PARENT SESSION
Organized Oral Session 29: Protecting ecosystem services through private sector partnerships and the capital markets
Organizer(s): BM Kahn and O Loucks
Wednesday, August 10, 8:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Meeting Room 511 B, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal

ESA's Visions Project and engagement with the private sector.

Duke, Clifford^*,1, ¹ Ecological Society of America, Washington, DC

ABSTRACT- ESA′s Ecological Visions project (www.esa.org/ecovisions) identified a set of actions required to stimulate cooperation among diverse groups of researchers, managers, and policy makers to address environmental problems at a global scale. These recommended actions are grouped into: building an informed public; advancing innovative and anticipatory research; and stimulating cultural changes for a forward-looking and international ecology. Stimulating cultural changes includes broadening the engagement of ecologists with the private sector in several ways: 1) active engagement between institutions like ESA and the business community to enhance the understanding and use of ecological knowledge; 2) recognition of ecological researchers, managers, and practitioners as equal partners; 3) active recruitment of a greater diversity of people and their skills to the study of ecology; and 4) encouragement of broader metrics for evaluating scientists. These steps can strengthen both the use of ecological knowledge in private sector decision making and scientists′ understanding of the information needs of business managers.′

Key words: ESA, visions, private sector