PUP is partnering with the Tropical Science Center (CCT) to offer an online course in Spanish on natural and cultural resource condition-based zoning for protected areas in Latin America. The course will take place from March 10 to April 5, 2022, and will be taught by PUP Executive Director Jon Kohl and PUP Technical Service Member Dr. Bernal Herrera-Fernández.

Learn more and register for the course here: https://pupconsortium.wildapricot.org/event-4547727

The five-session Zoom- and Slack-based course, which was discussed in a free introductory webinar (YouTube), seeks to increase collective capacity to effectively and adaptively manage protected areas. The model was developed by the two organizations as an answer to some of the problems that arise when applying the conventional decades-old model of zoning based on the regulation of human uses.

“This approach, designed for developing country protected area managers, reconciles two approaches often required by government park agencies but are incompatible: zoning based on human uses which focuses on punishing and prohibiting human activity and the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation which applies an adaptive management approach to conserving a protected area´s principal conservation objects or priorities,” Kohl said.Notably, CCT and PUP’s previous collaboration on the subject in the Monteverde Cloud Forest Biological Reserve in 2019 produced an article in IUCN’s scientific journal PARKS and a corresponding methodological guide in Spanish

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In accomplishing its goal to spread this new methodology across Latin America, the course and webinar are tailored for practitioners and decision-makers in Latin America (e.g. planners, managers, conservationists). Sessions consist of lectures, and a discussion about the corresponding session theme. For the final project, participants will work in groups to apply the methodology to an area of their selection.

The course costs $129 per participant, which includes:

• Access to the learning platforms

• A certificate signed by the sponsor organizations once the participant completes the final Project

• Updates about the methodology’s progress, if the participant so desires

There is a discount for PUP and CCT members as well as groups of three or more.

Course Instructors: MSc. Jon Kohl                  
Dr. Bernal Herrera-Fernández

The class is full at 50 people, so don’t hesitate to claim your spot now!

Click here for more information and registration in the course.

Press contact: Olivia Parrott publications@pupconsortium.net

PUP plans 3 major initiatives for 2022 to take on a rapidly changing world, and we would like you to be a part, therefore,

We Invite You

On this Giving Tuesday to support PUP, the only non-profit in the world that formally uses a holistic-Integral approach to heritage conservation by

 

• Renewing your membership at your account (upper right corner)
• Joining PUP or
• Making a minimum $10 donation

 

PUP Joins Chilean Consortium to Study Climate Change at the Tip of the World   PUP has joined a large consortium of organizations led by the University of North Texas to build the Cape Horn Center on the southern tip of Chilean Patagonia. This consortium will conduct biocultural conservation action research and work with communities in two biosphere reserves at a sentinel site for global climate change and planetary sustainability. We will begin collaboration with partners in 2022.

PUP Now Building the Integral Toolbox To Confront Complex, Changing Future PUP’s First In-person Staff Retreat and Conference Presentation in Costa Rica In June 2022, PUP will be presenting a panel and individual presentations at the International Association for Society and Natural Resources Conference in June, Costa Rica. Around the conference PUP will be organizing a three-day field trip to sites where PUP has presence. It will be holding a staff retreat and board meeting and perhaps some ancillary training workshops as well. This will be PUP´s first in-person board meeting and retreat since its founding in 2013 and a wonderful time to really showcase our work. Please join us, organized by our Costa Rican country office. Other Initiatives for 2022 Interpretive guide training course in Perú Course based in Costa Rica on condition-based zoning with the Tropical Science Center Holistic management planning in Chiapas, Mexico with HESNAC and CONANP Latin America-wide gap analysis of heritage interpretation (follow up on 2018 First Latin American Congress on Heritage Interpretation) with the Mexican Association for Heritage Interpretation and the Colegio de Michoacan Faculty-led 12-day field trip with an American university on holistic protected area management (planned in 2022, run in 2023) Possible project on endangered vulture conservation in Nigeria, among others.   All of us have already donated to PUP today.   Francisco Valenzuela, Chair of the Board Sherwood Shankland, Board Director Trace Gale, Board Director Stephen Awoyemi, Board Director Jon Kohl, Executive Director Renew your membership at your account (upper right corner) Join PUP or Make a minimum $10 donation   *The opposite of DICE is the PLUS World — Predictable, Linear, Understandable, and Stable. This world does not exist yet planning and management are based in this world. Note that the words DICE and PLUS also symbolically represent the concepts they define.

The PUP team extends a warm welcome to two incoming professionals: Board of Directors Member Stephen Awoyemi and Advisor Jay McGaffigan.

Stephen Awoyemi is a final year PhD candidate (as of October 2021) at the Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy, Central European University (CEU), Vienna, Austria. His doctoral research focuses on how sociological theory can help explain and solve the conservation problem of trade in vulture parts for belief-based use in Nigeria. He holds a master’s degree in Conservation Leadership from the University of Cambridge and currently serves as the vice chair of the University of Cambridge Conservation Leadership Alumni Network Council. His research interests broadly include conservation social science, conservation policy, and religion and conservation.

Before starting his PhD program, Stephen worked with the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, the foremost conservation organization in Nigeria, as Conservation Policy and Campaign Officer/Head of Abuja Office and has been a longtime volunteer with the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB). He served as President of two groups (Africa Section and Religion and Conservation Biology Working Group) concurrently, within the SCB, from 2015-2017. In September 2020, Stephen was awarded the CEU Presidential Scholar Award for academic excellence and leadership proficiency. 

Jay is a software architect working in the medical device and information space. He enjoys technology, cooking and hiking.

 

PUP looks forward to working with both Stephen and Jay to protect and manage natural and cultural heritage around the world.

Press Contact

Olivia Parrott

webmaster@pupconsortium.net

PUP is fortunate to have benefited from the talents of our outgoing crew and is excited to welcome several new people to the mission.

The PUP team welcomes Shanti Gaia (Board Director), Alia Aurami (Advisor), David Christenson (Advisor), Ellen Malloway (Membership Experience Manager), and Eric Vargas (Assistant Membership Experience Manager). They are introduced below.

Shanti Gaia (Director)

Shanti, American, has worked with Sean Esbjörn-Hargens, the founder of the MetaIntegral Associates, focusing on teaching the MetaImpact framework through courses called “Designing Wisdom Economies” and on working towards the creation of MultiCapital value accounting software. He has spent a decade living at two different ecovillages that were also nonprofit education centers, spending a significant amount of his time in leadership roles at those organizations. He spent three years on the Board of the Sirius, Inc. nonprofit, including approximately two years as Treasurer. He also spent a couple of years on the statewide Steering Board for the Massachusetts 350.org network. Throughout his career, he has founded or worked for over half a dozen environmental nonprofit organizations. Overall, he has worked in the nonprofit sector for most of his career. He also has expansive training and practice in ecological consciousness-raising work--having trained directly with Joanna Macy and others in Experiential Deep Ecology--along with training in similar work by the Pachamama alliance.

Alia Aurami (Advisor)

Alia, American, for over 60 years as an adult has taught pre-school children, college students, and other adults; done marketing/strategic planning; been a spiritual counselor; designed onboarding programs; and written and advised on Integral management. She wrote two forthcoming books, one based on the Integral framework. Her main blogs are https://exploringsecondandthirdtier.blogspot.com and https://organizationalintelligences.blogspot.com. She is co-creator of Enlivening Edge, a global nexus for people co-creating more-conscious organizations and is the Managing Editor, Inter-organizational Synergy Catalyzer, and Workspace Host, among other roles. She has been Head Minister since founding an independent church in 2005. Everything she does is a ministry of the church. Alia helped build online international communities since 2006. She also co-designed the Operating Agreement and Management System for a next-stage organization. Alia has served since 2012 in the Core Advisory Team for the international movement Integral City.com.

 

David Christenson (Advisor)

David, American, became the founder and CEO of a consultancy group, primarily doing business as O4R: Organizing For Resilience, after he retired from his position as the Assistant Center Manager for the interagency Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center (LLC). David helped to design, build, manage, and lead the LLC from 2001 through 2014. He focused on creating a widely used knowledge management system as he helped create a new Learning Center with the United States’ 300,000-member wildland fire community.

David completed the Master of Science degree in Human Factors and Systems Safety at Lund University, Sweden in 2012. He was a researcher in the Leonardo da Vinci Laboratory for Complexity and Systems Thinking under the guidance of Professor Sidney Dekker. David previously completed the Master of Arts in Applied Geography, after a Bachelor of Science degree in Regional & City Planning, at New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, New Mexico, in 2000.

David and Tanya Christenson reside in Oro Valley, Arizona, where he enjoys creating landscape artwork with acrylic paints

Ellen Malloway (Membership Experience Manager)

Ellen, American, is a graduate of Arizona State University's online Master of Sustainable Tourism program with a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her ultimate career goal is to collaborate with people of diverse backgrounds to create a lasting positive impact in communities and destinations using sustainable/regenerative strategies. She has always loved learning about and visiting cultural and natural heritage sites across the globe and believes sustainable tourism is one of the best means to protect these invaluable resources.

Eric Vargas (Assistant Membership Experience Manager)

Eric, Costa Rican, studied biology at the University of Costa Rica. He has experience as a teaching and research assistant, as well as an independent consultant in environmental education. He served as the volunteer coordinator for the I Latin American Congress on Heritage Interpretation organized by PUP and El Colegio de Michoacán. He is currently working on his degree in environmental interpretation at the University of Costa Rica with a focus on Ecology and undergoing interpretation training with a tourism company in Turrialba, Costa Rica, with support from PUP.

PUP thanks its outgoing staff members. Michelle Lewis leaves as Director, Zach Garcia as Secretary, and Leandro Vigna as PUPnotes Editor. Within his one-year contract position, Vigna also oversaw PUP’s email outreach shift to MailChimp. And Garcia helped modernize the organization’s Board reporting system. Thank you again to Michelle, Zach, and Leandro for their efforts to support communities in the protection and management of natural and cultural heritage and evolving Integral approaches and tools.

Lastly, PUP continues its search for a Secretary. Inquiries can be directed to membership@pupconsortium.net.

On 19 May PUP members Marisol Mayorga and Jon Kohl will launch their new university textbook on heritage interpretation. It is being published in Spanish in both eBook and print form by the Editorial Universidad Estatal a Distancia in Costa Rica. The book represents the first such textbook for Latin America rather than imported and translated from the north. Registration for the event is free and space is limited. Anyone who remains to the end on Zoom will receive a 30% discount on the print book and is eligible to win a raffled eBook. https://pupconsortium.wildapricot.org/event-4238049 

The book is cosponsored by the PUP Consortium which contributed many tools and experiences as well as contributions from several other PUP members.

Dr. Stephen McCool was instrumental in the creation of PUP, dating back to PUP's earliest days as part of RARE Center for Tropical Conservation when he, along with Sam Ham, reviewed the PUP manual in 2000 to his co-signing PUP's articles of incorporation, sitting on the inaugural board, and then becoming an advisor. Steve has actually been retired in theory if not in practice from his academic career at the University of Montana where he has become a world renown name in protected areas management and planning. Since then he has been trying to channel more and more of his time to family and personal efforts. As such he has stepped down as advisor to PUP and has agreed to become PUP's first Advisor Emeritus.

Attached you will find our letter to him that lists many of his contributions to PUP over the years and the invitation to become Advisor Emeritus to which he has heartily agreed. As such he remains within the PUP family without the frequent calls to duty characteristic of advisors and directors. Please see the enclosed letter.

Letter of Recognition to Steve McCool.pdf

PUP Treasurer and long-time interpretive veteran Clark Hancock led a team of 6 PUP members to put together a video presentation for the first virtual conference of the National Association for Interpretation in November. Along with Clark, those who participated included Antonieta Jimenez (Board director), Trace Gale (Board director), Mike Mayer (general member), Luis Camargo (director o PUP's partner organization in Colombia), Jon Kohl (executive director), and Sherwood Shankland (board director) summed it all up. Though the presentation was recorded, several were present live for questions and answers.

The presentation is called "Holistic Approaches to Interpretive Planning, Training & Leadership: PUP Experiences Across America." We use Integral Theory and a Triskelle to symbolize the three main perspectives from which we approach these planning and training processes. This theoretical approach is emerging from PUP's strategic planning and may be an indicator of what is to come for PUP.

 The PUP team presents projects from Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Colombia, and Chile.

 

PUP is happy to announce recent additions and moves among PUP members. PUP has added three new directors and a new board secretary. See their bios below.

Dr. Michelle Lewis was a technical service member a couple of years ago and now she is back as a board director.

Dr. Trace Gale was formerly our board secretary and has become a board director.

Brian Mullis also moved from technical service member to board director.

Zach Garcia just recently joined up and has replaced Trace as board secretary.

We are thankful to all of them for contributing so much to PUP.

DR. MICHELLE LEWIS

Michelle is the founder and Executive Director of the Peace Garden Project, a non-profit with gardens in New York and North Carolina to address food justice. It looks at intersections of food justice and other justice issues. Her doctorate in ministry from Candler School of Theology focused on food justice and spirituality. Prior to relocating to North Carolina, Michelle pastored a multi-racial/multi-ethnic church in New Rochelle, N.Y. and has pastored churches on the Outer Banks of N.C., in Catskill, New York, and East Berlin, Connecticut.

 Michelle also spent two years as the Youth Worker at Newtown United Methodist Church, and assisted in providing pastoral care to the congregation in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting. Michelle graduated from Yale with a Master of Environmental Science and a Master of Divinity. She is the first person of color to complete the joint degree program in religion and ecology at Yale. She focused on connecting underserved populations to the environment, and the potential role of religion. Michelle formerly served as a mayoral appointee for the New Rochelle Sustainability Commission, and as Chair of the Environmental Justice Committee for the New Haven Branch of the NAACP. She also spent time working at the United Nations in an internship as an advisor to the Federated States of Micronesia on Climate Policy. 

Before Yale, Michelle spent 12 years as a US Park Ranger, working as a Biological Science Technician, Educator, and Law Enforcement Officer. Michelle has produced two award-winning documentaries, Stairway to the Top of Hatteras, for which she was awarded a Communicator Award of Distinction with Boyer Video and Law Enforcement in the National Park Service, that won the NPS Intake Program award for innovation and creativity. Michelle holds a B.A. from Elizabeth City State University, and a M.A. from Regent University.

DR. TRACE GALE

Trace is a U.S. citizen with permanent residency in Chile, where she is a senior researcher and currently serves as the coordinator of the Human-Environmental Interactions Research Group (HEI) within the Center for Investigation in Ecosystems of Patagonia (CIEP), located in the city of Coyhaique. Through an integral lens, her research interests are broadly centered on human-environmental dynamics at the intersection of conservation and development.  Her areas of focus include human values, perceptions, affect, and experiences, with the goal of understanding how these human dynamics converge with regards to natural resource management, community development/wellbeing, and protected areas. She has led teams in the development of visitor use planning methodology, multiple national park and reserve visitor use plans, and ongoing tools for visitor use management and development. She is an affiliate professor with the University Austral of Chile, where she teaches undergraduate courses in parks, outdoor recreation, and tourism, and an affiliate professor with the University of Montana, USA, where she participates in collaborative research and graduate committees. She has designed and taught numerous undergraduate and graduate level courses about authenticity and transformative tourism experiences, and methods for planning and managing visitor experiences in protected places.

BRIAN T. MULLIS

Brian, American, is a destination management, development and marketing specialist. From April 2018–2020, he was the Director of the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA), in which time the country became globally recognized as a leading sustainable destination. Prior to leading the GTA, he founded and led Sustainable Travel International for 14 years. Leading initiatives and delivering innovative solutions within governmental agencies and multinational and for MSMEs and community leaders in 70+ countries has given Brian a unique ability to foster multi-stakeholder collaboration, bridge communication divides, and generate tangible results at scale. This stems from 25+ years of experience in CEO positions in the private, public and civil sectors and a long track record of generating positive socio-economic and conservation outcomes through tourism. Brian has also held leadership positions on the World Economic Forum Future of Travel and Tourism Council, UN 10YFP Multi-stakeholder Advisory Committee, and the U.S. Department of Commerce Travel and Tourism Advisory Board. Prior to becoming a director, he served as country representative in Guyana and technical service member before that.

Zach garcia - SECRETARY

Zach, American, lives in Evansville, Indiana. As an undergraduate student, he studied Geography, French, and Japanese at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Zach worked as an environmental educator at Madison Children’s Museum, and then he joined the Peace Corps and served as a Food Security/Environmental Specialist in Nepal. He recently graduated from the Yale School of the Environment 2019, where he focused on environmental humanities and sacred spaces. He is currently the Associate Executive Director at Wesselman Woods, the largest urban old-growth forest in the United States. In his free time, he enjoys hiking, cooking, and netflixing.

The Global Planners Network is a plurality of voices with diverse and relevant experience to advocate for effective planning. Member organizations work to advance inclusionary and sustainable planning practice worldwide.

The PUP Global Heritage Consortium has been a member for the past three years. In February 2020 GPN formulated the Abu Dhabi Declaration which sets out GPN’s commitment to planning as an inclusive process that “must underpin any approach to managing rural, urban and regional development.”. The declaration was made public at the UN Habitat's 10th World Urban Forum. PUP is a proud signatory of this declaration.

As PUP grows and diversifies, it has been recruiting new advisors (and directors). Recently it has added three people in order of their prior experience with PUP.

 

Dr. Pham Thi Duyen Anh - Viet Nam

Anh has twenty years’ experience in international development, working with international and Vietnamese NGOs including the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Save the Children, SNV Netherlands Development Organisation, and Centre for Social Research and Development. She has designed and managed development programs to promote community development, disaster preparedness, climate resilience, collaborative natural resource management, and sustainable tourism. Anh has strong interest in promoting sustainable tourism as a tool for local development, especially in heritage sites. She was a national facilitator for a UNESCO’s initiative on Public Use Planning in World Heritage Sites and Biosphere Reserve in Vietnam in 2011 with the Public Use Planning Program that later became the PUP Consortium. Anh completed her PhD in Tourism Management at the University of Queensland, Australia in 2018. She advises international development programs funded by ADB, EU, AusAID.

 

STACIE NICOLE SMITH

Stacie, American, is a Managing Director at the Consensus Building Institute, where she has over 20 years of experience as a mediator, facilitator, coach, trainer, and researcher on a broad range of public issues in the U.S. and internationally. She is also a founding partner of PUP. Stacie’s work includes assessment, facilitation, and mediation of multi-sector community and national stakeholder dialogues, disputes, and collaborations; training and curriculum design for international, national, and local government entities, NGOs, and schools; and research and writing on collaboration on public policy issues. She specializes in facilitating in highly complex and contentious multi-party contexts around substantively challenging technical issues, where identities, values, and interests intertwine. She brings substantive expertise in education, natural resources and environment issues (land use, water, energy), hazard mitigation and recovery, historic and cultural resources, and tribal and indigenous peoples.

 

SUE HODGES

Sue, Australian, is a public historian from Melbourne, Australia, with extensive experience in the fields of history, heritage interpretation, sustainable tourism, capacity building, placemaking and museum and exhibition development. She is currently President of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites (ICIP), a member of the ICOMOS Advisory Committee and an international expert member of the Foundazione Romualdo Del Bianco. Sue was an invited expert speaker at the 40th and 41st Sessions of the World Heritage Committee, President of Interpretation Australia from 2010 to 2013, and an executive committee member of Australia ICOMOS from 2012-2015. Her business, SHP, operates in Australia and internationally.

They join our other advisors: Duane Fast, Sam Ham, Steve McCool, and Alison Ormsby.