Meeting2008Apr25

April 25, 2008 3:30P Call in to 919.515.7152
 * Conference Call with Foundations of Success**

George Hess Louise Alexander Marcia Brown Vinaya Swaminathan
 * Participants**


 * Purpose**

George Hess and Louise Alexander are working with the Triangle Land Conservancy to answer the question are conservation lands meeting the goals for which they were intended. It is expected that different measures will be needed for each conservation goal. They must be measurable with a reasonable expenditure of resources by the organization or by volunteer monitoring teams. Ideally, the assessment methodology could also be used as an evaluative tool for prospective land projects.

In the fall of 2008, they will be teaching a graduate level course to developing a conceptual process to determine conservation success. The product of this class will be tested in the field by an undergraduate class the following spring.

The goal of this meeting is to understand the available resources at FOS, consider the most appropriate ways to design the course so that the lessons learned can be shared with the conservation community, to invite the staff of FOS to contribute to the class as guest speakers in a panel session, and to explore other ways in which FOS might collaborate through this course and beyond.


 * Progress to Date**

In the fall of 2007, Louise Alexander performed a literature review to determine what resources were available and if anyone was looking at this question.

Currently, Louise is designing a survey to send out to land trusts within the southeast and possibly nationally to determine how they measure conservation success (if at all), what their measures are, and the current trends in the field.


 * Resources**


 * Salafsky & Margoluis’ Measures of Success: Designing, Managing, and Monitoring Conservation and Development Projects
 * FOS’s Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation
 * The Nature Conservancy’s Conservation Action Plan
 * The Nature Conservancy‘s Conservation by Design.
 * Miradi
 * Salafsky & Margoluis’ Threat Reduction Assessment


 * Discussion Questions**


 * What are some resources that you find valuable in the work that you do? Please explain and recommend.


 * Are there any challenges that come up again and again when setting up a system of measuring conservation success?


 * Have you worked with local, land conservancies on a level like we are describing?


 * Please describe some examples of successful case studies of projects you have worked on? Why were they successful?


 * Have you worked with any organizations on projects that were not successful? If so, what didn’t work?


 * How have you set up your class and what projects do your students work on?


 * Is it worth us making a trip up to visit y'all?


 * Are there other people we should be contacting?