Colorado State University’s Warner College of Natural Resources plays an integral leadership role in research, teaching, training and technical assistance for the world’s parks and protected areas. It is widely recognized that these areas play a vital role in maintaining the earth’s biotic diversity, the health of global ecosystems, and the sustainability of human livelihoods.
Top global program
Celebrating its 25th anniversary this summer, the International Protected Areas Management Course offered through CSU’s Center for Protected Area Management is considered one of the best in the world.
The course, offered in Spanish, provides training to some of the world’s most influential land managers, and is one of the longest running courses of its kind in the world. Twenty-four conservation leaders from more than a dozen Spanish-speaking countries throughout Latin America attend the course each year to learn from the Center’s instructors, as well as one another.
Critical need worldwide
“We’re at a global critical moment, not just in Latin America, but worldwide,” said one of the participants of the program, Juan Carlos with the Peruvian National Park System.
The majority of the internationally-recognized program’s work is carried out on the ground in protected areas, conservation corridors and buffer zones in the United States and internationally, particularly in Latin America.
Anchoring conservation success
The program ensures that the world’s leaders in environmental management have the training they need to ensure the maintenance of these vital areas, anchoring the success of conservation through the next century.
“It will change your perspective and change your life in the way that you do protected area management,” said Toby Bloom, with the U.S. Forest Service International Programs Office. “You’ll develop this network of other professionals who are working on the same things you’re working on and have the kind of passion for protected areas that you have.”
Center for Protected Area Management
CSU’s Center for Protected Area Management was formed to assist protected area professionals in strengthening the management of the world’s protected areas and adjacent lands.
“For prosperity and posterity’s sake, we need a global system of well-managed protected areas,” said Ryan Finchum, co-director of the Center for Protected Area Management. “Places where we can learn, play and earn a living, while also serving as an insurance policy for an uncertain and constantly changing future. The Center exists to provide support to the protected areas, managers and neighboring communities of this global system.”
