Participants and instructors in the course.

Scarlet ibis (Eudocimus ruber) in a mangrove treeIn May 2016, staff from the CSF Brazil team travelled to the Salgado Paraense region, located on the northern coast of the state of Pará.  Their goal was to collect important information as part of our project on the sustainability of mangrove ecosystems. This project seeks to sensitize the government and society to the benefits these ecosystems provide, and make recommendations about economic instruments that could be used to promote financial sustainability of protected areas.

Photo credit: Daniel Kieling.

Brazilian mangroves. Photo credit: Freya Fennwood . Mangroves are a key ecosystem contributing to biodiversity and flood protection on a local and regional level. Unfortunately most people are unaware of the ecosystem services provided by mangroves. As a result, overfishing and pollution threaten this critical habitat.

Economic Valuation of Ecosystem Services Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, India March 14-17, 2016 CSF Training Director Kim Bonine with course participants.

Native Kudu. In September, CSF led several modules in a four-day workshop in Okahandja, Namibia sponsored by the GIZ ValuES program. ValuES is a global project that helps decision-makers integrate ecosystem services into policy making, planning and implementation of specific projects. A key element of the program is training on the selection and application of methods and tools for the assessment and valuation of ecosystem services. The Namibia course is one of several regional training courses taking place around the world in 2015 and 2016.

Este video es realizado por CSF en el marco del Consorcio Paisajes Indígenas de la Iniciativa para la Conservación en la Amazonía Andina de USAID . El video muestra las características y resultados del análisis hecho a las propuestas existentes para la interconexión vial entre las ciudades de Pucallpa (Perú) y Cruzeiro do Sul (Brasil) que atravesarían la Amazonía de ambos países.

Photo credit: Fernanda Preto There’s no Wikipedia page so you can be forgiven for suspecting that I’m making it up. But Conservation Economics is actually being practiced by a bunch of serious people engaged in one of the most profound challenges of our time - averting massive losses in the diversity of Earth's life forms. So if it doesn’t exist, it’s time we brought it into being. Here goes: