The science directors of four major nature conservation organizations are due at UC Davis on May 17 for two public events: an evening town hall on biodiversity, and, earlier in the day, a forum on the role on graduate education in training 21st-century conservation leaders.

Both programs are free in the AGR Room at the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center; advance registration is encouraged. Organizers said the evening program will be carried live on the Web. See details below.

The morning forum is titled Exploring New Opportunities for Educating Conservation Professionals.

“Effective conservation requires a strong grounding in environmental sciences, as well as an ability to think like a sociologist and work like an entrepreneur,” said Professor Mark Schwartz, director of the John Muir Institute of the Environment, the chief sponsor and organizer of the forum and panel.

“Universities struggle with how best to prepare graduate students to enter the world of conservation. Today, business management and conflict-resolution training have become as important as population genetics and statistics.”

Schwartz, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy, has been working to expand UC Davis graduate level conservation education to include more knowledge about practical tools for managing conservation projects.

With support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, he and colleagues have been developing a doctoral training and research initiative in ecosystem-based conservation management. The initiative emphasizes a broadened curriculum to cultivate multidisciplinary skills and linking dissertation research to the real-world problems of conservation partners.

The forum is broken in two parts, exploring such topics as how universities effectively provide a broad education in a constrained period of time and give graduate students an opportunity to learn more about what they need to do to prepare themselves for conservation careers.

The two parts (and participants) are as follows:

• Agency Perspectives — 9-10:15 a.m., with Ray Sauvajot, National Park Service; Tom Suchanek, U.S. Geological Survey; Hugh Safford, U.S. Forest Service; and Josh Hull, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

• Conservation Organization Perspectives — 10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m., with Kent Redford, Wildlife Conservation Society; Miguel Morales, Science and Knowledge Division; Peter Kareiva, The Nature Conservancy; Taylor Ricketts, World Wildlife Fund; and Eleanor Sterling, American Museum of Natural History.

The moderator for both parts is listed as Andrew Revkin, environmental journalist from Pace University’s Academy for Applied Environmental Studies, and dot.earth blogger.

Revkin also is due to moderate the town hall program, scheduled from 7:30 to 9 p.m., also in the AGR Room. The program is titled "The Future of Biodiversity: What Should Be Saved, Why and How?"

The panelists:

• Thomas Brooks, chief scientist for the nonprofit organization NatureServe
• Peter Kareiva, director of science, The Nature Conservancy
• Miguel Morales, senior adviser in the Science and Knowledge division of Conservation International
• Kent Redford, vice president for conservation strategy, Wildlife Conservation Society
• Taylor Ricketts, director of the science program, World Wildlife Fund

Besides the John Muir Institute of the Environment, other sponsors are the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Society for Conservation Biology, the Graduate Group in Ecology and the National Science Foundation.

Registration and more information. Or, contact the John Muir Institute of the Environment, (530) 752-5643 or jmie@ucdavis.edu.

Town hall webcast

Graduate Research Day at the Capitol