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Dear Colleagues, Bowdoin College will be hosting a symposium on November 8, 2008, "Conservation as if People Mattered: Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas around the Globe and Here at Home," sponsored by the Environmental Studies Program and Center for the Common Good at Bowdoin and The Nature Conservancy. This symposium will feature a number of plenary speakers discussing international perspectives, including the keynote address by Ashish Kothari, who is the 2008 Mellon Global Scholar at Bowdoin and co-chair of the IUCN Theme on Indigenous/Local Communities, Equity, and Protected Areas. It will also feature examples of fishery and forestry based conservation strategies that are being implemented in New England. A brief description of the symposium is provided below along with the official symposium website, which has information about registration and the schedule of events. Apologies for cross-posting. All the best, Phil Camill Director, Environmental Studies Bowdoin College Brunswick, Maine ______ Conservation as if People Mattered: Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas around the Globe and Here at Home http://www.bowdoin.edu/environmental-studies/symposia/indigenous-communi ty-conserved-areas-2008/index.shtml The symposium will provide an opportunity to explore indigenous and community conserved areas as an emerging paradigm for conservation. Both the move towards collaborative management of protected areas, and the recognition of community conserved areas as the oldest form of protected areas, are part of this paradigm shift. The purpose of the symposium is to discuss this model through an exploration of successful case studies and to link this approach in its application to sites in Asia, Central America and locally in the Northeastern United States. Speakers and panelists will discuss the movement towards recognizing community rights and management institutions as an important part of managing sites that are crucial for their conservation values. Examples of types of community conserved programs will include indigenous protected sites, sacred sites, locally managed fisheries, and community forestry programs among others. The format will include three plenary speakers who will explore international perspectives. An afternoon panel of local speakers will provide an overview of community conserved initiatives in Maine and New England. In both sessions there will be time for the participants to engage in discussion. The symposium will conclude with a discussion on next steps. The intended audience for this symposium is members of the conservation and social justice/human rights community, including international and local non-profit organizations, agencies, and faculty, staff and students from colleges and universities who are involved and interested in shifts within the field of community conservation and social justice. The symposium will be open to the public. For more information, contact Eileen Johnson at [log in to unmask] or 207-798-7157.