels and kinds of ongoing impacts in California's deserts, the political and regulatory policies that drive them, and adhere to standards and practices that minimize ecological costs. Finally, we will present viable alternatives for siting and project mitigation that avoid many of those impacts without compromising the nation's renewable energy goals. Emerging conservation researchers need a clear understanding of the intersection of conservation and energy development needs and practices. For this symposium presentations will be followed by a moderated panel discussion, and with overview questions put to the speaker-panelists in advance.

SYM12  Monitoring for a Changing Planet: What Can Climate-informed Monitoring Teach Us and Why Do We Need It?
Lara Hansen and Carolyn Lundquist

Principles of effective conservation include both having adequate tools to address conservation actions, and evaluation tools to determine if conservation actions are having a positive impact. Evaluation tools primarily rely on monitoring strategies that have power to detect change. Traditional monitoring frameworks often fail to capture the early subtleties of climate change and result in either misinterpretation of a cause or failure to identify a trend. Instead, managers need updated tools and climate-informed monitoring metrics that are capable of determining if climate impacts are occurring. These improved tools allow for better information to make good management decisions and test the efficacy of those decisions and associated regulations and policy. In this symposium, we review failures of historical conservation actions and monitoring in assessing climate change impacts, and then present a series of case studies that provide guidance on monitoring frameworks and metrics to identify climate change impacts for a range of temperate and tropical coastal and marine ecosystems.

SYM13  How Can Conservation Science Create a Bio-Logical Capitol and Biological Capital?
John Fitzgerald

Review of progress on and prospects for SCB's 2008 Recommendations to the Obama Administration. We will describe the SCB Policy Priorities and how we have been bridging the gaps in the knowledge of policy makers and in our own knowledge of a changing policy process. We will summarize the progress we have made toward our policy priorities and how to accomplish more in (1) mitigating and adapting to climate change, (2) protecting the integrity of science as the driver of conservation laws from the Endangered Species Act to the National Forest Management Act and pollution laws, (3) biological security, (4) international treaties, and (5) leadership, rewards & market discipline via investment and procurement.

We will describe our testimony, comments, coalition work, and behind the scenes operations in the battles we and our allies have won and some we have lost, temporarily, so far. Our examples will show how the SCB Policy Program works with all its moving parts, including the Executive Office, Global and Section Policy Committees, Policy Task Forces, Legal Advisory Team, Chapters, Working Groups, and Ad Hoc Committees. Our speakers will show how SCB's 2008 Recommendations to the Obama Transition Team set the stage for four years of work and they will help us measure how far we have come. Attendees will join in to discuss how we can meet our unmet goals and then set higher goals for the world of 2016 that will be far different than it was in 2008.

SYM14  Floodplain Conservation to Sustain Urban, Agricultural, and Natural Communities: Case Studies from Two Coastal California Watersheds
Sasha Gennet and Kirk Klausmeyer

The magnitude and frequency of floods is expected to increase as a result of a warmer and more variable climate, and sea level rise will result in saltwater intrusion to coastal aquifers. Farms, ranches, and disadvantaged communities in floodplains bear a disproportionate risk of impact. However, agriculture can also play a crucial role in reducing and mitigating those impacts through on-farm practices and landscape-level protection and restoration of natural processes and ecological systems. In the Pajaro River (1400 sq. mi) and Santa Clara River (1600 sq. mi.) watersheds in coastal California, NGO?s, local farming communities, agencies, and academic researchers are working together to reduce and mitigate climate change impacts and other threats through conservation and habitat restoration. Speakers will describe the planning, implementation, and outcomes to date of these projects, and how they have addressed the challenge inherent in planning for uncertain future conditions to find mutual long-term benefits for human and natural communities. These projects are place-based examples of how climate change threats to urban, agricultural, and natural interests are being addressed and solved using science and careful, inclusive conservation planning.

SYM15  Cultivating a Role for Wildlife Conservation in Energy Development
Megan T. Cook and Gabriela Chavarria

Energy development and wildlife conservation share a complex and usually conflicting relationship. These conflicts will only increase with rises in energy demand and global climate change. In response to these concerns over fossil fuel dependence and climate change impacts, there has been greater development of renewable energy sources across North America. Unfortunately, renewable energy can also have negative effects on wildlife. To balance competing priorities of wildlife conservation and energy security, we must use science-based strategies to move forward effectively. This includes choosing traditional and renewable energy project sites that avoid important wildlife habitat and figuring out how operate facilities to minimize wildlife mortality and other negative effects. This symposium fits into the meeting theme of "Bridging the Gap: Connecting people, nature, and climate" by examining the consequences of our everyday energy use on wildlife and habitats and exploring how wildlife conservation is a vital component of energy development. Presentations will also demonstrate the necessity of cooperative efforts to ensure both a reliable energy supply and wildlife conservation.

SYM16  One Health: Recognizing How Human and Wildlife Health are Connected
Gabriela Chavarria and Megan T. Cook

Wildlife health has received relatively little attention in conservation efforts and preparations for expected climate change impacts, yet it can have far-reaching influences. One Health links together human, wildlife, and domestic animal health with the premise that human health and quality of life depends on healthy species and functioning ecosystems. The basis for these links include human population growth and food demands, global migratory wildlife patterns, and the emergence of human zoonotic infectious diseases (many of which are from wildlife reservoirs). Global climate change complicates this picture, as it will influence disease dynamics and alter our conservation and management strategies. This symposium addresses the meeting theme of "Bridging the Gap: Connecting people, nature, and climate" by exploring the relationships between human and environmental health, the advantages of holistic management methods, and how climate change will affect those relationships and methods.

SYM18  Identifying and Protecting Resilient Ecosystems: New Directions for Conservation in a Changing World
Catherine Burns and Mark Anderson

Ecosystem resilience is the ability of an ecosystem to retain essential processes and maintain diversity in the face of disturbances like climate change. As the pace of environmental change picks up, identifying areas with high adaptive capacity will be increasingly important for effective long term conservation. Although the precise species composition in a given area will undoubtedly change in response to environmental changes, resilient systems will continue to sustain high levels of biodiversity and ecosystem function. In this symposium, we seek to bring together the scientists who are developing the framework and the tools to guide efforts at identifying the most resilient natural systems. We will feature examples of these new approaches from terrestrial, freshwater and coastal marine ecosystems, delivered by speakers from both academia and The Nature Conservancy. In addition, several of our speakers will give examples of how to begin to implement on-the-ground conservation once a suite of resilient sites has been identified. This topic is relevant to the conference theme because it 1) focuses on identifying areas that will have high conservation value under future climate conditions, 2) illustrates real-world examples of how to achieve long-term conservation success once resilient sites have been identified, and 3) explores conservation strategies when the "players" (i.e. species, communities) are changing rapidly and traditional approaches are not sufficient.

SYM19  Moving Beyond Fortress Conservation: New Approaches for a Changing World
James R. Miller and Diane M. Debinski

Nature reserves have long served as the centerpiece of biodiversity conservation, yet reserves alone are insufficient to stem the loss of biodiversity. Expanding protected-area networks to the degree necessary to address issues of size, connectivity, and representation in a meaningful way is not socially, economically, or politically feasible. The shortcomings of "fortress conservation" become even more glaring as the scope and magnitude of current and future environmental changes become more evident. These realizations have engendered calls for a more comprehensive conservation agenda that emphasizes landscape mosaics which may include reserves, but also comprises sizeable numbers of private ownerships. This symposium will consider key advances in the development and implementation of such an agenda, as well as gaps in our understanding. Presentations will reflect perspectives from a variety of disciplines, focusing on (1) historical precedents in private land conservation, (2) existing and new policy instruments, (3) governance frameworks to guide efforts to engage private landowners, and (4) a diverse portfolio of case studies. This symposium will contribute to the meeting's goal of Bridging the Gap: Connecting people, nature, & climate by examining ways of achieving conservation objectives in working landscapes. We will bring together a group of eminent scientists and practitioners who have been addressing this challenge to share their insights.

SYM20  Managing Novel Ecosystems: Bridging the Gap between Research and Practice
Jeffrey Corbin, Marilyn Jordan, and Myla Aronson

It is now well-established that such processes as land-use change, species invasions, and climate change significantly alter species composition and ecosystem function. While some altered habitats may be successfully restored, others may experience such dramatic changes that a return to an unaltered state is not possible. Such permanently-altered habitats have been termed novel ecosystems, consisting of new combinations of species that have no analogues in the experience of habitat managers and, therefore, present unique challenges. In human-dominated landscapes, novel ecosystems are becoming the predominant ecological habitats and offer unique opportunities to conserve biodiversity in the face of rapid urbanization and climate change. Thus far, conservation science has offered relatively little specific guidance to habitat managers as to what constitutes a novel ecosystem or how such ecosystems should be managed. This symposium will bridge the gap between science and practice by considering novel ecosystems from the perspective of their management. We will consider the value of novel ecosystems for conserving biodiversity and for providing ecosystem services now and in the future, and address the challenge of developing appropriate management goals and strategies. We expect that our symposium will successfully improve our understanding of how to manage novel ecosystems to maximize their ecological and societal benefits.

SYM21  Conservation Value of Non-native Plant Species: The Science of Exceptions
Deborah Rogers

In support of stewardship of natural areas, scientific inquiry has been directed to such applied fields as biological invasions and restoration science. However, specific decisions about how and whether to remove a non-native plant species (and its hybrid progeny) are situation-specific and often cannot be adequately supported by available information. Similarly, professional societies and organizations have developed around the conceptual arenas of invasive exotic plant control and native plant protection and restoration, but there is no well-developed field, forum, or organization for science-based consideration of the (potential) conservation value of non-native plant species. This topic is directly related to the theme of the Conservation for a Changing Planet. Rapid climate change is contributing to changing distributions of native and naturalized non-native plants, creating novel plant communities and potentially increasing the incidence of useful conservation roles for non-native plants. Appropriate conservation-directed response to non-native plants requires an adaptive approach and perhaps a change in traditional perspectives, with consideration of the ecological context, evolutionary history, and genetic risks and benefits.

SYM22  The Art and Science of Climate Change Planning
Marni Koopman, Brian R. Barr, and Dominick A. Della Salla

While action on climate change is occurring on both the mitigation and adaptation fronts, uncertainty about science inputs and lack of integration is hindering progress on this urgent problem. Most mitigation action is focused on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from energy use; increasing uptake and long-term storage of carbon by natural systems is vitally important, yet often overlooked because the efficacy of storing carbon through natural resource management is uncertain. Similarly, science on the efficacy of managing natural systems to protect human communities from climate change impacts is just emerging. Most adaptation efforts are specific to either human communities or natural systems, rarely integrating across these interests. Likewise, adaptation and mitigation planning are rarely linked though they often risk undoing one another or missing opportunities for synergy. Challenges abound in completing and, more importantly, implementing climate change adaptation and mitigation plans at any scale. It is imperative to develop and highlight the scientific basis for the role natural systems provide to achieving mitigation and human community adaptation goals. This symposium will showcase the science that led to successful planning efforts, emerging science that supports natural system contributions to human community adaptation, and the advantages and pitfalls associated with bridging natural systems to human communities in climate change planning.

SYM23  Bridging the Gaps: Linking the Sources, Flows, Recipients, and the Benefits of Ecosystem Services
Brendan Fisher

This year's SCB theme, "Bridging the Gap: Connecting people, nature, and climate," lends itself perfectly to the science of ecosystem services (ES) which was explicitly developed to better understand how human welfare is innately connected to the functioning of ecological systems. In this symposium, we will navigate across the ES science frontier building from talks which identify and measure ES source areas, map ES flows, identify who benefits who loses (recipients), calculate the magnitude of these benefits and costs, and link ES science and application to policy outcomes. Specifically, we will explore natural habitat's contribution (sources) to coastal protection (Verutes and Guannel), understand marginal benefit analysis for pollination services (flows) (Ricketts), and grapple with the critical issue in the US Midwest of trading off financial returns to farmers with water quality, recreation and biodiversity (sources, flows and beneficiaries) (Pennington). We will look at poverty and health effects of conservation in Namibia (beneficiaries) (Naidoo) and Tanzania (Fisher). We will show how to understand ES in dynamic or uncertain futures through scenario building (McKenzie) (flows, beneficiaries, policy). We will discuss the tradeoffs and synergies among tiger habitat, carbon and hydrological services in Sumatra (source, flows, magnitude and policy) (Bhagabati), and between hydropower and fisheries productivity in Southeast Asia (source, flows, magnitude and policy) (Ziv). The talks have direct policy relevance, from development policy in sub-Saharan Africa, REDD+ and hydropower policies in Southeast Asia, to agricultural subsidy and recreation management issues in the US Midwest, this symposium is an attempt to bridge the gap between ES science and conservation management and policy.

SYM26  Science as a Second Language: Getting Science Used by Policymakers, Practitioners, and the Public
Christina Swanson and Andrew Gunther

Conservation scientists share a growing awareness that our biological resources and the ecosystems that support them (and us) are increasingly threatened by human activities, including climate change, habitat destruction, harvest and mortality, and a rising tide of toxic chemicals. Many of us recognize a disconnect between risks revealed by our scientific findings and the relatively unresponsive actions of policymakers; there is a growing desire among scientists to engage more directly in the management and policy arena to reverse this trend. What are the most effective approaches that we can use to more effectively "bridge the gap" between scientific discovery and adoption of policies to address the growing threats we've identified? This symposium explores strategies for conservation scientists to more effectively extend and translate their research to natural resource management, policy and the public discourse, including "translational ecology," as described by Schlesinger (Science 329, 609; 2010). The session will provide multiple perspectives, with presentations arranged in three sequential parts: (1) introductory presentations to "set the stage"; (2) a series of case studies that explore alternative approaches for bridging the science-policy divide, including identifying and advancing needed science, translating science into policy and law, using science to redefine existing laws, communicating science, and the role of scientists in multi-stakeholder processes; and (3) a facilitated panel and audience discussion to capture and synthesize the lessons learned and explore possible next steps to foster and support more and more effective science translation by the conservation biology community.

SYM27  Tools for Planning for Climate Change in Coastal and Marine Ecosystems
S. D. Carr

Climate change poses severe threats to coastal ecosystems and communities of the U.S. Threats include loss and change of coastal habitats and species, shoreline changes and flooding, and saltwater intrusion. Processes and approaches for assessing and reducing the vulnerability of coastal ecosystems and infrastructure to climate change are emerging, including multi-sectoral approaches that incorporate both ecosystem health and social well-being. Many coastal natural resource managers and communities have begun to plan for the impacts of climate change on their local ecosystems and infrastructure and are finding that processes and approaches require the use of geospatial analyses and tools to model and visualize, the impacts of a changing climate on ecosystems and human infrastructure, explore the effects of potential management decisions, and conduct effective public engagement. The variety of tools and lack of information on them make it difficult for practitioners to select tools most suited to their needs and capacities. This symposium will highlight the capabilities and limitations of a range of key tools for multi-sector climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning and implementation as well as provide an initial introduction to and resources for starting this work and understanding the utility and limitations of tools for it. We focus on tools that incorporate both ecosystem health and social well-being because integrated planning helps clarify the interconnectedness of these considerations (e.g. provision of ecosystem services), identify mutually beneficial activities, and avoid duplication of effort.

SYM28  Delivering Conservation Through the Collaborative Forum of the Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCCs)
Stephen Zylstra, Doug Austen, and Sean Finn

Collaborative approaches have been a regularly employed method for addressing conservation challenges at a wide variety of scales. The tremendous conservation challenges (social, economic and biological, including climate change) that we face today, though, have mandated that we greatly expand and coordinate these approaches. The network of Landscape Conservation Cooperatives (LCC) was initiated by the Department of Interior (Secretarial Order 3289) in 2009 to provide such a framework. The idea is designed as a fundamental mechanism for organizing and coordinating landscape-level conservation activities and for prioritizing future conservation actions at multiple scales. Partners, an essential component of the LCCs, include State agencies, Tribes, non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, and others engaged in or affecting natural resource conservation. The entire U.S., including territories, and portions of neighboring Canada and Mexico are parsed into 22 ecoregions, based in large part on Bird Conservation Regions (BCRs). The themes of the proposed symposium are to introduce the LCC concept to SCB members who are not familiar with it, to provide details of LCC functions, accomplishments to date, and opportunities for involvement to SCB members who may already have some familiarity with LCCs. This will hopefully develop more direct channels of communication between SCB and the LCCs, and to serve as a springboard for future collaborative efforts among SCB chapters and individual LCCs throughout North America.

SYM29  Connecting People to Freshwater Conservation through Citizen-engaged Science and Analysis of Ecosystem Services
Paul L. Angermeier and Anna L. George

Aquatic systems demonstrate the importance of connecting people, nature, and climate? because a) clean water is vital, b) human impacts accumulate in aquatic systems, leading to high species imperilment, c) climate change affects hydrology, and d) conservation of aquatic biota requires integrative approaches and stakeholder cooperation. We will view these connections through two lenses: citizen-engaged science and quantification of ecosystem services. The former focuses on getting scientists to ask relevant questions, then getting non-scientists involved to enhance the science and educational outcomes. The latter lens focuses on societal benefits of healthy ecosystems, which can be powerful in achieving conservation or informing land/water use decisions. The scientific and social outcomes of these efforts can significantly benefit biological conservation. A secondary objective is to catalyze collaboration between the American Fisheries Society (AFS) and the SCB, which share goals of using science to inform conservation of aquatic biota. The organizers and other speakers are members of both societies and the AFS leadership has already agreed to co-sponsor the symposium. After the presentations, we will lead a 15-minute discussion on how to enrich SCB-AFS collaboration to make conservation more effective. Similar numbers of speakers will address citizen-engaged science and quantification of ecosystem services.

SYM31  Climate Change Adaptation through Natural Community Conservation Plans (NCCPs) in California
Brenda S. Johnson

Natural Community Conservation Planning (NCCP) is a landscape-scale collaborative conservation planning program in California that engages local jurisdictions and diverse stakeholders. It is an unprecedented effort by the State of California, and numerous private and public partners, to take a broad-based ecosystem approach to planning for the protection and perpetuation of biological diversity. The primary objective of the NCCP program is to conserve natural communities at the ecosystem level while accommodating appropriate and compatible land use. Currently, 23 active NCCPs are in progress or have been approved, covering more than 11 million acres in planning areas. NCCPs build connectivity by creating linked reserve networks spanning the range of environmental gradients in a plan area. They also link large blocks of federal and other publicly-owned lands, and protect and restore key ecological processes essential to sustaining landscapes and populations. We assume such plans will mediate climate change; however, the degree to which NCCPs can actually provide resilience in the face of projected climate change in California is unknown. This symposium will focus on the intent of the NCCP Act, climate science and its implications for habitat conservation planning, and recommendations for NCCP development and implementation in California.

SYM32  Public Participation in Scientific Research: Key Issues and Findings to Bridge the Gap Between Conservation Science, Education, and Communities
Heidi Ballard and Alycia W. Crall

Addressing conservation issues requires large spatial and temporal data sets, locally-relevant management practices, community action and input, and a scientifically literate public, so many conservation professionals are turning to Public Participation in Scientific Research (PPSR). PPSR, a new term that includes citizen science and locally-based monitoring projects, represents a partnership between the public and scientists to address research questions and provides opportunities for collaboration across disciplines and diverse stakeholders. Researchers in the natural and social sciences have growing evidence that PPSR has provided crucial resources for professional monitoring, promoted science education and stewardship, and contributed to scientific knowledge. As the number of these projects increases, conservation professionals need to understand current research on the issues, strategies and pitfalls in this field to design and evaluate effective projects. In this symposium, scholars in a wide variety of fields (conservation biology, computer science, conservation psychology, science education) come together to critically analyze and report findings from PPSR projects across the U.S. We will provide a framework for PPSR in conservation, provide case studies as examples of project impacts with broad applicability across conservation fields, and cover key issues of current and prospective research in PPSR as it contributes to conservation biology research and education.

SYM33  Conservation Development: Challenges and Opportunities for Integrating Private Land Conservation with Residential Development in North America
Sarah E. Reed, Liba Pejchar, and Miranda H. Mockrin

The rapid conversion of private land to residential development and limited funding available for conservation make this a critical time to examine new tools for incorporating conservation objectives into development practices. Conservation development (CD) is an approach to the design, construction, and management of a development property that protects or restores biodiversity, ecosystem services, and other conservation values and clusters housing on a subset of the site. Although CD accounts for a growing proportion of private land conservation and residential development in North America, little is known about its biophysical and socioeconomic outcomes. Have CD projects effectively protected biodiversity and other natural resources? What are the financial risks and returns associated with CD projects? How do the socioeconomic characteristics and environmental attitudes of CD project residents compare to those of other homeowners? What are the institutional and policy barriers to widespread implementation of CD? Our symposium will explore challenges and opportunities associated with implementing CD in North America. Ecologists, social scientists, developers, and conservation practitioners will present recent scientific research and contemporary practice of CD. We will invite the audience to participate in a lively cross-disciplinary discussion regarding current trends and key information needs for this emerging tool for land conservation and sustainable development.

SYM34  Applied Science for Conserving California's Bay Area Ecosystems in the Face of Climate Change
Lisa Micheli and David Ackerly

Within California the Bay Area has one of the greatest concentrations of endemic species together with a rapidly growing human population and increasingly fragmented landscape. In the next century, California along with the rest of the world will face dramatic changes in climate. Threatened habitats and species may disappear from reserves that were created for their protection and, conversely protected areas set aside today may serve as critical refuges or stepping stones for species migrating across fragmented landscapes in the future. The Bay Area's Terrestrial Biodiversity Climate Change Collaborative (TBC3) is effectively narrowing the gap between cutting edge climate research and applied conservation with a focus on increasing the resilience of the Bay Area's Conservation Lands Network in the face of climate change. Our symposium will address our four priority areas: 1) Defining the best available climate and hydrology projections for ecological application within the geographic extent of 10-Bay Area counties; 2) Improving our understanding of how topo- and micro-climate influence drivers of vegetation succession and resulting habitat structure; 3) mproving our understanding of the spatial distribution biodiversity relative to Bay Area isoclimates; and 4) understanding the impact of climate space, scale, and connectivity on the value of conservation lands in the face of climate change. Our research supports SCB's Conservation for a Changing Planet goals by advancing fundamental knowledge regarding integration of empirical and modeling approaches to assess ecosystem vulnerability and develop climate-adaptive management strategies for conservation lands.

SYM35  Conservation in the Anthropocene
Peter Kareiva, Michael Shellenberger, and Ted Nordhaus

In the decade that has passed since the term Anthropocene was coined by Paul Crutzen, it has become increasingly prominent in debates about conservation and the environment, featuring in publications ranging from Nature and Science to the Economist. Dubbing the present era the age of man not only reflects growing evidence for the pervasive impact of humans on the biosphere(ecological processes in four fifths of the earth's biomes are significantly altered by humans) but also raises important questions about humans' relationship to nature and the role of conservation in shaping the way we manage land and ecosystems. If humans effectively control or shape most of the world's ecosystems, to the extent that some speak of "gardening the planet," what does that mean for conservation in terms of setting priorities, communicating with the public, and more broadly in terms of the way we understand wilderness, protected areas and biodiversity loss? Whereas some see great promise in taking on the idea of the Anthropocene, arguing that humans are simply "ecosystem engineers" on a vast scale who shape their environment for their own well-being, others have raised warnings about the term potentially generating a sense of hopelessness for conservation and opening the floodgates to development and manipulation.

SYM36  The Future of Conservation Planning
Vicky Meretsky and Robert Fischman

For the past forty years, planning has been the key process applying general principles to specific threats and objectives for conservation areas (and species). Plans translate general goals, such as maintaining ecological integrity, into a course of action. Because most planning incorporates social dimensions of conservation, including visitor use, commodity extraction, and sustainable development, the plans also connect people to conservation. In middle age, however, conservation planning faces serious problems. First, the rise of adaptive management has heightened the tension between flexibility and certainty in planning. Agencies often rely on adaptive management to caution that plans do not finalize anything significant anymore. Second, the need to incorporate adaption to climate change has undermined the historic baselines for conservation goals and requires greater integration of landscape-level issues. Planning is more complex when boundaries are recognized as porous and the future unpredictable. Third, persistent austerity has widened the gap between anticipated activities in plans and appropriations available for action. This symposium brings together an interdisciplinary group of scientists, scholars, and conservationists to discuss how planning can overcome these challenges. It will offer a forum for sharing new ideas and modifying established approaches across jurisdictions. Specifically, with our first panel, we will synthesize collaborative approaches generally, with application to climate change, adaptive management, and mitigating funding shortfalls. With our second panel, we will present cutting-edge tools from policy and science that may be incorporated into planning and into training planners.

SYM37  The Causal Effects and Mechanisms of Protected Areas on Poverty
Paul J. Ferraro

The effect of protected areas on their human neighbors is arguably the most controversial debate in conservation policy. This debate will only intensify as efforts to protect ecosystems for biodiversity, for climate change mitigation and for climate change adaptation grow. Because ecosystem protection limits agricultural development and exploitation of natural resources, opposition to protected areas is frequently driven by the assumption that they impose large economic costs. However, protected areas can also generate economic benefits by protecting ecosystem services, promoting tourism and improving infrastructure in rural areas. Net effects on poverty could thus be positive or negative Assessing these effects empirically is difficult. Many studies document high poverty near protected areas or negative events associated with the establishment of protected areas. Given their data and their empirical designs, however, these studies do not convincingly demonstrate a causal link between protection and poverty. Furthermore, decision-makers typically want to know more than just the average effect of protection on poverty. They wish to know the way in the effect varies spatially and temporally (i.e., heterogeneous effects) and the mechanisms through which the effect is generated (e.g., tourism, hydrological services, etc.). Such knowledge can help increase the probability that protection in a given area or of a given form will reduce poverty or, at the very least, not exacerbate it.

SYM38  Geospatial Approaches to Support Pelagic Conservation Planning and Adaptive Management
Pat Halpin, Daniel Dunn, Jason Roberts, David Hyrenbach, and Lisa Wedding

Pelagic ecosystems provide essential habitat for protected species, play a vital role in global climate regulation, and support productive fisheries. Place-based management in the open ocean faces unique challenges in attaching boundaries around temporally and spatially dynamic systems that span broad geographic scales and multiple jurisdictions in the ?high seas?. However, recent conceptual and technological advances have supported the information requirements necessary to map and monitor the oceanographic processes that create spatially explicit patterns of ocean productivity, protected species abundance and biodiversity in the open ocean. This novel understanding can inform the dynamic conservation planning and adaptive management now being considered in the open ocean. Geospatial technology is critical for the successful design of pelagic conservation areas as it provides information on the spatially and temporally dynamic oceanographic features responsible for driving species distribution and abundance in the open ocean. While international conventions call for 10% of all biomes to be protected, less than one percent of the open ocean is currently protected within Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and data to support informed MPA design is limited in this ecosystem. This symposium seeks to bridge the gap between geospatial scientists and marine conservation biologists in order to address the gaps in spatial information and consider the development of innovative methods necessary to support effective marine conservation strategies for pelagic ecosystems. This symposium and subsequent discussion panel will allow a group of experts to share case studies and discuss future research and conservation goals and the potential technological advances necessary to facilitate those goals in the open ocean.

SYM39  Monitoring Strategies in an Era of Rapid Climate Change
Peter Dratch and John Gross

In recent years, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have funded monitoring programs on the public lands that they manage. The goals of these initiatives is to measure the status of natural resources in parks and refuges, but also to examine the resilience of their particular protected habitats in an era of rapid climate change. At the same time, there has been a stimulating discussion in the scientific community as to what monitoring strategy is most appropriate to inform management of public lands. Surveillance monitoring, long-term consistent observation of a system utilizing the same methodology, is contrasted with targeted monitoring with its emphasis on hypothesis testing and models of how the system would respond to specific management actions. In this symposium, we have authorities present these two prevalent views of monitoring, followed by studies of protocols utilized to monitor change on some of the habitats recognized as most influenced by climate change. We will look at how cooperative efforts such as the Joint Ventures have handled monitoring and and close with a discussion on what combination of monitoring efforts might be most appropriate for public lands. At a time when state and federal funding for science in conservation is under threat, developing a coherent natural resource monitoring strategy that can be put in place across jurisdictional boundaries is crucial.

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
Full descriptions of workshops are below this summary table (click the WKS# to advance to its description).

WKS#	DAY & TIME	WORKSHOP TITLE	ORGANIZER(S)
WKS1	Monday 16th 1:00-3:00PM	Incorporating Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous Values in Ocean and Coastal Governance: Discussion group	Anna Zivian, Shaunna McCovey
WKS2	Monday 16th 1:00-3:00PM	How to Build Conservation Partnerships that Thrive	Olivia Millard, Wendy Millet
WKS3	Monday 16th 1:00-3:00PM	ARKive.org: Using Imagery as an Emotive Bridge to Conservation	Liana Vitali
WKS4	Tuesday 17th 1:30-3:00PM	Enhancing Diversity in Conservation Science	Mary E. Blair, Michael J. Foster
WKS5	Monday 16th 1:00-3:00PM	Bridging the Science-Land Use Planning Gap: The Practitioner's Perspective	Karen Strong, Kacy Cook
WKS6	Tuesday 17th 1:00-3:00PM	Consolidating the Criteria for Identifying Sites of Significance for Biodiversity Conservation	Annabelle Cuttelod
WKS8	Tuesday 17th 1:00-3:00PM	How Filmmakers and Conservationists Connect People, Nature, and Climate	Kristy Deiner, Steven Dunsky
WKS9	Tuesday 17th 1:00-3:00PM	Examining The Paradox of Invasive Endangered Species Conservation	Michael Marchetti, Tag Engstrom
WKS10	Wednesday 18th 1:00-3:00PM	Using the National Conservation Easement Database to Enhance GIS Models that Identify Potential Corridors	Mitchel Hannon
WKS11	Wednesday 18th 1:00-3:00PM	Understanding the Impact of Illegal Animal Trade on Wildlife Conservation	Simon Nemtzov
WKS12	Tuesday 17th 1:00-3:00PM	Injecting Conservation Science into California's Mitigation Planning and Implementation	Patrick R. Huber, Debra Bishop
WKS13	Wednesday 18th 1:00-3:00PM	Emerging Botanical Field Methods: Using New Technologies to Identify, Map, and Explore Wild Diversity	Dan Gluesenkamp, Mike Perlmutter

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS

WKS1   Incorporating Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Indigenous Values in Ocean and Coastal Governance: Discussion group
Anna Zivian and Shaunna McCovey

For effective ocean governance and resource management, best available knowledge is of critical importance. This is all the more important under conditions of global change, including climate change and ocean acidification. Knowledge comes in diverse forms, but in this age of abundant digital information resources, knowledge that is not downloadable, quantitative or "scientific" is often overlooked or poorly utilized. Traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) held by indigenous stakeholders is a key element in successful planning and governance in many parts of the world, although it has only recently been widely recognized as such. Yet TEK and indigenous values are often treated separately from scientific information. How can this gap be overcome, and how can TEK and scientific data be integrated effectively in decision-making, and in a culturally sensitive manner? Scholars and practitioners present new approaches and case studies on the collection and integration of TEK in ocean governance in a round-table discussion with conference attendees.

WKS2  How to Build Conservation Partnerships that Thrive
Olivia Millard and Wendy Millet

"Working with others" is a central tenet of conservation practice today. Most organizations are continually building their partnership experience, but the guidance, tools and resources needed to build the expertise to be a good conservation partner can be hard to find. This Partnership 101 workshop provides a overview (suitable for partnership pros and first-timers alike) of key concepts, decision-support tools, templates and resources that have been distilled from many years of lessons learned by The Nature Conservancy and its partners. The session highlights key information across the spectrum of partnership development, from the early challenge of identifying the right partner(s) through all the steps of negotiating, implementing, measuring, and then adapting or concluding partnerships. Using a high-energy, interactive learning format, we explore a strategic approach to building and managing effective partnerships that can help increase the impact of conservation organizations, large and small.

WKS3  ARKive.org: Using Imagery as an Emotive Bridge to Conservation
Liana Vitali

In a world in which a species becomes extinct every 20 minutes, photos and films of these species are often all that remain. ARKive.org, the Noah's Ark for the Internet, is using the power of the world's finest wildlife films and photographs to promote a greater appreciation of our natural world. With the help of the world's leading wildlife filmmakers, photographers, conservationists, and scientists, ARKive is gathering thousands of wildlife images, films and audio files to create the ultimate multimedia guide to the world's animals, plants and fungi. Freely accessible to all and preserved for the benefit of future generations, this centralized digital library provides a unique resource for conservation, education and public awareness. This is a BYOL or Bring Your Own Laptop session in which participants are strongly encouraged to bring their own laptops or tablet PC's to fully engage in the session. ARKive staff will encourage discussions on how to use technology and audiovisuals as a bridge to conservation education and the challenges and benefits of using imagery as a tool to strengthen conservation initiatives. Participants will be guided through an ARKive tutorial including navigation tips, how to contribute their work and expertise to ARKive and ways the collection can be used in the formal classroom and beyond. Finally, participants will view clips of wildlife films illustrating examples of how imagery has connected people with the natural world.

WKS4  Enhancing Diversity in Conservation Science
Mary E. Blair and Michael J. Foster

Enhancing diversity in conservation science is essential to Bridging the Gap: Connecting people, nature, and climate because there is a clear gap in who is participating in conservation. American Indian/Alaska Natives, African-Americans, and U.S.-born Hispanics/Latinos are not well represented in the conservation science workforce. The percent of total bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees earned in the U.S. by members of these groups in the conservation sciences are in the single digits, and significantly lower than their proportional representation in the U.S. population. A more diverse workforce in conservation science is crucial to achieving the goals of biodiversity conservation, which is multidisciplinary and international in scope and requires engaging diverse audiences and stakeholders. Broadening the training of conservation scientists to include constituencies that have not been involved historically in conservation efforts will be key to advancing leadership and success in conservation, as well as building a strong and diverse workforce for a global economy that is increasingly centered around sustainability. Our workshop will introduce participants to the institutional and structural barriers that prevent the equal participation of historically underrepresented groups in the conservation sciences and discuss interventions to increase the participation, retention, and success of historically underrepresented groups in our field.

WKS5  Bridging the Science-Land Use Planning Gap: The Practitioner's Perspective
Karen Strong and Kacy Cook

Haphazard, sprawling development is a leading cause of species endangerment and loss of local ecosystem services. Land use planning decisions of local governments can have profound impacts on habitat loss, fragmentation and the ability of wildlife to adapt to climate change. Despite the urgent need to connect conservation science and land use planning to improve on-the-ground implementation, many authors have noted there is a disconnect between the disciplines. Among the many challenges in bridging the gap between scientists and planners are awareness of the issue, different communication needs, different values, political and legal issues, lack of capacity to use science among planners, as well as lack of capacity among scientists/conservation organizations to engage in the land use planning process. Technical assistance programs that translate conservation science for land use planners can play a vital role in bridging this gap. In this workshop, leading practitioners in biodiversity-land use integration from five states will be discussing how they have addressed such challenges, followed by a broader discussion on how to improve outcomes by working together and with the research community.

WKS6  Consolidating the Criteria for Identifying Sites of Significance for Biodiversity Conservation
Annabelle Cuttelod

The primary threat to biodiversity remains the destruction of important natural habitats, and so the primary response must remain to safeguard these places. But how do we know where these places are? The IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and Species Survival Commission are launching a global consultation to consolidate the criteria for the identification of important site for biodiversity conservation, through a series of regional workshop. This workshop will be the occasion to provide feedbacks and inputs on this consultation process, highlighting the specific issues of the North America region. Given the importance attached by IUCN to scientific stakeholder consultation, this feedback will be of great importance in developing recommendations from the Joint Taskforce overall. In addition to offering a mechanism for consultation and feedback, the workshop will also help to disseminate information about the IUCN WCPA/SSC Joint Taskforce itself, including importantly on mechanisms for continuing engagement into the process.

WKS8  How Filmmakers and Conservationists Connect People, Nature, and Climate
Kristy Deiner and Steven Dunsky

Video is a powerful communication tool with a global reach. For example, An Inconvenient Truth (2006) generated much debate in the public arena while shedding light on conservation science for a mass audience. Since then, a digital revolution in the tools of video production and distribution has enabled virtually anyone to work in this medium. The work of conservation scientists and practitioners deserves the attention of the public. When this information is not shared in a format that can be easily accessed, conservationists and the general public misses out. Our panelists will share their knowledge of, and experience with, communicating conservation stories through film. Filmmakers, conservation practitioners who use film, and educators who train conservation filmmakers, will discuss ways to bridge the gap between people, nature, and climate.

WKS9  Examining The Paradox of Invasive Endangered Species Conservation
Michael Marchetti and Tag Engstrom

This workshop aims to address the conservation of endangered species that are introduced outside of their native range. This is a complicated problem in conservation biology, which is still largely unrecognized and is likely to become more common as both endangerment and invasions become more widespread. The initial motivation for this workshop grew out of our work on the wattle-necked softshelled turtle, Palea steindachneri. This large freshwater turtle has been hunted almost to extinction in its home range in Viet Nam and China and is IUCN listed as endangered. Its importance as a food source lead to introductions by Chinese laborers during the1800s in several areas including Mauritius, Hawaii and California. The introduced populations in Hawaii have survived and may be the only viable long-term conservation solution for this species. However these introduced populations have also been shown to have large negative impacts on the native aquatic food webs of Hawaii. We see the situation with this turtle as an example of a larger question of how to manage and conserve an endangered species when that same species is also an introduced invasive that has impact on native species and communities. We are aware of several other examples of endangered/invasive species including birds (e.g. red fronted Amazon), plants (e.g. Bermuda Cedar), and mammals (e.g. Java banteng cow). We hope to use this workshop to create a network of people interested in collaboration and research in this area and potentially establish a rational framework to guide conservation efforts in these paradoxical situations.

WKS10  Using the National Conservation Easement Database to Enhance GIS Models that Identify Potential Corridors
Mitchel Hannon

GIS modeling of potential wildlife corridors typically uses a least cost path methodology to find the best possible ways of connecting large blocks of protected land. Although specific approaches for determining the features on the landscape that provide for the most viable corridor between blocks of land may vary, most approaches used by land managers include existing protected land as a preferred feature. A newly developed spatial database depicting conservation easements across the country can improve these types of models by including lands protected through easements. The use of conservation easements has become increasingly popular over the last decade as a way of protecting lands from development. Land conservation efforts use many different methods for protecting important areas and easements represent excellent opportunities for the conservation of quality habitat and are an important part of any interconnected proteced lands or green infrastructure network. This workshop will demostrate The Trust for Public Land's least cost path connectivity model and show how use of the National Conservation Easement Database (NCED) can cause the model to identify different prefferred paths. We will also review the NCED web portal to show how it can be used to identify protected lands in specific areas and how these easements overlap with national datasets identifying key wildlife habitat.

WKS11  Understanding the Impact of Illegal Animal Trade on Wildlife Conservation
Simon Nemtzov

The illegal trade in wildlife around the world causes huge impacts on wildlife conservation. Concerned conservation biologists may be aware that such a problem exists but may not understand the extent of the problem or how they may contribute to its alleviation. This workshop is designed to build capacity of conservation scientists about the extent and dimensions of the problems, with many examples from the field. The workshop will teach the conservation scientists what role they can play in mitigating this tragedy. The participants will learn to identify some of the major species in trade, including parts and derivatives in trade, and will understand how the CITES Convention operates and what the Convention can and cannot do.

WKS12  Injecting Conservation Science into California's Mitigation Planning and Implementation
Patrick R. Huber and Debra Bishop

Infrastructure construction is a major source of environmental impacts globally. Negative ecological effects include habitat loss, loss of landscape connectivity, and impacts to air and water quality. Current policy often requires mitigation to offset these impacts, but such mitigation typically occurs on a project-by-project basis during project construction. The result is often a fragmented collection of mitigation sites that fail to integrate with regional conservation priorities and connectivity planning. A number of California infrastructure and resource agencies and non-profit organizations have begun to plan for mitigation in advance of project delivery and on a regional basis, enabling the injection of conservation science principles into the mitigation planning process. This workshop will present examples from across California of advance regional mitigation planning efforts for infrastructure and large-scale renewable energy projects. In each case, a major theme will be how conservation science is used to address mitigation actions, the policy barriers that have been encountered and how they can be overcome, and successful integration of conservation science with statewide mitigation planning and implementation.

WKS13  Emerging Botanical Field Methods: Using New Technologies to Identify, Map, and Explore Wild Diversity
Dan Gluesenkamp and Mike Perlmutter

Recent years have seen a burst of innovation in tools that give professional botanists and amateur naturalists new ability to identify plants in the field, precisely map plants, report beautiful or important discoveries, and explore diversity and distribution from mountaintop, desktop, or laptop. These tools include easy mobile phone apps, web-based applications, and GPS cameras. Unfortunately, tools can be duplicative, confusing, and often exaggerate their true utility. There are great new tools available, but what really works, what is easy, and how do we enhance our ability to botanize without wasting time focusing on gadgets? This training workshop introduces researchers and conservation professionals to the diversity of technical tools available to dramatically improve field data collection and online data management, and helps them to understand their various uses. We will review the range of tools and then talk about those few that are really valuable, really easy, and add rather than detract from our work. We will provide enough iPhones, Android phones, tablets, and GPS cameras to ensure that every attendee has the chance to get "hands on" and familiar with using these tools. All workshop attendees will receive a free Professional registration to Calflora, and will get to use these individual registrations to explore a range of exciting tools available through the Calflora website and electronic field tools.