Frankfurt Spring School 2018 is already starting to feel like a distant memory. In reality only five months have passed. And yet, in this short time frame, we can observe our pioneering conservationists forging their careers.

During this year’s Spring School blog we focussed amongst others on some of our participants from around the world – our six KfW Foundation scholarship students. To catch up on their stories in detail, follow this link to a previous blog post.

Each scholarship holder brought with them a dream project proposal that would support the conservation of their respective protected areas. To further its aim of supporting pioneering ideas and environmental protection, the KfW Foundation pledged funding to three of the six scholars.

Following the intensive Spring School programme, a series of individual mentoring sessions, and hours upon hours of planning and practice, the scholarship holders presented their project proposals to the KfW Foundation selection committee. The committee was tasked with an impossible decision, believing that each project proposal was deserving of funding. Ultimately, a decision had to be made.
The 2018 recipients of the KfW Foundation scholarship grant are:

 

Jennifer Montoya Lopez (Ministry of Environment, Ecuador) – “Conservation of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncates) at Puntila de Santa Elena Wildlife Reserve”

The salty pacific waters off the coast of Ecuador are the dwelling of a treasured bottlenose dolphin population and a rich variety of marine life. Humans have long fished these waters to support livelihoods, but in recent years overfishing within the protected area and lack of oversight by local fishing authorities have threatened the dolphins’ food source.

Jennifer’s conservation efforts will begin with an awareness campaign encouraging responsible usage of the marine fauna by local fishermen. The project involves generating a strong commitment between the fishing authorities and Ministry of Environment to ensure respect for the existing fishing regulations. It is Jennifer’s hope that the defined actions for the management of the project area will be used as a pilot study for future global conservation projects related to fishing and marine animals.

 

Kevin Ibañez Saravia (Frankfurt Zoological Society, Peru) – “Strengthening the conservation of the Yellow-spotted river turtle (Podocnemis unifilis) in the Heath River basin, Peru/Bolivia”

In the depths of Peru’s Bahuaja Sonene National Park lies the Heath River basin, a stretch of water surrounded by dense tropical rainforest. The area is home to a great diversity of life, including the vulnerable yellow-spotted river turtle. But, it has come under threat in recent years due to increased mining, logging and human expansion within the park.

The eggs of the river turtle are used as a food source for native communities but are starting to become popular in the commercial market of growing nearby cities. The increased demand is driving unsustainable collection rates. Kevin’s project will involve the use of outreach to engage those living in the area, restoring harmony between humans and the national park. He will oversee the creation of beaches protected from human access, a resource efficient method of preserving the Heath river basin turtle population.

 

Joyce Mungure (Tanzania National Parks) – “Bee-keeping for sustainability in villages adjacent to the Serengeti National Park”

The famous megafauna of Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park includes elephants, rhinoceros, lions, buffalo, and many more. The consequences of conflict between these animals and humans can be severe, but the monetary value of some of these species in international markets and the ever-present need for food makes this risk worth it for some. As the population of villages bordering Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park continues to expand, the rate of interaction between wildlife and human communities rises too. Excessive exploitation of the land and poaching are great threats to this bastion of biodiversity.

Joyce’s plan will utilise beehives to provide a new socioeconomic opportunity for villages within the area. It is hoped that providing education on sustainable use of natural resources and the methods of beekeeping will reduce the burdens of poaching and unsustainable land-use on the ecosystem.

 

The busy months ahead will be a great challenge for each of the KfW Foundation grant recipients, but there is no doubt about their dedication and ability to succeed. We are excited to see the effects of their enacted conservation projects as they unfold.

It would be wrong to forget the equal amounts of hard-work and development carried out by the three remaining KfW participants during the 2018 Spring School programme. Lalatiana Randriamiharisoa, Tinh Nguyen Thi, and Muluken Abayneh have returned to their conservation areas around the world, not empty handed, but with an enriched skillset and motivation to become key assets to their respective projects and within the protected ares where they work.

We wish all six 2018 KfW scholarship holders the greatest success in their endeavours during the hard months and years to come.

Let’s face it, for many, the word “finance” sends shivers down spines.  It’s seen purely as an obstacle that has to be surpassed, a chore of sometimes unimaginable difficulty that prevents the crucial conservation efforts from completion…

But of course, if you have no money, you have no project. It can be argued that knowing how to manage your finances is a keystone skill of utmost importance for conservation project management. Knowing the ins and outs of the process might well be the key to success.

This is a belief certainly held by our finance facilitators.
Frankfurt Zoological Society’s head of finance, Florian Becker-Gitschel, began his life in finance at the age of 12. He used a few Deutsche Marks to purchase shares in Pan American World Airways, a company that would unfortunately collapse in 1991, but by this time Florian had made returns on his investment and grew a passion for international financial links. After many years in the private sector, Florian brought his skills to FZS, where he balances the books for the organisation’s global projects.

Similarly, Dennis Hilleman of KPMG Law Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH, started young. Beloved childhood movies such as “My Cousin Vinny” inspired Dennis to become a lawyer. Following this passion, through his education he felt most at home in the world of financial law. Today he follows his golden rule system and knowledge of funding law to thrive amongst the talent of one of Frankfurt’s leading law firms.

So, what does a job in finance look like? It’s easy to imagine a life spent staring at spreadsheets, and throwing calculators at the wall after finding out the numbers yet again don’t add up. Is this really the case? We asked our facilitators a couple of questions to see the hidden side of life in the financial sector.

In your respective positions at FZS and KPMG, what was the greatest challenge you faced? How did you overcome it?

Florian told us that “Every day brings a different challenge, there’s no day with the same tasks. I work with projects on 4 continents across 3 time regions. I must work with colleagues in Asia, Europe, Africa, America, at different times of day, it’s a 24-hour job.”

His greatest challenge is never being able to specify in one area, Florian handles all financial aspects of a project, including the different people and different systems, across different currencies. He can never concentrate on one project, but regardless, he thrives amongst the diversity, handling it all.

Dennis Hilleman was once faced a with an extremely important political mandate. He and his team had lots of pressure to deliver an answer, with just a couple of days to deliver it. “It was a very challenging and stressful time, but we overcame it by keeping a structured work pace. I always tell associates that the best advice is to stay true to your aims, and don’t forget Douglas Adams’ famous words: “DON’T PANIC”. In financial law, the biggest tasks are more easily overcome when they are well-structured.”

And your greatest triumph?

For Florian: “Personally, I’m most proud of the smaller wins. Most commonly, preventing FZS from outside hits.” Some people with a great love for conservation leave legacies for the work of FZS, after they pass. “Sadly, alternate heirs who hope to change the will of the deceased often scramble for the cash. We face big challenges to fulfil the last wishes of those passionate in conservation. When we succeed in enacting the final will of these wonderful people, that’s what makes me feel most proud in this job”.

Dennis too enjoys the smaller scale achievements “Last year had I had a client very dear to me. He had to undergo complex negotiations on a political level. With a great deal of hard work, we managed to conclude a very complex cooperation agreement. The client was extremely pleased, and we advanced his work for him. Ultimately, the work is all about making the clients happy, that’s what drives me.”

What do you most hope our students understand about the world of finances, from your fleeting time together?

Florian Becker-Gitschel – “They have to be aware of finances, they have to spend every euro wisely and correctly. It’s our responsibility to every donor to apply money in the right way. This is not easy. Communication between finance and projects is essential to ensure this. For those who want to be project managers, take care of your finance team (with schnapps ideally), and your work will run smoothly.”

Dennis Hillemann – “If you follow the Golden rules for working with public or private funds, in your future professional work, be it in conservation or any other profession related to finance, you can achieve what you need to achieve.”

 

Thanks very much to our fantastic facilitators for their patience and time in making such a complex topic digestible.

A whole day of our Frankfurt Spring School programme is dedicated to a series of lectures from internationally renowned Professors of Biological Sciences at Goethe University, Frankfurt. Many of our Frankfurt Spring School students are very familiar with the processes of science, but this experience provides some time to reflect on the connections between active scientific research and conservation strategy.

It is doubtless that the world-leading research presented today has great implications for conservation strategy and management, however, it is an all too common observation that the worlds of academia and practical conservation do not overlap as often as they perhaps should.
Why is this? Is it simply a lack of interest and clear communication between the professionals of their respective fields, or is the issue a tad more complex?

To better understand the problem, we asked those that have operated across the blurred lines between these two professions.

A participant of Frankfurt Spring School 2018, Dr Claudia Hermes of the University of Freiburg, provided us with her thoughts:

“In academic research, so much knowledge about threatened species and ecosystems is generated, but it meets a dead end in scientific journals and never makes it out of the ivory tower. Yet these scientific results yield so much information that can be crucial for the conservation of species and ecosystems. However, in order to translate scientific results into a conservation project, scientists would have to engage with conservation practitioners. But here the problem arises. There are just not many meeting points between science and conservation.

So far, I have always been willing to blame the scientific world for this gap. Conservation projects do not provide great scientific merits – mostly, their output cannot be published in high-ranked journals. However, more and more I get the impression that the scientists are alone not responsible, and that conservationists also contribute to the gap by not wanting to engage with scientists.

I did a PhD thesis in conservation biology, where I investigated the responses of endemic species in Ecuador to climate and land-use change. Especially, I focused on a little bird called El Oro Tapaculo, which is now on the brink of extinction due to habitat loss. From my results, I could derive detailed conservation recommendations. But now what? Just knowing how the El Oro Tapaculo might be saved per se does not change its fate: They might go extinct soon if the recommendations are not put into practice. And this is just one example; the same applies for many other young researchers and their study species.

Due to my doctoral studies, I am often being branded as overqualified by conservation practitioners. I came to Frankfurt to learn some of their methods, because I hope that this might help bridging the gap. Let’s not just stand there and watch the El Oro Tapaculo and so many other species being driven to extinction, just because scientists and conservationists do not reach an agreement. In my opinion, the biodiversity crisis we are facing now does not allow for disputes over competences or information. Joining forces can make a change.”

 

Professor Thomas Mueller of the Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Institute (BiK-F), and Goethe University Frankfurt, has carried out decades of research on the movement of migratory animals in the Mongolian Steppe and the effect of human development on this ecosystem. His research has great ramifications for further scientific study and applied conservation.

He told us that: “It first needs to be stated that this is not an omnipresent issue, a lot of NGO’s do great research. A good example are the Mongolian institutions leading the push for conservation of the Eastern steppe ecosystem, which take their direction from employees holding doctorates attained at prestigious international universities. However, there are indeed underlying problems and these are in-part communication based. What the conservation community needs is not necessarily what scientists do. Scientists go into a project area, collect their data, and take it with them. While the vast majority of scientists are sympathetic to the outcome of conservation efforts, ultimately there is no primary benefit for them to engage with conservation, as the currency of a scientist is the publication of academic papers. In the conservation community, the feeling is that more direct action is required to tackle conservation challenges, an end that the study-focussed research will not achieve.

What’s needed are essential researchers – field ecologists – to become more embedded within the conservation community. NGO’s should consider employing scientists to carry out the research required for the success of conservation progress, while allowing them the freedom to publish academic papers. This would cover some ground in satisfying the overall ambitions of the NGO and personal career goals of their academic employees.

From a scientific perspective, you do not become a professor because your research impacts conservation, you need a successful career of high-impact scientific study. Perhaps such research can shift to become more conservation orientated. Already, there are good incentives from national German funders for research to be inter-disciplinary. To attain funding, you need the involvement of alternative conservation stakeholders.

Overall, the issue is not the end of the world, but between scientists and conservationists, more appreciation for each other is required.”

 

Professor Meike Piepenbring, an expert mycologist of the Institute of Ecology, Evolution and Diversity, Goethe University Frankfurt, added her input:

“During the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity in Rio de Janeiro, fungi were not mentioned once, and as a result were branded “the orphans of Rio”.  Fungi, plants, and other lesser known organisms form the basis of ecosystems, and are well studied by academics, but are often ignored in conservation efforts. Of course, conservation requires funding, and “exciting” animals are what generate funding. We therefore need public engagement regarding lesser known forms of life, and subsequent stakeholder involvement to make a difference in the short term. In the long-term, conservationists aware of these issues are what will solve the problem.”

Despite these challenges, the future looks bright.

Evidence that academics and conservationists are actively collaborating in the world is not too hard to find.
Efforts to conserve the critically endangered Saiga antelope are built from a continuous channel of discussion between NGO’s and a number of international research institutions and universities. As we saw today, the work of Professor Georg Zizka and his team, on the habitat mapping of Frankfurt, is essential in driving conservation of the surprisingly diverse city wildlife.

To top it off, our Frankfurt Spring School students are taking the knowledge of these challenges with them into the world of conservation. With them leading the fight, there’s a great chance this gap will seem a lot smaller before long!

With the first week of the 2018 Frankfurt Spring School on Conservation Project Management already behind us, we talked to two of our students, Claudia Hermes and Zsófia Puskás, to hear about why our students are here and what they’ve learnt so far.

What is your background prior to arriving at Spring School 2018?

Claudia: “I come from Freiburg, where I finished my PhD thesis last year, working on nature conservation in Ecuador.”

Zsófia: “I come from Vienna, I studied wildlife ecology and game management and finished my master thesis last year which was about wild boar population dynamics and management.”

What are your motivations for attending Spring School 2018? Is there anything in particular you’re hoping to gain?

Claudia: “I came to the Spring School to gain some insights into how a conservation project is actually run. So far, I have been involved in carrying out research on conservation problems, but I am wondering what all my scientific results are actually worth if they are not applied in an actual conservation project. I hope that the skills I am going to learn at the Spring School help me to set up practical projects to conserve biodiversity, which hopefully contribute to making a change.”

Zsófia: “I applied for the Spring School on Conservation Project Management, because I am motivated to do something for nature conservation. This Spring School is a great opportunity to be more competent and improve my chances to find a job in nature conservation.”

How did you find the first week of this year’s event?

Claudia: “The module on project planning was seriously great. Martin and Nick are great teachers. I sometimes came across things like problem trees and logical frameworks which I had never really understood before, and after this module I not only understand them, but I’m also able to create them myself!”

Zsófia: “This module made so much clearer what I have done wrong in the past because it has never been taught. I found it really great not just giving us the theory of “how to make it” but asking us to actively do the task in the real time. We challenged our minds to think logically and worked in a group to find out what the problems and solutions were. Learning by doing is the best practice anyway and I really enjoyed it.”

 

Thanks to Martin Davies, Nick Folkard and all of our students for a fantastic first week! After a well earned rest we’ll get right into week two.

2017 saw the great success of the first ever Frankfurt Spring School on Conservation Project Management. 24 students and young researchers from various European nations, as well as six international KfW Foundation scholarship holders from Guyana, Indonesia, Nepal, Peru and Zimbabwe participated in the month-long event. A few of our students gave us their thoughts following graduation:

Katrin Hohwieler (Wien): The Conservation Project Management Spring School was a once in a lifetime experience for me. The four weeks were full of exciting topics, presented by people who have been working in the field and know what is important. It was incredibly well organized and if I could, I’d do it again!
Abhinaya Pathak (Nepal): It is the best platform to learn diverse subject matter efficiently in short time and in interactive ambiance from multiple stakeholders
Tessa Schardt (Frankfurt): I achieved the skills to bring my biological knowledge into the real world – putting practical use to a theoretical background, getting introduced to a very broad and complex topic via diverse approaches and different points of view.

With many speakers and partner organisations returning this year, as well as some new faces, we can’t wait to begin.