Conservation Education

Availability of Formal Academic Programs inConservation Biology in Latin America

Introduction

Latin America (in our analysis, Braziland the Spanish-speaking countriesin Central and South America and theCaribbean, including Puerto Rico)holds a disproportionate fraction ofthe world’s biodiversity (Myers etal. 2000; Olson & Dinerstein 2002;Lamoreux et al. 2006). The regiondepends heavily on natural resourceexploitation and has high rates ofenvironmental degradation and bio-diversity loss (WRI 2003; Hassan etal. 2005). Environmental challengesin Latin America are further com-plicated by a lack of conservationcapacity-building opportunities thatencompass many levels, audiences,and contexts (Bonine et al. 2003;Rodrıguez et al. 2005, 2006; Chek etal. 2007).

Despite long-standing educationalinitiatives in several Latin Americancountries, significant effort wouldbe required to match the supplyof formal conservation education ina country like the United States(Rodrıguez et al. 2005). Here wepresent an assessment of formal pro-grams in conservation biology, in-cluding graduate and undergraduatedegree programs focused primarilyon conservation and conservation-related classes in broader biology orenvironmental sciences curricula.

Our goals were twofold. First, wesought to provide a current database

Paper submitted February 11, 2007; revisedmanuscript accepted July 24, 2007.

for those interested in training op-portunities in the region. Second, weidentified countries that are leadersand those that have lagged behind,with the aim of informing the fu-ture development of programs in theregion. We then used this databaseto analyze current opportunities andchallenges in formal conservation ed-ucation in Latin America.

Identifying ConservationPrograms and Courses

To build a database of programs andcourses, we surveyed 758 undergrad-uate and graduate programs listedin two online directories of accred-ited colleges and universities in LatinAmerica (http://www.rau.edu.uy/universidad/univ.htm and http://www.4icu.org/Latin-America/ [ac-cessed November 2006]). In addi-tion, we surveyed the graduate progr-am database in the Austral andNeotropical America section of theSociety for Conservation BiologyWeb site (http://www.conbio.org/Sections/ANA / ANACourses . cfm, a-ccessed November 2006). The Webpages of all the universities in thesedatabases were inspected to thegreatest detail possible, including anexamination of each program’s cur-riculum. We excluded programs thatlacked adequately detailed informa-tion about their course offerings. Toavoid a bias toward online informa-tion sources, nine conservation prac-titioners with extensive experience

in the region reviewed our databaseand, where applicable, added missingprograms or program elements.

For all the relevant conservationbiology programs at both the under-graduate and graduate levels, we ex-amined the conferred degree, courserequirements, and curriculum. Wealso recorded other attributes of in-terest (such as program duration, pro-gram level, and Web address) and or-dered all selected programs by coun-try. To further characterize these pro-grams, we defined three levels of rel-evance to conservation biology. Atone end of the spectrum were theconservation-focused programs (fo-cused programs), defined as thosewith a clear conservation mission anda range of courses and requirementsstrongly oriented to conservation bi-ology. These programs typically com-bined a strong foundation of gen-eral biology, ecology, and evolutionwith more than one course exclu-sively dedicated to conservation bi-ology.

The next category, conservation-related programs, contained someconservation biology courses butdid not have a clear academicconservation focus or mission state-ment. The third category, generalprograms, lacked a conservationfocus and offered only one or twocourses in conservation biology. Weacknowledge that despite havingclearly defined criteria, these cate-gories are subjective. Nevertheless,this classification scheme was usefulfor determining qualitatively thedegree of conservation focus for the

1399

Conservation Biology Volume 21, No. 6, 1399–1403C©2007 Society for Conservation BiologyDOI: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00822.x

1400 Conservation Education in Latin America Mendez et al.

Table 1. Undergraduate and graduate programs in conservation biology in Latin America.

Academic programs in conservation biology

Population conservation Total WeightedCountry (in millions)∗ general related focused total per capita index

Argentina 39.54 6 0 3 9 0.23 0.38Bolivia 8.86 3 1 1 5 0.56 0.90Brazil 186.11 2 2 11 15 0.08 0.21Chile 15.98 2 2 2 6 0.38 0.75Colombia 42.95 5 1 3 9 0.21 0.37Costa Rica 4.02 1 0 4 5 1.25 3.24Cuba 11.35 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00Ecuador 13.36 1 1 1 3 0.22 0.45El Salvador 6.71 0 0 1 1 0.15 0.45Guatemala 12.18 1 0 0 1 0.08 0.08Honduras 7.17 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00Mexico 106.20 12 7 6 25 0.24 0.41Nicaragua 5.47 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00Panama 3.14 0 0 1 1 0.32 0.96Paraguay 6.35 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00Peru 27.93 1 4 1 6 0.21 0.43Puerto Rico 3.91 0 1 0 1 0.26 0.51Dominican Republic 9.09 0 1 1 2 0.22 0.55Uruguay 3.42 3 0 0 3 0.88 0.88Venezuela 25.38 0 0 0 0 0.00 0.00

∗Data from the U.S. Census Bureau (www.census.gov; accessed November 2006).

academic programs we reviewed.This data set and a table listing allLatin American programs examinedare available online at the Societyfor Conservation Biology Web site(http://www.conbio.org/Sections/ANA/ANACourses.cfm).

We analyzed the number of pro-grams per capita in each countryon the basis of the country popula-tion and the relative proportion ofgeneral conservation-related and fo-cused programs. We devised a simpleweighted index that gives the high-est relative importance to focusedprograms, followed by conservation-related and general programs (Table1; Fig. 1). The weighted index (wI)is the sum of the weighted contri-butions of the number of general(wG), conservation-related (wCR),and conservation-focused (wF) pro-grams to which we assigned an in-creasing importance factor of 1, 2,and 3, respectively (wI = [wG+2∗

wCR+3∗wF]/population). This indexallowed us to identify countrieswhere focused programs are a greaterproportion of the total conservationeducational opportunities.

Conservation Biology EducationOpportunities in Latin America

We identified 92 formal programswith conservation biology courses of-fered through 81 colleges and uni-versities in Latin America. These in-cluded 68 graduate programs (16 doc-torate and 52 master’s degrees) and24 undergraduate programs. Of thetotal, 35 were focused programs and57 were conservation-related or gen-eral programs. The distribution bycountry was strongly skewed, withjust five countries (Mexico, Brazil,Argentina, Colombia, and Chile) of-fering 65% of the programs. No for-mal conservation biology courses atany level were offered in five coun-tries (Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua,Paraguay, and Venezuela). The previ-ous five, plus Guatemala and PuertoRico, did not offer any programs withan exclusive conservation focus (Ta-ble 1; Fig. 2). Costa Rica, Bolivia,Chile, and Panama had the highestnumber of programs per capita.

A caveat in our analysis was that wemade no assumptions about the qual-ity of the individual programs and

treated all programs in each categoryin our survey as equal in that respect.Nevertheless, all programs are almostcertainly not equal, and we suspectthat the disparities extend beyondthe geographical distribution of theprograms available. Although a de-tailed assessment of issues of qualityand impact is beyond the scope ofthis paper, several universities inour database are included in at leastone list of the top universities ofthe world (http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2006/ARWU2006TOP500list.htm).

Our results expand on those ofRodrıguez et al. (2005) and more thandouble their estimate of the num-ber of programs available: we es-timated 0.16 programs/million peo-ple in Latin America and an aver-age supply of 0.26 programs/millionpeople/country. Nevertheless, ourresults agree with Rodrıguez et al.(2005) in that the per capita supplyof conservation education opportuni-ties in the region is much lower thanin the United States, for example.More generally, both studies agree inthe identification of countries with

Conservation BiologyVolume 21, No. 6, 2007

Mendez et al. Conservation Education in Latin America 1401

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

1.2

1.4

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5N

umbe

r of

pro

gram

s / m

illio

n in

habi

tant

s

Weighted index

Cos

ta R

ica

Pan

ama

Bol

ivia

Uru

guay

Chi

le

D R

epub

lic

Pue

rto

Ric

o

Ecu

ador

El S

alva

dor

Per

u

Mex

ico

Arg

entin

a

Col

ombi

a

Bra

zil

Gua

tem

ala

Cub

a

Hon

dura

s

Nic

arag

ua

Par

agua

y

Ven

ezue

la

Figure 1. Per capita availabilityof academic programs inconservation biology by country(light gray, general programs;medium gray,conservation-related programs;black, conservation-focusedprograms; open bars, totalnumber of academic programs;open circles, weighted index,which allows visualization ofcountries where programs with astrong conservation focus form ahigher fraction of the totalconservation educationalopportunities).

the highest and lowest number ofconservation programs; the numberof programs per country in both stud-ies was significantly correlated (p =0.002).

Weighting the per capita supplyof conservation education pro-grams by the proportion of general,conservation-related, and focusedprograms allowed further com-parison between countries. Ourweighted index favored countrieswith the highest overall per capita

0

5

10

15

20

25

Mex

ico

Bra

zil

Arg

entin

a

Col

ombi

a

Chi

le

Per

u

Bol

ivia

Cos

ta R

ica

Ecu

ador

Uru

guay

D R

epub

lic

El S

alva

dor

Gua

tem

ala

Pan

ama

Pue

rto

Ric

o

Cub

a

Hon

dura

s

Nic

arag

ua

Par

agua

y

Ven

ezue

la

Num

ber o

f pro

gram

s

Figure 2. Total number ofacademic programs inconservation biology by countryin Latin America (light gray,general programs; medium gray,conservation-related programs;black, conservation-focusedprograms; open bars, totalnumber of academic programs).

number of programs and a higherrepresentation of focused programs.We assumed that a country witheight focused programs and twobroad programs would have a greatercapacity to educate conservationpractitioners than a country witheight broad and two focused pro-grams. For example, Mexico hadthe greatest conservation educationsupply as indicated by the totalnumber of academic programs of alltypes, but Costa Rica had a much

higher supply per capita and a higherproportion of focused conservationprograms (Figs. 1 & 2).

A careful comparison of the rawand weighted number of programs isneeded to put these figures into con-text. Our analysis showed that coun-tries with the highest overall numberof programs tended to have lower percapita supply of focused programsand, therefore, a relatively low scoreaccording to our weighted index.Costa Rica had both the highest

Conservation BiologyVolume 21, No. 6, 2007

1402 Conservation Education in Latin America Mendez et al.

per capita supply of conservationprograms in Latin America (morethan twice as many as the second-ranked country, Bolivia) and the high-est score in our weighted index(more than three times that of thesecond-ranked country, Panama). Al-though the weighted score for CostaRica was clearly heavily influencedby its relatively small population size,other countries with similar and evensmaller populations did not rank ashigh because they had few academicprograms in or related to conserva-tion.

Several countries in Latin Americahad more than one or two institu-tions engaged in conservation educa-tion; consequently, there may be un-tapped opportunities for developingstrong regional programs. For exam-ple, we identified 21 focused gradu-ate programs in conservation biologyin Brazil, Costa Rica, and Mexico (11PhD programs with conservation bi-ology courses in Mexico alone).

Implications for ConservationBiology Training in Latin America

In a world of limited resources butever-increasing impacts on biodiver-sity, prioritization of conservation ac-tions is a necessity. The better-knownprioritization schemes focus on bi-ological value, threats, and/or thedegree of human influence (Brookset al. 2006), whereas others stresssocioeconomic and political factors(O’Connor et al. 2003). As advocatedby Rodrıguez et al. (2006), we be-lieve our analyses inform priority set-ting by identifying gaps in the sup-ply in capacity-building opportuni-ties in the region. For example, mostcountries in Central America lag be-hind other countries in Latin Amer-ica in terms of the number of under-graduate and graduate programs in orrelated to conservation, and half ofall Latin American countries lack un-dergraduate science programs withconservation biology courses. Thepresence of a cadre of trained local

conservation professionals (includ-ing among others biologists, wildlifemanagers, veterinarians, social sci-entists, education professionals, andtechnicians) may serve as an indicatorof the potential capacity for effectiveconservation in the region.

In this respect, several countries(Mexico, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Arge-ntina, Chile, and Colombia) have thegreatest total supply of conserva-tion capacity-building opportunitiesin Latin America and should, there-fore, have a broad base of locallytrained conservation biologists. Rec-ognizing that conservation outcomesare influenced by a variety of eco-nomic, social, and political factorsthat may be independent of the cur-rent availability of conservation train-ing opportunities, we contend thatcountries rich in training opportuni-ties in conservation biology shouldhave the potential for a significant im-pact on the development of the fieldand on conservation on the groundin the coming decades.

A coherent response to the biodi-versity crisis in Latin America will re-quire additional conservation profes-sionals from a variety of backgroundsand training—from park guards tofield and laboratory technicians toupper-level managers and directors.Looking to the future, each coun-try in the Latin American region willneed to assess its particular needsand context in terms of setting pri-orities for expansion of formal train-ing opportunities in conservation. Insome countries, particularly whereconservation biology is a relativelypoorly known discipline, it may makesense to focus on establishing gradu-ate programs in conservation first. Inour experience, it is sometimes easierto propose a completely new gradu-ate program than it is to modify oradd undergraduate programs, whichmay contain government-mandatedor difficult-to-change curriculum ele-ments. In addition, establishing grad-uate programs as opposed to under-graduate programs will reduce timein the pipeline for trained profession-als to join the work force. On the

other hand, in almost all countries inthe region, an expansion of under-graduate programs will also be nec-essary to build a strong foundationfor those planning to continue withgraduate work and because an under-graduate degree will be the terminaldegree for many conservation profes-sionals.

In all discussions of expansion,one should not ignore the potentialcontribution of distance learning andvirtual programs to conservation ca-pacity training in Latin America (e.g.,the newly established master’s pro-gram in conservation biology at theUniversidad Peruana Cayetano Here-dia, http://www.conservaciononline.org). Finally, expanded offeringsmight take the form of addedcourses and broader inclusion ofconservation content in relevantcourses in existing programs ratherthan the establishment of newprograms at either the graduate orundergraduate level.

To our knowledge this analysis isthe most complete compilation ofconservation education offerings inLatin America to date. We envisionour study as a starting point of anongoing dialogue with regional con-servation practitioners, and we hopethis database can be refined and up-dated with information about newprograms. Clearly, there are many ex-cellent programs in conservation bi-ology in Latin America. Nevertheless,in our opinion, the need for profes-sionals to address the current biodi-versity crisis far exceeds the currentsupply of available programs and war-rants an important and widespreadresponse to build capacity in this crit-ical region of the world.

Acknowledgments

M.M. and A.G. are supported by theWhitley Fund for Nature, the WildlifeTrust, and a Columbia UniversityGraduate School of Arts and SciencesFaculty Fellowship. K. Toledo andO. Gaona Pineda provided invaluabletechnical support and advice. The

Conservation BiologyVolume 21, No. 6, 2007

Mendez et al. Conservation Education in Latin America 1403

following conservation practitionersand education experts contributedtheir knowledge to the develop-ment of our database: L. Aguirre, C.Bonacic, P. Bordino, R. Gurtler, M.Moraes, C. Padua, S. Padua, P. Steven-son, and A. Taber. J. Agudelo kindlyresponded to our initial survey. Thiswork started as a project sponsoredby the Network of Conservation Ed-ucators and Practitioners of the Cen-ter for Biodiversity and Conservationof the American Museum of NaturalHistory. Two anonymous reviewersprovided valuable comments that en-hanced this manuscript.

Martın Mendez,∗§ Andres Gomez,∗Nora Bynum,† Rodrigo Medellın,‡ AnaL. Porzecanski,† and Eleanor Sterling†

∗Department of Ecology, Evolution and Envi-ronmental Biology, Columbia University, 1200Amsterdam Avenue MC5557, New York, NY10027, U.S.A.

†Center for Biodiversity and Conservation,American Museum of Natural History, NewYork, NY 10024, U.S.A.‡Instituto de Ecologıa, Universidad NacionalAutonoma de Mexico, Apartado Postal 70-275,04510 D.F., Mexico§email mm1772@columbia.edu

Literature Cited

Bonine, K., J. Reid, and R. Dalzen. 2003. Train-ing and education for tropical conserva-tion. Conservation Biology 17:1209–1218.

Brooks, T. M., R. A. Mittermeier, G. A. B. daFonseca, J. Gerlach, M. Hoffmann, J. F. Lam-oreux, C. G. Mittermeier, J. D. Pilgrim, andA. S. L. Rodrigues. 2006. Global biodiversityconservation priorities. Science 313:58–61.

Chek, A., L. Castano Betancur, and B. Hayum.2007. A selective analysis of conservationtraining opportunities for the public sectorin the Andes-Amazon region. Organizationfor Tropical Studies, Durham, North Car-olina.

Hassan, R., R. Scholes, and N. Ash, editors.2005. Ecosystems and human well being:current state and trends. Volume 1. IslandPress, Washington, D.C.

Lamoreux, J. F., J. C. Morrison, T. H. Ricketts, D.M. Olson, E. Dinerstein, M. W. McKnight,and H. H. Shugart. 2006. Global tests of bio-diversity concordance and the importanceof endemism. Nature 440:212–214.

Myers, N., R. A. Mittermeier, C. G. Mittermeier,G. A. B. da Fonseca, and J. Kent. 2000. Biodi-versity hotspots for conservation priorities.Nature 403:853–858.

O’Connor, C., M. Marvier, and P. Kareiva. 2003.Biological vs. social, economic and polit-ical priority-setting in conservation. Ecol-ogy Letters 6:706–711.

Olson, D. M., and E. Dinerstein. 2002. TheGlobal 200: priority ecoregions for globalconservation. Annals of the Missouri Botan-ical Garden 89:199–224.

Rodrıguez, J. P., J. A. Simonetti, A. Premoli, andM. A. Marini. 2005. Conservation in Australand Neotropical America: building scien-tific capacity equal to the challenges. Con-servation Biology 19:969–972.

Rodrıguez, J. P., K. M. Rodrıguez-Clark, M. A.Oliveira-Miranda, T. Good, and A. Grajal.2006. Professional capacity building: themissing agenda in conservation priority set-ting. Conservation Biology 20:1340.

WRI (World Resources Institute). 2003. Earthtrends. WRI, Washington, D.C.

Conservation BiologyVolume 21, No. 6, 2007