What do organic gardens high in the Andes have in common with coral reefs thronging with fish in Bali? Both were part of the Coda Global Fellows monitoring fellowship experience.

The Coda Global Fellows Program mobilizes the Nature Conservancy's staff capacity and expertise on short term assignments for the Conservancy's greatest global needs. It also provides Conservancy staff with the opportunity to contribute and learn beyond their program borders and for their own professional development. The monitoring fellows program matches programatic needs with the often very specific technical skills for designing, implementing, analyzing and reporting quantitative monitoring.

The Coda Files Dossier highlights the work and learning of recent Measures Fellows or read below for products from specific fellows...

2012-2013 Measures Fellows cohort

• Rebecca Shirer (Eastern New York chapter) will strengthen the connection between conservation and rural livelihoods analyzing data from a household survey in Manus, Papua New Guinea.
• Scott Bearer (Pennsylvania chapter) is applying the Eastern Region's climate change resiliency planning techniques for the China Program's Yunnan Protected Area planning.

2011-2012 Measures Fellows cohort

• Karen Wong (Mexico program) helping Central Science design a webinar training series on how to evaluate the socioeconomic impact of conservation interventions (Webinar trainings: Measuring Social Impact, Local Communities and Indigenous People, Household Surveys; Resources page)
• Steve Haase (Arkansas chapter) training staff and conducting a first cut geomorphological assessment of the impact of Brazil's Water Funds program (article)
• Alison Greenberg (Philanthropy) co-leading a Social Science Task Force with Central Science to help the Conservancy demonstrate the impact our work has on people, and to design our priority projects with people in mind (article)
• Leandro Baumgarten (Atlantic Forest and Central Savannas Conservation Program, Brazil) exchanged science management experiences with Eastern Division Science

2010-2011 Measures Fellows cohort

• Doug Shaw (Florida chapter) working with the Colorado River Program’s landscape-level measures (Brownbag presentation, article, Presentation)
• George Schuler (Eastern New York chapter) helping the Caribbean Challenge create a robust monitoring and measures plan for sustainable finance (OU-wide) and protected area strategies (Dominican Republic) (Brownbag resentation, report)
• Margo Francis (Philanthropy) coordinating the Great Lakes Program measures summit for multiple state chapters and funding agencies
• Kristen Patterson (Africa program) assisting Central Science with integrating socioeconomic monitoring into the culture of the Conservancy through a suvey of training needs (Results)

2009-2010 Measures Fellows cohort

• Doria Gordon (Florida Chapter) helped Forever Costa Rica work out issues with biological monitoring (Technical Report)
• Rebecca Goldman (Central Science) organized a template for understanding biophysical and socioeconomic impacts of waterfunds in Ecuador and Colombia
  (Program Report, Monitoring Template)
• Jay O’Dell (Virginia Chapter) sifted through mounds of data to discover conservation gems with the Indonesia marine team
  (Science Chronicles article)

Check out Rebecca and Jay's half hour brown bag presentation on their monitoring fellows experience!

Conservancy staff can learn more about requesting or becoming a Coda Global Fellow on the Conservancy's intranet.