http://www.inform.umd.edu/SCB

SOCIETY FOR CONSERVATION BIOLOGY ANNOUNCES ANNUAL MEETING

In June 1999 the Society for Conservation Biology will hold its annual meeting in College Park, MD, on the campus of the University of Maryland. We anticipate that this will be the largest meeting ever for this society, which for the past decade has been the fastest growing biological society in the country. This will be the first meeting held in the United States by the society in 3 years (the previous 2 were in Australia and Canada), and we expect that about 1,200 professional conservation biologists from around the world will attend the 5-day meeting (17-21 June). We hope that many people from federal agencies and non-government organizations in the Washington DC area will attend the meeting. The meeting's audience will include a large proportion of the people who teach courses in conservation biology at schools around the country, as well as many of the researchers working in the field. Additional areas of interest to the audience will include sustainable development, ecological economics, and policy related to development and conservation. I am writing to you to make sure you know about the meeting, to ask your help in advertising it in your organization, and to ask whether your organization is interested in taking part as a sponsor or participant.

The theme for the meeting is "Integrating policy and science in conservation biology"; a plenary meeting and three symposia will address this topic. This theme was chosen to highlight and take advantage of the meeting's proximity to both state and federal capitals, as well as many of the major NGOS, multinational banks, and federal agencies that play a role in national and international conservation efforts. These are the source of most of the policy that now underlies conservation efforts.

The meeting will begin with a reception and plenary session on Friday 17 June, continue with three days of symposia, contributed paper and poster sessions, and conclude with optional field trips beginning on 21 June. As additional information about the meeting becomes available it will be posted to the meeting web site, SEE ADDRESS ABOVE. Deadlines (later ones are tentative) include:

and $5,000. The funds generated by such sponsorships will help with scholarships for participants (especially students) from underdeveloped countries who would otherwise be unable to attend the

meeting. Sponsorship provides all of the benefits described below for exhibitors.

Organizations that cannot participate as sponsors can still have a presence at the meeting as exhibitors. Commercial exhibitors at the meeting will be displaying books, journals, and research equipment from 18-20 June, probably in the Student Union. Depending on the availability of space we will either put NGO exhibitors in the same room, or an adjacent one. These exhibits will also be accessible to the general University community (which includes 35,000 students and 2,800 faculty members). Commercial exhibitors will be charged $600 for their spaces at the meeting, but we will offer the same space to NGO exhibitors for $350 (if your organization is a small one for which this poses a significant burden, please contact me). For organizations that cannot attend the meeting we 'II offer the o tion of sending material that we will display for you. Exhibitors can send us a 100wi

word description of their company or publications that we will include in the program along with address information.

Information about the meeting is available on the web site www.inform.umd.edu/SCB Please

let me know if there is someone else that I should be writing to at your organization. Thanks.

Sincerely,

Dr. David W. Inouye

Dept. of Biology

University of Maryland

College Park, MD 20742

301-405-6946

di5Ca)umail.umd.edu