• June 18-19, 2008: 2008 Biennial Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units (CESU) Network National Meeting, Washington, DC.

• May 5, 2008: Spring 2008 RM-CESU Executive Committee Meeting, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO. Notes
  Additional handouts: BLM's Healthy Lands Inititiative: Overview;; New Mexico-Landscape Restoration San Juan Basin and Permian Basin; Utah-Watershed Restoration; Southern Idaho-Snake River Plain;Colorado Landscape Conservation
  Intership Proposals: Presentation and Handout

• April 23- 24, 2008: International Exchange: Mexican Delegation Visits RM-CESU A  delegation of Mexican researchers, protected area managers and a representative of The Nature Conservancy of Mexico and their Colorado State University host, Ryan Finchum, spent April 23- 24 at the University of Montana campus visiting RM-CESU Administrators (Perry Brown, Lisa Gerloff, Christine Whitacre and Kathy Tonnessen) and UM Faculty (Johnnie Moore – Geosciences, Kerry Foresman – Biological Sciences, Wayne Freimund, Society and Conservation, Dave Naugle – Wildlife Biology, and Doug McDonald – Anthropology).  This distinguished group is interested in developing and piloting a formal cooperative agreement between the Mexican National Protected Area System (CONANP) and a major research university the Colegio de la Frontera Sur (ECOSUR) which has 120 researchers on 5 campuses in southern Mexico. The goal of the cooperative agreement will be to focus more university research on needs identified by managers and which would help them with the science-based management of Mexico’s protected areas.  The hope is that this pilot project and the type of agreement and protocols that are developed will serve as a model for the rest of the country. The Mexicans came to the US to learn about and draw on our experience with the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Units, as well as other cooperative programs/partnerships such as Wildlife Coop Units and NPS Resource Learning Centers.

• April 23, 2008: Western Airborne Contaminants Assessment Program: A workshop for Montana, Missoula, MT. Glacier National Park, the NPS-Air Resources Division and the Rocky Mountains CESU hosted a one-day workshop in Missoula, MT to explore the “next steps” in research, monitoring and public outreach related to the results of the NPS-funded Western Contaminants Assessment Program conducted in Glacier NP.  The results for Glacier were a subset of a larger air contaminants assessment conducted by the EPA, University of Washington, Oregon State University, the USDA-Forest Service and the National Park Service. 
  The workshop included overview presentations by the EPA and University investigators, along with a question and answer period.  The workshop participants included NPS staff, State of Montana agency personnel (Agriculture, Fish, Wildlife and Parks, Department of Health, Flathead Basin Commission, DNRC), a representative from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribes, a representative from the Montana Governor’s office, USFS – Flathead National Forest, Region 8 of the Environmental Protection Agency and representatives from British Columbia, Ministry of the Environment and Waterton Lakes National Park.  The agencies came up with a strategy for preparing a coordinated “message” to give to the fishing public that may have concerns about freshwater fish contaminated by dieldrin, DDT and mercury.  The group exchanged information on the best approaches to monitor the extent of contamination in fish in Montana, and to attempt to determine the possible effects on fish-eating birds and mammals throughout the Crown of the Continent Ecosystem.

• March 25-27, 2008 “Wilderness Stewardship in the Rockies 2008," Glacier National Park, MT. RM-CESU: The University of Montana, Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center and the National Park Service, Intermountain Region provided the organization and support for the fifth annual Wilderness Workshop.  This meeting, held over three days at Glacier NP, was attended by wilderness professionals from the USDA-Forest Service, Parks Canada, the University of Montana, and park staff from Glacier, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Great Sand Dunes, Dinosaur, Olympic, Rocky Mountain and Saguaro.   This informal workshop covered topics from “Risk and Safety in Wilderness” to “What is Wilderness Worth?”, and focused on exchange of information among the managers from different agencies.  Agenda; Notes

• February 20-21, 2008: Rocky Mountain Cluster Resources Meeting, National Park Service, Lakewood, CO. Rocky Mountain Cluster Resources Managers Meetings are held annually and are intended to share resource information among resource managers of member parks. Meetings are attended by Chiefs of Resources from the 14 Rocky Mountain Cluster parks and Kathy Tonnessen and Christine Whitacre (CESU representatives).
  

PAST RM-CESU ACTIVITIES

RM-CESU Project:

Culturally Scarred Trees in
Glacier National Park

Recent studies demonstrate culturally
scarred trees are indicators of prehistoric
and historic travel corridors and campsites – providing information on many aspects
of Indian society, including subsistence
patterns, technological innovations,
population movements, epidemics,
acculturation, and cultural continuity.
Read more.

• September 28 - October 2, 2008: Pathways to Success 2008: Integrating Human Dimensions into Fish and Wildlife Management, Estes Park, Colorado, USA.  This is the inaugural year of this international conference and training program focused on increasing human capacity for global human-wildlife coexistence. The program will address the myriad issues that arise as people and wildlife struggle to coexist in a sustainable and healthy manner. This event is sponsored by the National Wildlife Federation, the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Routledge: Taylor & Francis, The Wildlife Society, Colorado State University, The University of Montana, Cornell University, and other leading organizations in the wildlife field. Proposal Deadline: May 1, 2008.

• September 8-11, 2008: Third Interagency Conference on Research in the Watersheds, Estes Park, CO. Scientists, water managers, and stakeholders will come together to present research and discuss how to best reach common goals during our uncertain future. In particular, adaptive management will be presented as an appropriate tool to leverage decision making, science, and monitoring to the benefit of all. The conference will have both oral and poster presentations from universities, government agencies, industry, and stakeholders. Field trips and activities are planned to acquaint participants with alpine and montane ecosystems, hydrology, geomorphology, and biogeochemistry. Abstracts due May 2, 2008. Sponsors include RM-CESU partners: USGS, NPS, USFS, BLM, and NRCS.

• July 12-15, 2008: Annual Hazards Research and Applications Workshop, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO. The Annual Hazards Research and Applications Workshop is designed to bring members of the hazards research and applications communities together for face-to-face networking and discussion about current issues and trends that affect how society deals with hazards and disasters. It will provide a dynamic, provocative, and challenging forum for the diverse opinions and perspectives of the hazards multidisciplinary community. 

• June 4-6, 2008. Shifting Baselines & New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformaiton of the American West, Natural Resources Law Center Annual Summer Conference, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

• June 2-4, 2008: Communicating About Climate Change: A Governor’s Initiative Toward a Sustainable West, Denver Inverness Hotel. Sponsored by: Warner College of Natural Resources, Colorado State University. Overall Purpose: To improve coordination of climate change communication and education efforts by public land management agencies in the Western U.S. This invitation-only event will bring together approximately two dozen key representatives from public land management and environmental agencies with a long and trusted history of expertise on environmental topics. Day 1 will include presentations of key information about climate change and effective communication strategies. Presenters will include scientists from the Nobel prize-winning IPCC and experts on environmental communication. Day 2 will be an interactive session engaging participants in development of a core communication strategy. The strategy will identify core message content as well as processes for reviewing and disseminating messages to ensure broad adoption and implementation by agencies throughout the Western U.S.

• May 22-23, 2008: Restoration Institute 2008: Alien Invasive Species Management, University of Victoria in Victoria, BC. Abstracts for oral presentations are due on 2/22/08. UM's College of Forestry and Conservation is co-sponsoring this meeting.

• May 20-23, 2008: Comprehensive Resource Management in the NPS Intermountain Region, Tucson, AZ. The conference is an opportunity for park managers, resource managers and specialists, and other participants to present and discuss timely cultural, natural, and integrated resource management issues facing parks in the Intermountain Region.

• May 8-13, 2008: Canadian Parks for Tomorrow 40th Anniversary Conference, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. University of Calgary will celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the 1968 Canadian National Parks, Today and Tomorrow Conference, one that helped define the role of parks in Canada in light of international experience. Since then Canada has emerged as a world leader in parks and protected areas. Four decades after 1968 Canadians and global partners will again gather at the University to consider the role of parks and protected areas in our country and internationally.

May 13-15, 2008: Forging a Partnership Between Recreation and Wildlife Planners, Missoula, MT. Co-sponsored by the National Association of Recreation Resource Planners and the Organization of Wildlife Planners, Forging a Partnership Between Recreation and Wildlife Planners will provide a forum for planners in both fields to learn from each other, generate new ideas for collaborative approaches to planning, and foster camaraderie among recreation and wildlife professionals.

May 15-18, 2008: Understanding and Managing Amenity-led Migration in Mountain Regions, Banff, Alberta, Canada.

May 20-22, 2008: The History of Park Planning and Design, Charlottesville, VA. Part 1 of Designing the Parks: A conference in two Parts examining the design of buildings and landscapes in regional, state and national parks. Co-sponsored by the NPS, George Wright Society, University of Virginia, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

June 9-12, 2008: MtnClim 2008 Mountain Climate Conference, Silverton, CO.

June 6-8, 2008: Symposium on Archaeological Storage, Los Angeles, CA

June 10-14, 2008: 14th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM), Burlington, VT. The theme of the 2008 Symposium is “People and Place: Linking Culture and Nature”, and will 1) emphasize the human dimensions of environmental and natural resources issues, 2) include the broad array of social science disciplines and related fields of study, and 3) illustrate the interdisciplinary, cooperative, and collaborative character of research and management.

June 23-27, 2008: 5th International Weed Science Congress, Vancouver BC. Go to website, click on "call for abstracts" for full instructions. Submit by January 15, 2008.

July 13-17, 2008: Society for Conservation Biology Annual Meeting, “From the Mountains to the Sea,” Chattanooga, TN. 

September 22-27, 2008: The '88 Fires: Yellowstone and Beyond, at the Snow King Resort, Jackson Hole, Wyoming.  Sponsored by the International Association of Wildland Fire and the Association for Fire Ecology, this meeting will take the place of the Biennial Scientific Conference on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.  Deadline for abstracts is April 15, 2008.

September 28 - October 2, 2008: Pathways to Success 2008: Integrating Human Dimensions into Fish and Wildlife Management, Estes Park, Colorado, USA.  This is the inaugural year of this international conference and training program focused on increasing human capacity for global human-wildlife coexistence. The program will address the myriad issues that arise as people and wildlife struggle to coexist in a sustainable and healthy manner.

October 9-10, 2008: Montana Chapter of the Society for Conservation Biology FIRST ANNUAL Research Symposium, "Applying Conservation Science to Action," Missoula, MT. Call for Abstracts - due June 6

October 14-16, 2008: Alaska Park Science Symposium will be held in conjunction with Beringia Days 2008 International Conference, Fairbanks, AK

November 5-8, 2008: "Climate, Ecosystems, and Resources of Eastern California" Conference, Bishop, CA. Focused on the eastern Sierra Nevada, White Mountains and adjacent regions, this meeting will feature invited talks on climate variability, and physical, ecological, and management responses to climate.  Concurrent sessions with invited and contributed talks and posters will address specific topics within these broad themes.  Evening lectures, banquet dinner, and field trips are planned.  Early registration and abstract submission deadline is August 19. 

November 8-12, 2008: 15th Annual Wildlife Society Conference, in Miami, FL.

December 9-11, 2008: The Present and Future of Park Planning and Design, San Francisco, CA. Part 2 of Designing the Parks: A conference in two Parts examining the design of buildings and landscapes in regional, state and national parks. Co-sponsored by the NPS, George Wright Society, University of Virginia, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, and The Cultural Landscape Foundation.

March 2-6, 2009: George Wright Society Biennial Conference, in Portland, OR. 

The Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center is currently offering the following online training courses:

• Wilderness Stewardship Planning Framework
• Wilderness Act and Minimum Requirements Decisions
• Wilderness Act

All courses are FREE for Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service and National Park Service employees.  Other federal or nonfederal employees will be charged a registration fee.  Registration is open until June 6, 2008.  For more information visit:  http://carhart.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=elearning

Summer Session 2008, Flathead Lake Biological Station, University of Montana
The 2008 summer session begins June 9 and concludes August 1. This year FLBS are offering 2-week and 4-week courses. The courses carry graduate and undergraduate semester credits at the 300 and 400 levels. Credits earned at FLBS are transferable to degree plans in Wildlife, EVST and Biological Sciences at The University of Montana, and also to degree programs at most colleges and universities. $30,000 in scholarships available. Application deadline May 19, 2008. See the link for details: http://www.umt.edu/flbs/Education/default.htm

"Working Effectively With Tribal Governments" Course Now Online
February 1, 2008—Working Effectively With Tribal Governments, a new online training course, is now available to provide federal workers with better understanding and greater knowledge of the intricacies and issues involved in working effectively with Indian tribes. The training course was created by an interagency group that prominently included Monique Fordham, program specialist in the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation's Native American Program. In recent years, the federal government has put a great deal of emphasis on the importance of public employees understanding the government-to-government relationship that exists with Indian tribes. Read more...
Go to www.GoLearn.gov to take the course.

Survey of Natural Resources Distance Learning Courses at RM-CESU Partner Institutions

• Request for Interest (RFI) for Socioeconomic Support, Environmental Impact Statement, General Management Plan Amendment for Park Addition Lands, Petrified Forest National Park (open to Rocky Mountain CESU and the Colorado Plateau CESU only) Responses to this Request for Statements of Interest/Qualifications will be used to identify potential investigators for a project to be funded by the National Park Service (NPS) which seeks to describe the affected environment and environmental consequences of implementing general management alternatives for lands added to Petrified Forest National Park in 2004.  Approximately $25,000 is available to support this work, to be initiated in FY 2009. Review of Statements of Interest/Qualifications will begin June 16, 2008.

• Consequences of Global Change for Water Quality The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Research and Development (ORD) National Center for Environmental Research (NCER), in cooperation with the EPA Global Change Research Program, announces a competition for projects supporting research into the consequences of climate change for U.S. water quality to support human and aquatic life uses. EPA is interested in the hydrologic and other watershed processes that affect water resources that may be altered by a changing climate. Solicitation Closing Date: May 08, 2008.

• Directory of Federal Grant-Making Programs for Environmentally- Related Education The directory is designed to help meet the needs of the environmental education community for easily accessible and reasonably comprehensive information about federal funding programs. 

• Wenner-Gren Research Grants Basic research in archeology and anthropology funded to $25,000. There are two deadlines each year, May 1st and November 1st. For applications submitted by the May 1st deadline, funding will be available the following January 1st. Under the November 1st deadline, funding will be available the following July 1st.

• Wildlife Conservation Society Research Fellowship Program (annual deadlines: March 15 and September 15) The RFP is a small grants program designed to build capacity for the next generation of conservationists through supporting individual field research projects that have a clear application to the conservation of threatened wildlife and wildlife habitat. We seek projects that are based on sound and innovative conservation science and that encourage practices in conservation that can contribute to sustainable development. Most of the grantees are professional conservationists from the country of research and/or post-graduates pursuing a higher degree. The RFP supports field research in Africa, Asia, and Latin America regardless of the nationality of the applicant. In addition, the RFP accepts applications from Native Americans (US) and First Nation Peoples (Canada) who intend to conduct work on native lands on issues of direct relevance to wildlife. Grants are for up to $25,000 dollars, and are for no longer than one year. The average grant is $10,500.

• Research Fellowship at Rocky Mountain National Park
  Housing , $5,000 stipend and $3,000 for expenses related to research for graduate research conducted during 3-4 months in the Park. (annual deadline: February 1)

• Cooperative State Research, Education and Extension Service Listing of competitive grants and cooperative projects.

• Conservation Trust grants from the National Geographic Society The objective of the Conservation Trust is to support conservation activities around the world as they fit within the mission of the National Geographic Society. The trust will fund projects that contribute significantly to the preservation and sustainable use of the Earth's biological, cultural, and historical resources.
  (open deadlines)

• Western National Parks Association Grants Grants awarded to institutions and individuals for research in National Parks. (September 1st deadline). Grant funding is limited to $7500 per project.

• GRANTS.GOV The Federal government now requires all requests for proposals be listed on-line at http://www.grants.gov. There are instructions on line of how to search for specific topic areas (environment, natural resources, energy) and for specific agencies, e.g. National Science Foundation, Department of the Interior, etc.