The leaves are changing, and so are we!
A message from our President…
This month I am excited to announce changes to the executive leadership roles at the Conservation Biology Institute and to announce our new strategic path forward.
The Main Story…
When Pam Frost (my wife) and I created the Conservation Biology Institute 26 years ago with the help of a handful of others, it was with a clear mission: use conservation science to create a healthier, more ecologically sustainable planet. We felt we needed to create a new organization (vs. working for an existing entity) to ensure we remain focused and committed on advancing conservation science solutions while maintaining the highest degree of scientific and personal integrity. If we were going to invest the energy to dream, we might as well dream big. Starting in our spare bedroom 26 years ago, CBI was built from the ground up. It has not always been an easy journey, but we are grateful to have had the opportunity to make a significant difference towards achieving our mission to this point with hopefully a much larger impact in the future.
CBI’s unique approach is to bring “all three legs of the stool” to the table to help clients and partners tackle complicated conservation problems, namely:
1. World-class conservation scientists, geospatial experts, and software engineers
2. Advanced software applications, including the flagship Data Basin mapping and analysis platform
3. A holistic, proactive, and collaborative engagement model
Our expanding board of directors and executive leadership team believe the time is now to scale the unique CBI skill sets to address the increasing environmental degradation posed by human activity, including climate change. We want to build on our successes, transfer more knowledge outside the U.S., expand our in-house science expertise, engage more people in our work and set CBI up for success over the next 26 years and beyond.
To expand our impact, I am excited to announce changes to the executive team. Effective September 1, 2023, CBI board member Robin Jones has stepped into the Executive Director role at CBI. I will remain as the Chief Science Officer for the organization as well as continue to serve on the board of directors. Pam Frost will continue in her role as Chief Operations Officer and current role on the board. Gladwin Joseph will also remain as Chief Projects Officer.
“I could not be more thrilled to be joining such a passionate and impactful group of conservation scientists, geospatial analysts, and software engineers in their efforts to preserve and heal our ecosystems at such a critical time in our planet’s history. I’m excited to apply my years of business experience toward helping this organization grow and thrive for years to come. I am very much looking forward to working alongside CBI’s esteemed team that drives the research, applied science, analytics, and technology they are using to address the world’s critical environmental issues.” – Robin Jones
Robin is the ideal complement to our existing expertise. She brings 25 years of experience including executive and/or founding roles at several entrepreneurial ventures, executive roles at multiple software companies including Esri, and a rich academic background in biological sciences and business at Stanford and UC Berkeley. Robin’s strategic priorities are to:
- Continue to build CBI as a world-class organization that continues to help create an ecologically sustainable planet via its top-notch ecological scientists, GIS and software experts, and collaborative engagements.
- Scale up the organization’s conservation global impact.
- Build a recurring funding model to ensure a rich, impactful software platform roadmap.
Everyone at CBI is thrilled and excited to have Robin as the new Executive Director while retaining the previous leadership as part of the executive team. CBI’s future is bright and that is more important than ever as there is an ever-increasing amount of work to be done to try to save our planet.
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Africa – A Personal Reflection
By James R. Strittholt, Executive Director
I have been fascinated with nature my entire life. As a young boy, the images, movies, and stories about Africa energized and helped motivate me toward a career in conservation. During a recent trip to East Africa, I was fortunate to fulfill a lifetime dream of seeing it in person – I was not disappointed.
The Main Story…
It’s the dry season in Tanzania and 1.5 million white-bearded wildebeest along with hundreds of thousands of other grazers such as zebras and gazelles are on their annual migration across the Mara River in the Serengeti heading for Kenya. I’ve seen many wonderfully filmed and narrated documentaries about the Serengeti migration as well as on other parts of Africa, but experiencing it in person brought the energy of the place and all of its creatures alive in ways I did not expect. Being around so much diversity and so much life left me feeling more hopeful than I have felt in a very long time. Seeing babies everywhere, especially the elephants, provided unexpected and welcomed rejuvenation to an overworked mind and a worried soul. Conservation is a tough business.
There are many tales to tell, but allow me to share just one. We were in the Ngorongoro Caldera and we stopped to view a congregation of water birds – storks, herons, ibises, and lapwings – all resting on large gray boulders on the edge of a beautiful pond laced with lush vegetation. A beautiful malachite kingfisher rested in a nearby shrub. On closer examination, those boulders were actually a bloat of hippos enjoying the morning sun. I found myself transfixed surrounded by so many sights, sounds, and smells – everything was alive! Even those boulders in the pond. For a few moments, it seemed as if time stopped and I found myself thinking, “This must be Eden – it is real and it still exists!”
The people we met during our journey were exceedingly gracious and kind, all just trying to live their best lives. I’m sure many do not feel they live in such a treasured land. Humans often tend to see their home ranges as not particularly special. Doesn’t everyone have giraffes walking through their backyards? But there are many who care deeply about protecting their natural heritage, especially the young people. Tanzania has managed to protect over 38% of the country in designated protected areas (ranked 18th in the world – the U.S. is ranked 119th) and ecotourism has become extremely important to the national economy.
Africa is facing tremendous challenges. Perhaps most of which is the surging human population. The countries making up the African continent are expected to account for most of the global population growth over the next few decades while other parts of the world begin to stabilize or even decline. For now, countries like Tanzania are ahead of the game in determining how to balance the needs of the people with the needs of the numerous wild creatures. But pressures are mounting and threading this needle into the future will not be easy. There is much work to be done and the world can’t afford to fail.
Ernest Hemingway once wrote, “All I wanted to do now was get back to Africa. We had not left it yet, but when I would wake in the night, I would lie, listening, homesick for it already.” This never resonated with me before. Now I get it.
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Supporting WCS Canada and its Partners in Planning for Climate Resilience in the Yukon Region
Photo by Grace Simoneau
CBI co-produced the Yukon Spatial Data Tool for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Canada. This tool can be used to visualize spatial datasets, overlay multiple data layers, and extract data for different areas, including user-defined extents. Currently, the tool houses endemic and at-risk plant species in Yukon and Alaska Beringia, including habitat suitability, current and future modeled species distributions, range losses, potential climate-change refugia, and species richness by habitat type. This tool along with the Yukon’s Climate Change Adaptation Planning Atlas built on Data Basin – CBI’s collaborative spatial platform – provides powerful resources for WCS Canada and its First Nation partners to effectively plan for climate resilience.
Listening, Learning, and Walking Alongside Tribes
Photo Source | https://canadiangeographic.ca
CBI’s mission to advance the conservation of biological diversity and an ecologically sustainable planet resonates well with the core vision, cultures, and concerns of tribal groups of North America. We have a lot to learn from tribal traditional knowledge on balancing the needs of nature and humans. Building on one of our scientist’s experience working with the Soliga tribal people of India in community-based conservation, we are embarking on a journey to learn alongside North American tribes, seeking to understand how they conceptualize and manage the ecology of natural resources, and how this knowledge can inform our understanding and practice of conservation science. At the 2023 Tribal Clean Energy Summit organized by the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) we learned how tribes are focusing on strategies to build energy resilience, while ensuring energy sovereignty, and addressing youth and workforce development. In another summit on water organized by ATNI as part of its Changing Currents project, tribal leaders expressed concern about the status of culturally vital First Foods like salmon and the lesser known lamprey and their habitats on land and sea. We also learned that tribal concerns have not been adequately heard and addressed in the offshore wind development off the West Coast of the United States. Both summits reflected a deep sense of resilience, hope, and opportunity for the future among the tribes. Tribal leaders understand that ecology doesn’t stop at reservation borders, and therefore seek mutually beneficial collaborative opportunities to restore and conserve habitats for a diverse array of plants and animals. Walking alongside starts with humility and respect, and forging trusting relationships. We will all benefit if we walk alongside each other, respect each other’s epistemologies, and work towards an ecologically sustainable world. We at CBI have started our journey to listen, learn, and walk alongside tribes in our common mission to restore an ecologically sustainable world.
New Publication
Photo by Yangchenla Bhutia
A CBI scientist was part of a study to research the transpirational dynamics of trees from the tropical montane forests of the Eastern Himalayas. This study was part of a larger project to better understand landscape-level water budgets in these rapidly changing mega-diverse ecosystems of the world. Some of the fun aspects of this study were customizing and testing inexpensive sap flow sensors to measure and estimate transpiration. The study suggests that forests with a dominance of shallow-rooted pioneers are more prone to the negative impacts of drier and warmer winters than primary forests, which are dominated by deep-rooted species. The study provides an empirical understanding of how life-history traits coupled with microclimate can modulate plant water use in the widely distributed secondary montane forests of Eastern Himalaya and highlights their vulnerability to warmer winters and reduced winter precipitation due to climate change.
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Site Check
A Tool to Identify CEQA Streamlining Options in California
CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) became a state law in 1970 and was established to inform decision-makers and the public about the potential environmental impacts of proposed projects and to reduce impacts from approved projects as much as possible. Since its creation, numerous pieces of legislation have been created to help implement the act, which at times has slowed down development at a time when California is experiencing an ongoing severe housing shortage.
The Main Story
To help accelerate housing while simultaneously upholding CEQA environmental safeguards, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) in coordination with the Department of Housing and Community Development contracted with CBI to build an online tool that could help streamline the process. The tool was developed in close collaboration with OPR and is based on public input from partners through interviews, presentations, and workshops. The map-based tool called Site Check is innovative in several ways, but at its core it allows users to see if selected parcels may qualify for an existing streamlining option for housing development. The free tool allows users to map various CEQA definitions and filter parcels based on planning, transportation, and environmental criteria. Site Check is a good first step for developers and public agencies considering how CEQA may apply to a potential housing project.
OPR staff will hold a webinar on July 10, 2023, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. to introduce the tool and demonstrate its capabilities. Register now for the OPR webinar!
If you have any questions about Site Check, please feel free to contact Brianne Masukawa at brianne.masukawa@opr.ca.gov
New Publication
Knowledge Coproduction: Working Together to Solve
a Complex Conservation Problem
A new publication by scientists from U.S. Geological Survey, Point Blue Conservation Science, and CBI shows how knowledge coproduction – the collaborative creation of actionable information by scientists, resource managers, and policymakers – can help identify viable conservation options for a dynamic ecosystem with a complex web of stressors. The authors of the publication “Knowledge Coproduction on the Impact of Decisions for Waterbird Habitat in a Changing Climate” dove deep into this process for wetland conservation in California’s Central Valley, producing computer models that tested management actions under different climate change and environment management scenarios. The study showed that actions to restore wetlands and prioritize their water supply created habitat outcomes resilient to climate change impacts, particularly in March, when habitat was most limited, and that land protection combined with management can increase the ecosystem’s resilience to climate change.
Join CBI at the 2023 Society for Conservation GIS International Conference in August
The Society for Conservation GIS (SCGIS) is excited to announce that registration for the virtual 26th annual SCGIS International Conference is now open!
Interested professionals and the public alike are invited to join this global convening of the conservation GIS community online from August 16-18 for three days of keynote speakers, workshops, presentations, and virtual networking.
We invite you to participate in this exchange of scientific knowledge, tools, and best practices, and to connect with a vibrant and inclusive international community using geospatial technology to advance the conservation of environment, species, land, and cultures.
The Conservation Biology Institute has a longstanding involvement in SCGIS, including representation on the SCGIS Board of Directors and Communications Committee, as well as a partnership co-hosting webinars and meetups to share research and highlight the geospatial work of the broader conservation community.
At the upcoming conference in August, staff from CBI’s Geospatial Science and Modeling Team will present a curated session showcasing tools and technologies that CBI employs to provide geospatial solutions to conservation challenges. Featured work will include applications of CBI’s Environmental Evaluation Modeling System (EEMS), Python, Data Basin, and Google Earth Engine to various case studies.
Come be inspired by the great work happening in our community. We hope to see you there!
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A New Weapon to Combat Climate Change
As summer approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, many are wondering how bad it is going to get this year. Our neighbors in Canada are already experiencing record spring fires with the area burned at around 5 million acres thus far. A large area of Southern Europe and Northern Africa experienced high temperatures in April usually only seen in late summer.
Two approaches are most often reported on how to combat climate change: (1) reducing the burning of fossil fuels for energy via accelerating renewable energy development and (2) increasing the capture of carbon from the atmosphere through reforestation (planting of more forests) and proforestation (allowing forests to grow old). But there is another very important carbon regulator that deserves much more attention – restoring populations of wild animals (or trophic rewilding).
The Main Story…
Trophic rewilding is an ecological restoration strategy aimed at restoring and protecting functional roles of animal species in ecosystems. In a recent publication in Nature Climate Change, 15 co-authors from eight countries report that trophic rewilding can provide huge benefits in reducing atmospheric carbon. Wildlife populations maintain healthy ecosystems which, in turn, pull more carbon out of the atmosphere and store it. The authors provide numerous examples of how wildlife populations on land and sea protect existing carbon stores and enhance further carbon capture.
All of this at a time of extreme, rapid declines in many wildlife populations. According to the Living Planet Report 2020, World Wildlife Fund reports monitored vertebrate wildlife populations have declined 69% on average since 1970. Trophic rewilding requires a new conservation focus that enables wildlife populations to reach meaningful densities again, which will stem the tide of wildlife declines for their own sake while helping to restore carbon balance of the planet at the same time.
Nature is amazingly resilient if given the opportunity. Rewilding activities both large and small are accelerating all over the world (see the Global Rewilding Alliance). We have much to do and time is of the essence. It is truly an “all hands-on deck” moment in history.
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Saving the Forests for the Trees
…And So Much More
Forests once covered approximately 57% of the earth’s land area. Due to expansion of agriculture and other development to support a growing human population, forests now cover only 31% of earth’s surface with many of these remaining forests degraded to varying degrees. Therefore, maintaining and enhancing natural forest cover across the planet is of paramount importance to protect much of the world’s biodiversity (including the trees themselves), provide vital ecosystem services, and for helping to stabilize the world’s climate.
The Main Story…
CBI scientists have been working to support forest conservation throughout North America for decades. But the main story in this month’s newsletter pertains to the recent contributions from two of our CBI Associates. The first comes from long-time CBI Associate Dr. Dominick DellaSala who, along with colleagues, published the first ever mature and old-growth forest map of the conterminous U.S. and emphasize the importance of protecting the remaining old and mature forests to meet national policy goals pertaining to the Paris Climate Agreement and 30 x 30 conservation targets in peer reviewed journal articles.
The second comes from CBI Associate Dr. Bev Law who co-authored a new publication on the importance of protecting large trees for achieving climate change, biodiversity, and forest resilience goals. The paper provides evidence and argues for maintaining old forest protections on National Forest lands wherever possible as they are vital for aligning policy goals pertaining to biodiversity conservation and recovery with climate change mitigation and adaptation.
In the News
While working for the Wildlands Project in the mid-1990s, the call for a continental initiative to connect the remaining natural lands to protect biodiversity and combat climate change was deemed a ridiculous, unrealistic notion by some and a communist plot by others. Since then, numerous conservation organizations have worked tirelessly to promote the importance of landscape linkages and wildlife corridors. On March 21, 2023, the White House issued a memorandum for all heads of federal departments and agencies to promote greater connectivity across terrestrial, marine, and freshwater habitats across the nation. Hopefully this new federal commitment will accelerate connectivity projects across the country.
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Estimating Water System Contamination from Wildfires
A New Web Application Launched
Wildfires in the Western U.S. have increased in intensity and frequency over the last decade with as many as a third of the U.S. population estimated to be at some risk to wildfire. In particular, recent fires in California have caused significant damage to water distribution systems. Both the 2017 Tubbs Fire and the 2018 Camp Fire caused damage to the water distribution systems in Santa Rosa and Paradise, respectively, which resulted in water supplies being contaminated with benzene and other toxic chemicals.
To help communities plan for and recover from these impacts, CBI has partnered with Oregon State University researchers to develop a set of spatially-explicit logic models that estimate vulnerability to water contamination exposure following a large-scale fire event. Model outputs were recently produced for Santa Rosa and Paradise and incorporated into a new web application developed by CBI called the Wildfire Vulnerability Explorer.
Estimates of vulnerability are based on three primary factors: the probability of water contamination, socioeconomic sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. The Wildfire Vulnerability Explorer brings this information together in an interactive map to help officials with both pre-fire planning and post-fire prioritization of recovery efforts. By identifying communities that are the most vulnerable to water contamination exposure, efforts can be taken to better plan for and direct resources to those areas. The pilot approach developed through this study can be readily applied to other regions were wildfire danger is an ongoing concern and where the people living in these areas rely on uncontaminated water distribution systems.
Upcoming Webinar Presentation
Adapting the Environmental Evaluation Modeling System and Community Science for Identifying Postfire Restoration Opportunities
Presented by John Gallo, Ph.D.
CBI Senior Conservation Scientist
Habitat restoration and the management of invasive species are important strategies for conserving biodiversity, especially in recently burned areas which are especially vulnerable to invasion. To help managers prioritize restoration locations, CBI, Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, and U.S. Forest Service collaborated to create a new, replicable tool and approach for better combining field data (including a role for citizen scientists) with decision science. All are welcome to attend this webinar hosted by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife through their Conservation Lecture Series on Tuesday, April 18th from 10:30-12:00 Pacific Time.
Our Team is Growing!
We are thrilled to welcome four talented new staff members to the CBI team
Erin Conlisk, Ph.D. Senior Scientist
As a quantitative ecologist and conservation biologist, Erin Conlisk’s research ranges from applied land management to academic ecology and is typically multidisciplinary, focusing on conservation co-benefits in socio-ecological systems. She often integrates field experiments with quantitative techniques to understand California plant and wildlife responses to climate change, land-use change (including wildfires). Currently, Erin is working on vegetation and wildfire simulation modeling to understand the influence of climate change, urban development, and forest management on California wildfire risk. When Erin is not working you will find her getting outdoors and talking to young people about newfangled things they didn’t have in her day.
Brianna Fair, B.A., B.S. Senior Software Engineer
Brianna Fair focuses on project architecture, technical project management, behavioral analytics, and full-stack software engineering, with a particular interest in UX for its direct link to user behavior and interaction. Brianna has worked in tech since the beginning of her career, leading developing and growing a number of digital departments and software teams throughout the West Coast. Much of her work has been focused on integrating a behavioral analytics layer into software to allow for direct feedback to the user experience, in order to better personalize digital interactions. Most recently, she co-founded a decentralized hydroponic farming initiative, based out of Corvallis, Oregon.
Justin Heyerdahl, M.E.S.M. Geospatial Analyst
With a background in landscape and quantitative ecology, Justin applies ecological systems thinking coupled with computer mapping technology to help understand past, present, and future conditions. By applying data science through storytelling, Justin provides innovative technical expertise to develop practical insight on ecosystems multi-stakeholder audiences that helps inform decision-making. His work aims to identify opportunities for improving adaptive capacity to balance the relationship between people and the planet for a more sustainable, resilient future. Justin resides in San Diego where he enjoys being a frequent patron of the San Diego Zoo & Safari Park and tending to his indoor jungle of houseplants.
Grace Stonecipher, M.S. Geospatial Analyst
Grace applies geospatial technologies to translate data into accessible and actionable conservation solutions. Her areas of expertise and interest include GIS, remote sensing, data visualization, and interactive web maps. Grace has broad experience in conservation, most recently with the Center for Large Landscape Conservation to analyze the potential impacts of linear infrastructure development on wildlife across Asia. She has also worked with the National Park Service to identify disturbances in National Parks using satellite imagery. Grace currently lives in Bend, OR, where she enjoys backpacking, rock climbing, skiing, and jigsaw puzzles when she is not working on the latest conservation challenge.
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Supporting Climate Change Adaptation in the Yukon
New Data Basin Gateway Launched
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) Canada is dedicated to saving wildlife and wild places in Canada through science, conservation action, and inspiring people to value nature. Climate change is one of many factors negatively impacting wild places worldwide, and these impacts are particularly acute at northern latitudes. In response, WCS Canada recently announced a new website, YukonClimateChange.ca, which focuses on providing new tools to aid in land use planning throughout the Yukon with respect to climate change adaptation.
CBI and WCS Canada have been collaborating to bring valuable new species-focused datasets into a flexible, easy-to-use online mapping system open to everyone. WCS Canada researchers have been modeling new species distributions based on a changing climate across the Yukon while CBI has been developing the online mapping resource to support this ongoing work. The mapping support has taken the form of our newest Data Basin Gateway, which is the only online mapping resource of its kind serving this extremely important region of North America. The mapped data, modeling results, and collaborative features provided in the Gateway will be instrumental in providing the means for all interested participants to contribute to a plan that successfully protects the ecological health of this largely intact territory while simultaneously supporting the social wellbeing for the people by focusing more on the landscape of tomorrow rather than the landscape of today. Over the coming months, WCS Canada will be adding more content specific to the Yukon, and we hope the site will make an important contribution for saving this extraordinary place rich with so many natural and social values.
A Good News Story
Saving Native Forests in the U.S. Southeast
How hard work and perseverance can overcome powerful forces an why “the science” matters.
Written by Dr. James R. Strittholt
Executive Director
The environmental news is dominated by grim prognoses regarding the natural world and there are seemingly endless stories illustrating humanity’s collective failures. I often hear that conservationists rarely (if ever) win against the powerful and that “the science” doesn’t matter. I have found working in conservation to be extremely demanding on the mind and often painful to the soul, but I have never given up on my firm belief that “the science” very much matters and that conservationists can overcome the powerful.
The Main Story…
In the most recent newsletter from the Dogwood Alliance, I was thrilled to read about the amazing progress being made against formidable destructive forces on the native forests of the U.S. Southeast, which are some of the most biologically rich forests in the entire country and, for some taxa, in the entire world. Executive Director Danna Smith tells the compelling story about how the biomass industry operating in the region is collapsing after over a decade of expansive destruction. The Dogwood Alliance has led the charge to combat this powerful, heavily subsidized industry with numerous international ties. This continuing David and Goliath story, which is not over yet, is showing strong indicators that are both uplifting and hopeful.
According to Danna Smith, the important antidote to the lies and misinformation from the biomass industry has included the use of hard evidence, the backing of scientists, and the stories of people living in the region. CBI has had the honor to provide some of the foundational science backing over the years – some directly to the Dogwood Alliance, but also in collaboration with their conservation partners. For example, CBI conducted as extensive assessment on the threat from the rapidly expanding chip mill industry on the recovering forests of the Southeast and published a report with NRDC in 2015. Much of the spatial data from the report is also still available on Data Basin to assist in the ongoing battle to protect our native forests.
