The International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB) hosted a virtual convening this December, including workshops and training courses.
CBO Assistant Center Director Gwen Iacona led a workshop titled "Collecting and reporting the costs of conservation interventions," which communicated how the financial cost of conservation is necessary, although the collection of good cost data might be a challenge. This workshop, part of a research project funded by the Arthur and Elaine Johnson Foundation, examined costing exercises in endangered species compliance, plastic pollution prevention, and marine protected area management. Gwen hopes participants achieved an understanding of the identification and collection of appropriate cost data for decision support, reporting on cost data, and designing cost data management systems for new projects.
Paola Sangolqui, a graduate student with the Conservation Innovation Lab, presented a talk title "Conserving smarter: Using decision science to address the biodiversity crisis" about bringing structured decision making to marine conservation in the Galapagos. The workshop builds on Paola's research funded by the Lenfest Ocean Program, exploring how the field of decision science can be applied to problems faced by conservation experts. It taught how to frame conservation decisions, deconstruct those decisions into key steps, and select the best tools and frameworks to apply to their decision problems. This session also introduced the newly established Decision Science Working Group, of which CBO Founding Director Leah Gerber is a member.