Conservation is rarely a solitary pursuit. Meetings of small and large groups are often critical to making progress. Successful meetings rely on careful planning, clear articulation of goals and processes, attentive facilitating, and prompt follow through. For 20 years I have been convening groups of different sizes from a range of organizations and disciplines to address a broad range of conservation issues.
Examples include:
- Large meetings presenting science to the public (WCS: Osborn Lectures)
- Strategic planning for an organization (Society for Conservation Biology)
- Multi-stakeholder meeting including industry, indigenous groups, government, academia and conservation NGOs (American Bison Society: three meetings)
- The Nature Conservancy’s first ecoregional working group (small group over one year)
- Small inter-organizational meetings focusing on specific conservation topics (Wildlife Conservation Society: White Oak Meetings).
As the Principal at Archipelago I have:
- Organized and run a meeting on One Health for the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (2023).
- Responsible for coordinating and leading a meeting of the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Steering Committee in Malaysia, 2022; and in Kyrgyzstan in 2023.
- Co-organized a meeting of 10 companies and IUCN to share lessons on conservation on non-operational lands (2022)
- Helped organize and run the Global Environment COVID-19 Task Force.
- Organized and co-organized a series of meetings (California, Italy, Hawaii, Singapore) on conservation and synthetic biology
- Responsible for assembling a Taskforce and Technical Subgroup for IUCN to develop a global assessment of the interaction between synthetic biology and biology; based on this assessment draft an IUCN policy document for consideration at the 2020 World Conservation Congress (2017-on-going)
- Organized and led a panel for the U.S. National Park Service on invasive animal species; and a subsequent one on prioritizing invasive animal management in the Pacific region.
- Helped organize and run for the US National Park Service both a strategic retreat for their Threatened and Endangered Species Program and a meeting to explore biodiversity discovery in national parks.
- Helped organize and facilitate the 4th annual meeting of the American Bison Society in Montana for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
- Organized and ran an 80 person global meeting bringing together the conservation community and the synthetic biology community in the U.K.
- Helped organize a global meeting on the Global Environment Facility’s portfolio of mainstreaming held in South Africa.
