Thursday, April 9, 2009

Student Research Opportunity: Conservation Communication

The Caribbean Marine Protected Areas Management Network and Forum (CaMPAM) would like to invite one, or a team, of your students to conduct a practical research project to evaluate the effectiveness of CaMPAM's network communication tools and activities based on the opinions of our membership.

CaMPAM was established in 1997 by 50 marine protected area (MPA) managers from 22 countries. Coordinated by UNEP-CEP since its inception, CaMPAM has increased its membership to ca. 300 members, and is working in partnership with key institutions in the region, namely the Gulf and Caribbean Fisheries Institute (GCFI), NOAA's National Sanctuary and Coral Reef Conservation Programs and its International Office, The Nature Conservancy, Bucoo Reef Trust, etc. Our mission is: "the enhancement of marine and coastal area management in the Wider Caribbean Region through sharing and collaboration to strengthen our national and regional systems of existing and future marine and coastal protected areas".

CaMPAM serves as the only professional platform for MPA practitioners in the Wider Caribbean region. Our membership is drawn from MPA practitioners including MPA managers, scientists and policy-makers. We seek to meet the needs of the Caribbean MPA community with an ever-expanding resource base, innovative approaches to communication and effective tools for networking. In an effort to better meet the changing needs of our membership, we would like to determine our members' views on issues such as:

How effective are CaMPAM's communications tools at bringing together and sharing information that is of interest and practical use to MPA practitioners?

How useful are the information resources that CaMPAM makes available to our membership?

How might we improve the network and the tools we use so as to more effectively share information and encourage our membership to act upon the knowledge they gain?

We don't have any funding available for this work, but we can provide the student(s) conducting this research with the relevant contact information for our membership, with data drawn from CaMPAM's archives and reports, and with quality guidance by an experienced academic supervisor. The student or the group, should be able to interview and gather information from both Spanish and English-speaking MPA practitioners.

We encourage you to share this invitation with your students, and would ask that they reply to us by May 15th, with any queries or to indicate your/their interest in taking up this opportunity.


Georgina Bustamante, Ph.D.
Coordinator
Caribbean Marine Protected Area Managers Network and Forum

"A social network for enhancing MPA effectiveness in the Wider Caribbean through communication and capacity building tools"

Hollywood, Florida
Tel./fax (request) +1 (954) 963-3626
Mobile +1 (305) 297-6995

email: gbustamante@bellsouth.net
skype: yoyibustamante

CaMPAM web sites:
http://www.gcfi.org/campam/CaMPAM.htm
http://cep.unep.org/about-cep/spaw/campam-network-and-forum

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