SCB Policy Blog

A forthcoming article in the SCB newsletter by Cameron Kovach (Chapters Policy Coordinator) and Fiona Nagle (Chapters Representative, Board of Governors) looks at how SCB chapters address conservation policy issues and how they feel their activities should be integrated with those of SCB at the section and global level: Read more…

A forthcoming article in the SCB newsletter discusses the challenges and benefits of coordinating policy work between SCB’s sections and chapters.

One of SCB’s primary goals is to increase application of science to management and policy. Five general areas have been identified as policy priorities by the global organization: biological security, climate change, green investing, scientific integrity, and treaties. The global organization has a tiered structure. The seven Sections generally address issues of regional, national, international, or larger-scale concern. The approximately forty Chapters generally focus on conservation issues of immediate impact in local and regional areas. Ideally, these foci would complement and support each other. In reality, it has been challenging to coordinate the policy work of Sections and Chapters due to their varying scales of interest. How can SCB encourage policy activity at all levels of the organization while at the same time maintaining a coherent and credible policy voice for the organization as a whole?

Read more…

Scientific integrity is one of five priority policy areas for SCB. It is important to all of us as citizens that decisions by federal and state agencies are informed by unbiased science, and that SCB members and other scientists who work within government are free to do science and speak about their results without political pressure. On March 9, 2009, President Obama issued a Presidential Memorandum on Scientific Integrity, and asked Federal officials to craft recommendations for ensuring scientific integrity throughout the executive branch. SCB submitted comments on this process in May of 2009, both on its own (link), and as part of a group of seven scientific societies (link). Over 21 months later, on December 17th, 2010, the White House issuing a Memorandum (link) to the heads of Departments and Agencies that provides guidance on implementing the new policies on scientific integrity. The new memorandum describes the minimum standards expected as departments and agencies craft scientific integrity rules, including a prohibition on political interference in scientific processes and expanded assurances of transparency. It requires that department and agency heads report on their progress toward completing those rules within 120 days. While SCB has not yet had time to fully review the new memorandum, the Society will continue to track this priority issue as the new policy is implemented.

Each quarter, John Fitzgerald, SCB’s Policy Director, prepares a newsletter describing conservation policy news and SCB’s policy activities. It often provides more depth on an issue than we can post on the blog.
December’s issue can be found here.

SCB today submitted comments on California’s proposed regulations for a cap on greenhouse gas emissions and market-based compliance mechanisms (“cap and trade”). These are among the first such regulations in the United States, following similar regulations enacted by the European Union. SCB’s letter communicates the importance of achieving the most rapid reduction possible in human-caused greenhouse gases and other forcing agents, such as black carbon or soot, and combined with measures for ecosystem conservation and restoration. Nothing short of this combination will be likely to avoid accelerating losses in biodiversity and ecosystem services due to climate change. The second point we make in the letter is that California’s mitigation efforts should not rely upon carbon offsets when other approaches are available. In the US system, states have a great array of regulatory tools available under the Constitution, and California is the prime example of a state that uses this capacity to lead in the process, even when the Federal government lags, e.g., in controlling air pollution.
The full letter is here.

The Northern Spotted Owl, which inhabit forests of the US Pacific states, was listed in 1990 as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) due to declining population trends related to the loss of older coniferous forest habitat to timber harvest. Although the Northwest Forest Plan of 1994 was effectively a habitat management strategy for the owl, the subspecies has lacked a formal recovery plan. A recovery plan produced by the Fish and Widlife Service in 2008 was judged scientifically inadequate by reviewers from three scientific societies (SCB, AOU, and TWS). The FWS recently released a draft of a revised plan, and asked the same scientific societies to evaluate whether it now passed muster in terms of its use of ‘best available science’. The recently completed reviews from SCB/AOU and TWS found the new draft plan improved in many aspects from the 2008 version. However, the reviewers found the plan was still inadequate in several major aspects. In particular, both reviews noted that the draft plan was released for public review before completion of the habitat modeling that would be used to design the network of habitat reserves. The SCB/AOU review states “by releasing a draft plan for review before major elements of the habitat and viability analyses were completed, the USFWS effectively precluded detailed peer review of the analyses.” Similarly, TWS felt it “was asked to review a recovery plan that is incomplete, which precluded comprehensive review.” Both reviews called for the FWS to offer another opportunity for peer review once the science underlying the plan is completed.
The SCB/AOU peer review can be found here.
The TWS peer review can be found here.
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Environment ministers from many nations are in Cancun, Mexico this week for the 16th conference of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Chang. This meeting follows the 2009 meeting of the group in Copenhagen. The Society for Conservation Biology today sent a letter to negotiators in Cancun, continueing the dialogue SCB began with the UNFCCC delegates and Secretariat before the Copenhagen meeting. Among other points, SCB’s letter stressed the imporrtance of including the significant contribution of biologically diverse, carbon-dense primary forests in temperate and boreal regions to climate stabilization in discussions on the REDD+ strategy. REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon stored in forests, offering incentives for countries to reduce emissions from forested lands and invest in low-carbon paths to sustainable development. “REDD+” goes beyond deforestation and forest degradation, and includes the role of conservation, sustainable management of forests and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
The SCB letter is here.
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Signed by 150 government leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is one of the most important international agreements regarding conservation of the earth’s biota. The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the governing body of the CBD, and advances implementation of the Convention through the decisions it takes at its periodic meetings. The Tenth meeting (COP10) was held in Nagoya, Japan (18 – 20 October 2010). SCB, in collaboration with other scientific societies, played a key role at the Nagoya meeting. Below is a report from John Fitzgerald, the SCB Policy Director. Read more…

Today the Society for Conservation Biology sent a letter to the Secretary of the Interior recommending the following six steps toward recovery for the highly endangered Mexican wolf in the American Southwest.

We ask the FWS to implement the following actions: Read more…

SCB’S North America section has begun planning for the next regional meeting, to be held in July, 2012 in Oakland, California. SCB has shifted to holding global meetings every other year. Regional section meetings, which occur in the alternate years, will now become larger events. The formal call for symposia proposals will not occur until fall 2011. But the organizers would welcome any suggestions for policy-related symposia or questions before that point at well. You can contact the chair of the SCB2012 symposia subcommittee, Carlos Carroll, carlos at klamathaconservation dot org.
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