Conservation Strategy Fund's Economic Tools for Conservation training course will be offered next year in Micronesia thanks to a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and a partnership with 2010 international course graduate Willy Kostka and the Micronesian Conservation Trust (MCT).

The course will be CSF's first in the Western Pacific region.

The training will support conservation of marine and forest resources in Micronesia by equipping conservation practitioners, natural resource managers and community leaders with the principles and tools of conservation economics.

Solving our global climate crisis hinges on doing a number of things right. One is slowing - eventually stopping - deforestation, which now accounts for 15-20% of global greenhouse gas emissions. To do that we need to know how much stopping deforestation costs and where on the Earth's vast tropical belt it can be done most cost-effectively. With the support of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, CSF has designed an "opportunity cost" analysis method that will work at the level of individual farms and single land uses and be scalable up to the level of entire regions.

Rondang Siregar is an Indonesian biologist whose passion is protecting the wild orangutans of her native country. She recently attended CSF’s 13th annual Economic Tools for Conservation course at Stanford University where she and 27 other conservationists from around the world gathered to learn how economic tools could help them succeed.

Watch the video below to hear Rondang explain how CSF’s economic training, combined with her skills as a biologist, could help her protect these noble and endangered apes.

Carlos Soria was among the first 22 conservationists to receive his economics education from CSF, back at our first course in 1999. The Peruvian lawyer was named this month as the new General Secretary of Peru's entire collection of national protected areas. Carlos has distinguished himself over the years at the Instituto del Bien Común (IBC), in the national ombudsman's office (Defensoría del Pueblo) and other key positions. As head of SERNANP (the Spanish acronym for the park service) he will oversee 73 nationally protected areas covering around 15% of the country's territory. They span a wide diversity of habitats, from Amazon jungles to high Andes reserves and marine parks.