ANNUAL MEETING WORKSHOPS
- American Fisheries Society Scientific Certification Process
- Criteria for Entrance in the College of Applied Biology
- 10 ½ ways to Manage Conflict
- 57 Tips in 57 Minutes for Making a Difference in Your Career
- Principles and Practice of Adaptive Management
American Fisheries Society Scientific Certification Process
Instructor: Ken Carrasco
Tuesday March 4th, 8 – 8:20 am
The Certification Program of the American Fisheries Society got its start at the AFS 93rd Annual Meeting in 1963, when attendees approved suggested standards developed by the Professional Standards Committee. Certification is widely practiced by the professions as one means of setting standards and guidelines for professional competence. It serves to upgrade the professional image and is a mark of accomplishment. Certification also is a mechanism to demonstrate responsible peer evaluation. The specific objectives of certification are as follows: (1) to provide governmental and nongovernmental agencies and organizations, private firms, courts, and the general public with a definitive standard of experience and education for fisheries professionals; and (2) to foster broader recognition of fisheries professionals as well-educated and experienced, acting in the best interest of the public. This workshop will provide an overview of the certification process and the information and encouragement necessary to get you started, or help you finish, your Fisheries Professional certification.
Criteria for Entrance in the College of Applied Biology
Instructor: Linda Stordeur, R.P.Bio
Tuesday March 4th 8:20 – 8:45am
Professional Biologists in British Columbia are governed by the College of Applied Biology (College). The College was created by the enactment of the College of Applied Biology Act (a B.C. Provincial Statute) in 2002 and is the only organization of its kind in North America. At present the College has in excess of 1700 members, 125 of whom reside outside of British Columbia. One of the roles of the College is to ensure that criteria for College admission are sufficient to indicate the applicant should have the ability to practice competently. This presentation will focus on the 3 areas required for membership as a Registered Professional Biologist; academic, work experience and professional report requirements.
Instructor: Michael Fraidenburg Dynamic Solutions, LLC
Tuesday March 4th, 8:45 – 9:45 am
This workshop is supported by my paper in Fisheries – the Bulletin of the American Fisheries Society (Fisheries 2004;29:20–29). It covers the opportunity professionals have to easily apply conflict resolution principles and techniques in their every-day jobs; whether in fisheries, land, environmental, or other kinds of natural resource management. Workshop participants learn how to shift disagreement from a “me-against-you” to an “us-against-the-problem” dialog. You will walk out of the workshop with skills you can begin using tomorrow!
Mike Fraidenburg is a certified mediator and former Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife career employee who has helped Washington stakeholders resolve fisheries and hunting issues, Colorado conservationists solve elk hunting issues on private lands, East Coast interests chart new plans for interstate fisheries, aquatic nuisance species professionals figure out how to manage this ‘elephant under the table’, state and federal employees improve their cooperation deploying fish screens in the Central Valley Water Project, and more.
57 Tips in 57 Minutes for Making a Difference in Your Career
Instructor: Michael Fraidenburg Dynamic Solutions, LLC
Tuesday March 4th, 5:30 – 6:30 pm
This rapid-fire listing of tips other professionals have found helpful is based on my pamphlet ’57 Tips for Creating a Natural Resource Career That Makes a Difference’ and the pamphlet I am currently writing, ’57 Tips for Getting Them to say, “Yes” to Conservation’. Think of this session as a sprint through the best ideas in these two pamphlets. We are going for breadth here, not depth to give you a sampler of pragmatic ideas you can modify and apply for your needs. A complimentary copy of the first pamphlet will be available.
Mike Fraidenburg is creating these pamphlets as a spin-off to his book, Intelligent Courage—Natural Resource Careers That Make a Difference, that presents the career biographies of eight professionals who succeeded in making their careers count for something. “I am highly recommending this great book to my friends and students” (Estella B. Leopold). For more information see www.IntelligentCourage.com or www.Amazon.com.
Adaptive Management Workshop
Principles and Practice of Adaptive Management
Instructor: Carol Murray, ESSA Technologies Ltd.
Thursday March 6th 8:20 am – 12:00
Carol Murray of ESSA Technologies will be conducting a half-day training seminar on the basics of Adaptive Management. ESSA Technologies is an innovative Canadian company specializing in environmental consulting and decision support, with a mission to bring together people, science and analytical tools to sustain healthy ecosystems and human communities. The company was founded by students of Drs. C.S. Holling and C.J. Walters, the creators of the Adaptive Management approach, and for almost three decades ESSA has been helping organizations better understand and apply this approach to a range of natural resource management challenges.
Adaptive Management is becoming more frequently called for by resource management agencies and initiatives. For example, Adaptive Management has been declared as the main mechanism for implementing Ecosystem Based Management on the Central and North Coasts of British Columbia; the U.S. Department of Interior has recently approved a new policy for better understanding and use of AM by all of their bureaus; and across Puget Sound, Technical Recovery Teams have begun invoking Salmon recovery strategies where Adaptive Management is a key component. However, there is often a lack of clarity about what Adaptive Management really means, or how to make it happen – and this workshop is intended to shed some light on that.
Carol will first provide a good grounding in the basic concepts and elements of Adaptive Management and then help workshop participants explore what sorts of management challenges are best suited for this approach.
- What is adaptive management (AM)?
- What is the basic process for carrying out AM?
- When is AM most useful?
- The following topics will be covered, through a mix of presentations, discussions and participatory activities:
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- Examining selected definitions of adaptive management
- Different ways of representing the Adaptive Management Cycle
- Elements within Each Step in the AM Cycle
- Difference between AM and research, and continuous improvement
- Passive versus active AM, and pros and cons of each
- Brief descriptions of selected AM projects
- Examples of management uncertainties – which are good candidates for AM and which are not?
- General Application to Puget Sound salmon and habitat recovery
Participants will be asked to come prepared to describe one or two resource management problems they are currently wrestling with, or projects that they are currently considering/planning, for contribution to a discussion about where AM can be most useful.
About Carol Murray: She is a Registered Professional Biologist and a Senior Systems Ecologist with ESSA. She holds a B.Sc. in biology from McGill University and an M.Sc. in environmental studies/zoology from the University of Toronto. She has over 19 years of experience on a wide range of environmental management projects in nine countries, and has managed more than 80 projects both domestically and internationally. After almost 20 years with ESSA, she is well steeped in the theory and methodology of the AM approach. Much of her consulting work involves helping clients understand and apply this approach, or elements of it, to their environmental management challenges. Her most recent work in this area involves research for the US National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry into factors that enable or inhibit adaptive forest management, and the design, development and delivery of training workshops on adaptive management for natural resource managers from the BC Ministry of Forests and Range and other organizations. Carol has facilitated at more than 70 workshops, made presentations at several international conferences in the past few years, written over 100 reports, and co-authored a chapter on Adaptive Management in the book entitled Ecological Restoration of Southwestern Ponderosa Pine Forest (Freiderici, 2003).
