IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature

Ecosystem restoration, a field that has its roots in North America with the 1933 restoration of Curtis Prairie in Wisconsin, is a key component of CEM’s ecosystem management mission.  Based on work by environmentalists at University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) was founded in 1988 to advance what 25 years later is recognized world-wide as a central part of ecosystem management.  Keith Bowers, who leads the CEM Thematic Group on Ecosystem Restoration, is a former board chair of SER and a landscape architect who, as founding president of Biohabitats, has managed construction of more than 200 ecological restoration projects in the U.S.  With SER’s international mission, Keith brings hands-on knowledge about global ecosystem restoration to CEM.  For SER’s 5th World Congress on Ecological Restoration in Madison, WI, in October 2013, CEM’s North America & Caribbean region has coordinated the workshop “Assessment to Recovery: Setting priorities for restoring ecosystem capacity.”

It will also:

*    Help us find other members with common interests,

*    Increase our awareness of activities in the region,

*    Promote collaboration amongst members where there is interest,

*    Allow us to link with colleagues beyond the CEM NA&C network.

We expect the yellow pages to grow and broadened with time. It will help us establish “communities of practice” initially based on the Commission’s Specialist Groups, which you may have cited when you joined the Commission. At this stage you are not required to join these specialist groups.