The Graduate Program in Sustainable Development and Conservation Biology (CONS) program at the University of Maryland (UMD) has developed a graduate-level course in Adaptive Management for Conservation Projects (which would also be relevant to restoration or other ecological projects). The materials and process taught in this course are based on the Conservation Measures Partnerships (CMP <http://www.conservationmeasures.org/>www.conservationmeasures.org) Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation. This course teaches the concepts of project planning, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, communication, and learning and gives students the opportunity to apply planning skills and tools to real life conservation projects. Foundations of Success (FOS <http://www.fosonline.org/>www.fosonline.org), a non-profit organization that specializes in adaptive management training in conservation, has been involved in developing and implementing this course since its beginning phase, and will continue to help conduct this course in the future in partnership with the CONS program.
With help from Lou Ann Dietz, and guest speakers from WWF, TNC, and CI the CONS program and FOS piloted the course in the 2007 spring semester at the UMD. The success of this course, along with a growing demand for adaptive management training among conservation practitioners has led us to investigate offer the course in a short-course format in downtown Washington DC, sometime in January 2008. If you are interested in seeing a proposed schedule for the course, contact Vinaya Swaminathan at FOS ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) In order to determine the logistics of offering such a course, we ask that you complete a very short, 2-minute survey by following the link below by Friday, August 24th: <http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=FliK679KZe1IwccELApd0w_3d_3d>http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=FliK679KZe1IwccELApd0w_3d_3d This survey will ask you if you would be interested in taking this course, and if so, whether you would want to receive University credit, and what scheduling would work best for you. If you have colleagues who might be interested, please forward this message to them. Again, this is a very short survey, and your feedback will influence if and how we offer this course. Please also forward this message along with the survey link to anyone in the conservation field who might be interested in taking this course. Thanks for your time and input, David Inouye, UMD Vinaya Swaminathan, FOS
