Projects for Wildlife Podcast

Mitch Silverstein is the Chapter Manager for the Surfrider Foundation San Diego Chapter. Mitch is a native Californian with a love for all things ocean, wave & beach-related. As an activist, he strives to raise awareness of how our everyday choices affect the ocean & planet, and advocates for sensible environmental policy at a local level. His ultimate goal is to see good environmental stewardship become mainstream, even "cool." Mitch previously led the Rise Above Plastics committee, where he helped achieve several policy victories and expanded the Ocean Friendly Restaurants program. He also served as Vice Chair of the Executive Committee before being hired on as staff. Mitch's #1 priority is empowering volunteers to protect what they love. When not fighting the good fight, Mitch likes to surf, paddle, roller skate, and hang out with his niece.

"Project management", then, is the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements. It has always been practiced informally, but began to emerge as a distinct profession in the mid-20th century. Project management processes fall into five groups and in this episode we focus on Phase 3 Execution! Also, I have a thing for wolves and coexisting with them this year. Since they are under threat for being removed from the ESA and have not recovered to their original population numbers I feel that we need to keep talking about wolves. They are the closest mammal to our beloved dogs. They have family units that resemble human families. They deserve to live in the wild and we are responsible for maintaining habitat for them. I find that recommendations from conservation research gets stuck in the virtual universe and never finds their way out into the space for people to implement. Through the Project Management Case Study Series I want to use project management techniques and tools to take those recommendations to the next level and create the changes we've already suggested. Let's start exploring the ideas to reduce human/wildlife conflict in populations that are severely threatened by using the mitigations recommendation provided by these studies. I want to demonstrate with project management tools and strategies we can easily take recommendations in a paper and start to apply them. The execution phase is exciting because you get to finally do all the things you planned to do in the planning phase.

Dr. Manuel Varela is a microbiology professor at Eastern New Mexico University located in the small ranch town of Portales, NM. He is the co-author of two books "The inventions and discoveries of the World Most famous scientists and "enter the world of microbiology: interviews of the world's most famous microbiologists.While in graduate school he coined the term "Antiporter Motif" and went on to study microbial physiology at Harvard. After Harvard, he returned to New Mexico where he started his own lab at ENMU. He teaches Microbiology, Microbial Physiology, Immunology, Medical Microbiology, and Virology. Wow… As I say this I realize that these are all courses that I registered for and passed in undergrad! It makes me a bit nervous still to think about those exams! And that was a huge accomplishment because Dr. V is a tough but wonderfully engaging professor. (take a deep breath) He also mentors graduate students and works collaboratively around the world on topics such as bacterial sugar transporters, drug resistance, and discovered multi-drug efflux pumps. In this episode we are going to talk about connection of bacteria and the environment. Dr. Varela's research is showing that food-borne pathogens are becoming antibiotic resistant. These enter our environment through food animals - in waste streams and production. Polluting our water and land. The reduction of antibiotics as a growth mechanism in food animals is now being banned globally - yet there is a concern about resistance and a looming food shortage in the near future. Let's have a look at the importance of bacteria - especially for creating a healthy environment that we promote survival of biodiversity. One more plug before we get started. I know that you may have a special professor or mentor in your life that really saw potential in you - even if you had no idea you had ounce of potential. Dr. V is that professor for me. We've known each other since 1997 when I took my first Microbiology course with him. Over the years he has provided references that supported me acceptance into graduate programs and fellowships - literally he has supported me as I follow my dreams. He has given me amazing advice to help others in education and on my own research pursuits and publication. I am so grateful to Dr. V! If you have a professor or mentor that has changed your life send a Thank You note today!

One of the reasons I launched the Projects for Wildlife podcast was specifically to discuss human-wildlife conflict, what it is, why it exists, and how we can coexist with wildlife. And most importantly how do we set up projects that will create benefits for humans and wildlife. With climate change, loss of habitat, the expanding human population there will be more biodiversity conflicts and challenges - this means more human-wildlife conflict. This prediction has been shared among the scientific community world wide - and it is up to us to decide how to use the best available science to reduce conflict and develop strategies to achieve conservation goals and sustainable living among human populations. There is both a wildlife conservation view point and a human sustainability issue that is at the core of most human-wildlife conflict. If we are to protect wildlife we have to address the human issues. In most countries the first wildlife management strategy used by the government is to kill an animal or population. Even in first world countries like the U.S. - the Wildlife Services Department kills wildlife instead of find non-lethal solutions. In the U.S. there is a change in beliefs on how wildlife are managed. With questions like "how should managers handle human-wildlife conflict, endangered species restoration, and predator control?" In this episode I talk about two different studies about attitudes of conservation and key factors that drive human-wildlife conflict.

William Colaw and Cara Loeb the Founders Critter Facts a business that started as an app and is growing. Critter facts mission is to spread knowledge, create curiosity, inspire appreciation, and foster engagement for wildlife and our environment. They do this by promoting wildlife welfare and supporting conservation efforts. With an entrepreneurial spirit these two critter loving folks found a creative way to educate children and adults with a critter fact sent each day. Let's get into the details on how Critter Facts came into existence… this is a fun story and I know you'll want to stay tuned until the end.

Joe Pietersen is a famous South African rugby player that is passionate about connecting people with rhino and painted dog conservation. He started Nkombe Rhino with partners to help rhinos and painted dogs, but also to give people a sustainable eco-tourism experience in the field. Through education and field work people from all over the world come to love and experience the wildlife he grew up with.

Dr. Emily Young is the executive director of The Nonprofit Institute. She has spent more than 20 years in various positions in philanthropy, as well as higher education. Prior to the University of San Diego, she served as vice president of community impact at The San Diego Foundation, where she was first hired to build its Environment Program in 2000. During her time at The San Diego Foundation, Dr. Young worked with numerous funders and community leaders to catalyze and facilitate regional and statewide collaboratives, developing and implementing grant-making programs around climate change, conservation and youth access to the outdoors, and clean air/water efforts in tribal and other disadvantaged communities. She also managed regional initiatives on arts and culture, civic engagement, education and youth development, and neighborhood revitalization, especially for underrepresented communities. Dr. Young received the 2011 Funder's Network for Smart Growth Nicholas P. Bollman Award for leaders who inspire through values and action, while the Climate Initiative she led received both the 2012 HUD Secretary's Award for Public-Private Partnerships and the City of San Diego's Climate Protection Champion Award. Prior to The San Diego Foundation, Emily was an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, where she taught courses on environment and society, geography, and Latin America. Dr. Young graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a double BA in Ibero-American Studies and Spanish, and a MS in geography. She received a PhD in geography from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Greg Rouse is a professor of marine biology at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. His lab focuses on Animal phylogeny, biodiversity and taxonomy, particularly annelids and echinoderms. He also studies the evolution of life history strategies in marine animals and the evolution of whalefall, hydrothermal vent and methane seep fauna. His lab also specializes in seadragon (Syngnathidae) phylogeny and phylogeography research. He is also the Curator of the Scripps collections. In this episode we go into details about his research, finding a project team, and what it takes to get involved in marine invertebrate research.

This episode is about the Planning phase of project management. I look at the lifecycle phase of project management to tackle the human-lion conflict issue. Recommendations inside of research stay inside the virtual space most of the time - we need to use these solutions to protect wildlife. In the following case study I review all of the these recommendations and explore ideas from a project management perspective to resolve the human-lion conflict. You can use this concept to start planning your wildlife project.