Fund Young Latin American Conservation Leaders
A nonprofit fundraiser supporting
Environment for the Americas IncHelp 34 talented young leaders advance Latin American conservation partnerships and strategies.
$20,265
raised by 27 people
$29,000 goal
Support our Mexican colleagues after their earthquake
The Mexican bird conservation community is at a crossroads. It has made significant strides in the development of capacities, funding, and sustaining programs over the long-term. Mexican ornithologists and conservationists are developing many individual initiatives that continue to grow and make fantastic progress.
The next big step forward is to create a coordinated evaluation of Mexico’s current status, identify gaps in thematic or species coverage, and then develop an orchestrated strategy to address these findings.
Our Mexican colleagues are hoping that the Sixth International Partners in Flight conference in Costa Rica will provide the opportunity to make real progress in this step forward and, in a larger scale, help draft the roadmap towards an integrated strategy that connects with the overall hemispheric plans.
The catastrophic earthquake that struck Mexico on September 7th has caused more personal and professional challenges to our Mexican colleagues who want to participate in the PIF conference. Please help our 12 Mexican colleagues who need financial assistance to attend and present at the PIF conference. Your support is critical in helping Mexicans craft their vison. It is a statement of human empathy and solidarity so please be as generous as possible.
One of the major advances in conservation biology over the past two decades has been the emergence of well-trained, talented and dedicated Latin American practitioners. To help make the vital exchange of knowledge and conservation planning more accessible to our partners, Partners in Flight will be having its sixth International Conference in Costa Rica along with the Mesoamerican Society for Biology and Conservation’s XXIst Congress.
This unique joint conference is attracting enormous interest and more than 500 Latin American students, professors, and conservation practitioners are expected to attend the meeting this November. Thirty-four of these students and practitioners are trying to attend and to contribute, but need assistance with travel costs.
I am asking you to help them get to the Conference. They bring first-hand knowledge and experience from Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, and especially Mexico. Sixteen of them are women and, even among the students, only four lack professional experience.
We all understand that focusing on the full-annual-life-cycle biology and conservation of migratory birds is the only way we will be successful in understanding and conserving these species, so we need to greatly increase our partnerships with colleagues south of our border. This meeting is the perfect way to make that happen.
The conference theme is “Biodiversity Conservation in the Hands of Mesoamerican Women”, and great women from northern and southern latitudes will be speaking in plenaries and symposia. Seasoned veterans like Bridget Stutchbury will speak on migratory connectivity and conservation while southern colleagues like Camila Gomez of Colombia and Bianca Bosarreyes of Guatemala will discuss topics ranging from migration stopover sites, bird-bander training, the economics of conservation and studies comparing songbird abundance in tree plantations and secondary forests in Guatemala.
Partners in Flight is committed to raising the funds to enable these emerging leaders in Latin American conservation to fully participate in this critical meeting. They will share an enormous array of knowledge with the attendees while bringing home new conservation plans and strategies that will make a significant difference for birds and people there. We have already raised $15,000 but need to raise $14,000 more to make it possible for all 34 people to participate.
It costs $853 per person to cover their travel and conference fees; can you please help make leadership participation truly inter-hemispheric? Environment for the Americas has kindly agreed to administer all gifts received for this travel scholarship fund so your gift will be fully tax deductible. Please be as generous as you can, and thank you.