Donald F. Boesch, Walter Boynton, Jeffrey Cornwell, William Dennison, Michael Kemp, and Jeremy Testa … University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science … Bay Creates Its Own Phosphorus?

I spent an enjoyable day in Chesapeake Beach overlooking the Bay in a workshop entitled 'Webstock 2015: One day of Peace & the Internet". Guy Stephens, one of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science at the Chesapeake Bay Program (UMCES @ CBP) staff organized this amazing event. I knew something was different when I heard strains of rock music as I approached the workshop site.

This blog is part of the Basin Report Card Initiative: a partnership between the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science (UMCES) Simon Costanzo, Alex Fries and I travelled into Washington D.C. for a brainstorming session with colleagues at the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The brainstorming took place in a cozy room located in one of the far corners of the WWF office suite.

This is part three of a three part series of blog posts about developing a reef resilience index for the Great Barrier Reef at a workshop in Townsville in March 2015 … Reef Resilience in Townsville … William C.

This is part two of a three part series of blog posts about developing a reef resilience index for the Great Barrier Reef at a workshop in Townsville in March 2015 … The Great Barrier Reef Resilience Index … As part of a joint project of UMCES and Charles Darwin University, Jane Thomas, Bill Dennison and I traveled to Townsville, Australia to continue the development of the Great Barrier Reef Resilience Index.

This is part one of a three-part series of blog posts about developing a reef resilience index for the Great Barrier Reef at a workshop in Townsville in March 2015. 'Resilience Based Management' was one of the concepts that arose during our workshop with resource managers at the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority in Townsville, Australia on 2 Mar 2015.

Celebrating 90 years of UMCES series … As I was looking through the newspaper clippings and photographs of Reginald V. Truitt, founder and first director of the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, I was intrigued by a photograph of Truitt standing in a metal hatch protruding from the water and shaking hands with another gentleman. On the back of this photograph, the following words were inscribed "R.V. Truitt & Gilbert Klingel" and "Developers of the Bentharium" along with the year "1935".

As a follow-on from the Gladstone Harbor Report Card, which IAN helped design last year, I had the chance to help Queensland Environment and Heritage Protection (EHP) develop a draft report card for the next region, in Mackay. I attended the workshop in Mackay on February 24, to facilitate the discussion about report cards, discuss issues related to report card development, and help sketch out the draft report card in a storyboard exercise.

This February, I headed further south in America than I have ever before…..to Colombia in South America (still in the northern hemisphere though at 3o N). This trip was on invitation from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Washington D.C. with the aim to set up a report card for three tributaries of the Orinoco River within Colombia - The Meta, Bita and Guaviare Rivers.

This is the second of two Blogs about the intersection of the Collective Impact approach and ecosystem health report cards. In Part 1, I discuss the principles of collective impact, and how our report card process can be a catalyst for engagement.