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Top Conservation Students at Duke Conference March 16 - 18

Students from North, Central and South America will take part in the conference, whose aim is to create a hemisphere-wide network of future conservation scientists

More than 100 college students from North, Central and South America will take part in the 2005 Student Conference on Conservation Science, March 16-18, at Duke University.

The conference's aim is to overcome the geographic and economic barriers that separate students to create a hemisphere-wide network of future conservation scientists, said Luke Dollar, a doctoral student at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.

"We want to bring together the Americas' next generation of environmental leaders -- especially those from developing countries that are home to many of the hemisphere's most pressing environmental hotspots," Dollar said. "The goal is to share our findings, broaden our horizons and form professional friendships that can lead to future collaborations."

Presentation topics include forest fragmentation, endangered and threatened species, invasive species, coral reef conservation, marine fisheries, remote sensing technologies and conservation policy and management.

In addition to student presentations, the conference also features lectures by five of conservation science's biggest names: Paul Ehrlich, director of Stanford University's Center for Conservation Biology; Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology at the Nicholas School; Daniel Simberloff, director of the University of Tennessee's Institute for Biological Invasions; John Terborgh, James B. Duke Professor of Environmental Science at the Nicholas School and director of Duke's Center for Tropical Conservation; and David Wilcove, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University.

The five guest lectures are open to the public, but registration is required. Registration details, along with a complete conference agenda, are online.

The talks, to be held at Love Auditorium in the Levine Science Research Center, are scheduled for:

-- Wednesday, March 16, with Wilcove speaking at 9:20 a.m. and Terborgh speaking at 8 p.m.

-- Thursday, March 17,with Ehrlich speaking at 8:30 a.m. and Pimm speaking at 8 p.m.

-- Friday, March 18, with Simberloff speaking at 8:30 a.m.

The Nicholas School is hosting and co-sponsoring the event. Sponsorships by the Occidental Petroleum Corp. and the Ford Foundation are funding full scholarships that enable students from Ecuador, Brazil, Mexico, Costa Rica and other developing countries to attend and present at the conference.

Journalists who wish to attend any of the five guest lectures or who need more information can contact Luke Dollar at (646) 489-7299, (919) 613-8147 or luke@duke.edu, Tim Lucas at (919) 613-8084 or Nancy Kelly at (919) 810-5262.