Emily Barbo

Symposium Speaker: Angela Kemsley

The Salazar Center is proud to announce that Angela Kemsley, Conservation Director, WILDCOAST, will be joining us in Denver, Colorado for the fifth-annual International Symposium on Conservation Impact.

Based in San Diego, California, Angie leads WILDCOAST’s conservation projects in the United States including marine protected area (MPA) compliance initiatives, MPA Watch, marine monitor radar, wetland restoration, carbon sampling and research, climate action planning, ocean-related policy, and marine debris interception and removal projects. She joined WILDCOAST’s MPA team in 2017 as the statewide coordinator of the MPA Watch Community Science Program. In 2018, Angela assumed the role of Conservation Development Manager, before expanding her position to include communications. Prior to joining WILDCOAST, Angela worked for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance, facilitating community-based conservation projects in northwest Mexico as well as leading tours of the San Diego Zoo. Angela also worked in the outdoor education department of the San Diego County Office of Education in addition to numerous field research positions throughout North and South America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Angela holds a B.S. in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution and a B.A. in Biological Anthropology from UC-San Diego and an M.A. in Biology from Miami University in Ohio. 

Newly emerging science points to tidal salt marshes and seagrass beds as carbon sequestration powerhouses, potentially storing up to 50 times the carbon of a rainforest. WILDCOAST recently founded the Blue Carbon Collaborative: a network of organizations and individuals representing science, technology, and policy with a common goal to identify gaps and standardize practices surrounding blue carbon conservation, research, policy and resources. Coastal and marine ecosystems such as mangrove forests, wetlands and seagrass areas have great potential for carbon sequestration. These blue carbon ecosystems are a natural solution to climate change. Stemming from their conservation work on mangroves in Mexico, WILDCOAST began examining wetlands in California as potential opportunities for natural solutions. Through the Collaborative, WILDCOAST has identified a need for collaboration around blue carbon research and policy in California.

Register for the Symposium

Emily Barbo

Symposium Speaker: Tannia Frausto

The Salazar Center is proud to announce that Tannia Frausto, Climate Change Director for WILDCOAST, will be joining us in Denver, Colorado for the fifth-annual International Symposium on Conservation Impact.

Based in Mexico City, Mexico, Tannia oversees and coordinates WILDCOAST’s blue carbon programs in Mexico and California. She leads WILDCOAST’s blue carbon policy initiatives in Mexico to promote mangrove conservation and restoration. Tannia joined WILDCOAST in 2013 as the Oaxaca Coast Coordinator where she initiated a program to protect the coral reefs of Huatulco National Park and helped to conserve globally important sea turtle nesting beaches.

In 2015, Tannia coordinated a pioneering RAMSAR Wetlands of International Importance management program with Mexico’s National Commission for Protected Areas (CONANP), as the Conservation Management Coordinator.

In 2017, Tannia was promoted to Wetlands and Climate Change Manager and helped to launch WILDCOAST’s blue carbon mangrove conservation and carbon sequestration work. Prior to joining WILDCOAST, Tannia carried out research and conservation work for the protection of coral reefs and sea turtles. Tannia holds a B.S. in Biology from the Instituto Politécnico Nacional in Mexico City and an M.S. in Marine Ecology from Centro de Investigación Científica y de Educación Superior (CICESE) in Ensenada.

Newly emerging science points to tidal salt marshes and seagrass beds as carbon sequestration powerhouses, potentially storing up to 50 times the carbon of a rainforest. WILDCOAST recently founded the Blue Carbon Collaborative: a network of organizations and individuals representing science, technology, and policy with a common goal to identify gaps and standardize practices surrounding blue carbon conservation, research, policy and resources. Coastal and marine ecosystems such as mangrove forests, wetlands and seagrass areas have great potential for carbon sequestration. These blue carbon ecosystems are a natural solution to climate change. Stemming from their conservation work on mangroves in Mexico, WILDCOAST began examining wetlands in California as potential opportunities for natural solutions. Through the Collaborative, WILDCOAST has identified a need for collaboration around blue carbon research and policy in California.

Register for the Symposium

Emily Barbo

Symposium Speaker: Lydia Olander

The Salazar Center is proud to announce that Dr. Lydia Olander, Director of Nature-Based Resilience, White House Council on Environmental Quality, will be joining us in Denver, Colorado for the fifth-annual International Symposium on Conservation Impact.

Lydia Olander, PhD, directs the Ecosystem Services Program at the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University.

Dr. Olander is the Director of Nature-Based Resilience at the White House Council on Environmental Quality where she leads work on nature-based solutions, working with both the conservation and climate resilience teams.  She joined CEQ from Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environment, Energy & Sustainability, where she is a program director, an adjunct professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment, and leads the National Ecosystem Services Partnership.  Her research includes ecosystem services, natural capital accounting, nature-based solutions, environmental markets, and climate adaptation and resilience.  She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Prior to joining the Nicholas Institute, she spent a year as an AAAS Congressional Science and Technology Fellow working with Senator Joseph Lieberman on environmental and energy issues. Before that she was a researcher with the Carnegie Institution of Washington’s Department of Global Ecology, where she studied the biogeochemical impacts of logging in the Brazilian Amazon and utilized remote sensing to extrapolate regional impacts. She received her PhD from Stanford University, where she studied nutrient cycling in tropical forests, and earned a master’s degree in forest science from Yale University.

Resources

Opportunities to Accelerate Nature-Based Solutions

Roadmap to Nature-Based Solutions

Assessing the Effects of Management Activities on Biodiversity and Carbon Storage on Public and Private Lands and Waters in the United States

 

Register for the Symposium