Inspirational Exchanges at the Conservation Measures Partnership 2017 Members’ Retreat

Story from Caroline Stem, Foundations of Success. Caroline is the General Coordinator for the Conservation Measures Partnership and is also a member of CCNet. 

CMP Members' Retreat, January 2017, Florida, U.S.A. Photo: Rich Belfuss, International Crane Foundation

CMP Members’ Retreat, January 2017, Florida, U.S.A. Photo: Rich Belfuss, International Crane Foundation

 

In January 2017, Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP) members from around the globe gathered at White Oak Conservation Center in Florida, U.S.A. to share experiences, challenges, and innovations and to consider how to maintain and grow CMP as a vibrant community of practice.

As tends to happen when you get a bunch of OS geeks together, the energy ran high, and participants walked away enthused about all the cool work the OS community is doing. Some highlights include:

  • Framing Our Adaptive Management Message: This session focused on how can we more effectively communicate why adaptive management matters. CMP formed a working group to explore this topic and is now contracting Frameworks Institute for professional assistance.
  • Bright Spots: We heard lots of great stories about challenges and successes – including a presentation from Lilian Pintea, at Jane Goodall Institute (the winner of the Open Standards Adaptive Management Case Study Competition) about lessons learned from using the Open Standards to continuously adapt and improve community habitat conservation strategies in Gombe, Tanzania and elsewhere.
  • Technical Sessions: The mix of sessions addressed timely topics for many CMP members – from real-world approaches to simplifying and adapting the Open Standards to experiences with engaging funders to gathering and using evidence for reporting and adapting.
  • Working Group Sessions: Members made solid progress on thinking through topics related to potential new and existing initiatives. Potential new initiatives included: CMP Self-Assessment, Spatial Open Standards, and Online Training. Ongoing initiatives included: Human Wellbeing, Next Round of OS Revisions and Guidance, and OS Operationalization and Data Standards.

More information about this gathering can be found here.