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ANNOUNCEMENTS

Nominations Sought

In 2002, the American Society of Mammalogists established two new conservation awards to recognize outstanding contributions to the conservation of terrestrial and / or marine mammals and their habitats. The Aldo Leopold Award is given to a well-established individual who has made a lasting contribution. The William T. Hornaday Award is given to a current undergraduate or graduate student who has made a significant contribution as a student.

The recipient of each award will have contributed substantially to (1) the conservation of 1 or more mammalian species, subspecies, or populations, (2) the conservation of mammalian assemblages and communities, and / or (3) advancing the field of conservation biology through focal research on mammals. We interpret "contribution" broadly to include (1) scientific research or political activism that has resulted in the preservation of an imperiled species, (2) development of protective management recommendations, (3) acquisition of new knowledge regarding the conservation status or causes for declines of mammalian species or populations, (4) the protection of significant mammalian habitat, or (5) promotion of the conservation of mammals through public education.

All persons are invited to submit nominations for these awards. For each award, the nomination packet should include
1. A brief (two pages maximum) narrative that introduces and describes the conservation activities of the nominee
2. A list of relevant journal articles, government and NGO reports, newspaper clippings, and other materials that chronicle and corroborate the conservation-related activities of the nominee
3. Contact information for the nominator and nominee
4. Supporting material.
Aldo Leopold Award--include the three pieces of corroborative literature that most succinctly and directly describe the nominee's contributions to mammalian conservation. William T. Hornaday Award--include letters of recommendation from two individuals familiar with the nominee's conservation activities. One of these letters must be from the student's research advisor.

Send nomination packets to Steven Sheffield, Department of Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University, 4400 University Dr., Fairfax, VA 22030, USA, (301) 593-6251, srsheffield@att.net. The deadline for nominations is 15 March 2004. Recipients of these awards will be announced at the annual ASM meeting. For more information see www.mammalogy.org.

Call for Abstracts--Eisenberg Memorial Volume

John F. Eisenberg died on 6 July 2003 at his home in Bellingham, Washington, USA at the age of 68. Eisenberg retired in 2000 from the University of Florida where he held the title of Eminent Scholar and was Katharine Ordway Professor of Ecosystem Conservation for nearly 20 years. Prior to 1982, Eisenberg was Assistant Director of the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C. Through his scholarship, friendship, and his students, John Eisenberg has had--and will continue to have for generations to come--a tremendous impact on mammalogy and conservation biology, and on the communities engaged in these fields of endeavor around the globe.

A Festschrift volume is being organized to celebrate and affirm John Eisenberg's lifetime achievements as a scientist, scholar, and mentor. We are soliciting abstracts from students and colleagues of John Eisenberg who would be interested in contributing a manuscript to the proposed volume.

Papers included in the Festschrift will be selected to reflect the great diversity, range, and depth of John Eisenberg's interests and expertise, illustrate the magnitude and depth of his contributions to the development of the scientific disciplines of mammalogy and conservation biology, and demonstrate the global influence and global impacts of his achievements as a scientist and mentor.

If you would like to participate in this effort, please send your expression of interest and abstract to the dditors, George McKay (gmckay@midcoast.com.au) and Joseph Dudley (fnjpd@uaf.edu). More information is available at http://www.midcoast.com.au/~gmckay/eisenberg/book.html.

New Publications

Zed Press and Palgrave-McMillan announce the publication of Women and Plants: Gender Relations in Biodiversity Management and Conservation. This collection of in-depth case studies from Latin America, Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America aims to increase understanding of the importance of women and gender relations in plant genetic resource management and conservation. It provides an overview of the concepts, relationships, and contexts that help explain the relatively hidden gender dimensions of people-plant relations. Contributors come from a range of disciplines including ethnobotany, geography, agronomy, anthropology, plant breeding, nutrition, and development economics. They demonstrate how crucial women are to plant biodiversity management and conservation at household, village, and community levels; and how gender relations influence the ways in which local people understand, manage, and conserve biodiversity. The book can be ordered at http://zedweb.hypermart.net/home.htm, through Amazon.com, or through Palgrave-MacMillan at http://www.palgrave-usa.com/catalogue/index.asp?isbn=1842771574. For more information, contact Patricia Howard, v.howard-borjas@chello.nl.

First published in 1974, Aims and Methods of Vegetation Ecology by Dieter Mueller-Dombois and Heinz Ellenberg rapidly became the standard text for the study of vegetation sampling design in more than 60 colleges and universities in the United States. The book also received wide international acceptance. The book has just been brought back into print by The Blackburn Press with a new preface by the author. Price for a paperback copy (ISBN 1-930665-73-3) is US$69.95. The Blackburn Press is a relatively new publishing company, founded with the mission of keeping in print and available for purchase at reasonable prices book titles that larger publishers have lost interest in and have declared to be "out of print." Blackburn specializes in scientific and technical books and textbooks that are classics in their field. For more information, see www.blackburnpress.com/aimandmetofv.html or contact Andrea Herbert, The Blackburn Press, P.O. Box 287, Caldwell, NJ 07006, USA, (973) 228-7077, FAX (973) 228-7276, AHerbert@BlackburnPress.com.

Educational Opportunity

Columbia Mountains Institute of Applied Ecology will offer the course Applying DNA methods to the study of wildlife distribution and abundance from 1-4 December 2003 in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada. Cost is $600 plus 7% GST. The course will present an introduction to modern advances in DNA technology (mtDNA, nDNA, PCR, sample storage) and introduce methods to identify species, sex, individuals, and populations using species specific markers, criteria for assigning sample sex and individual identity, allele frequency distributions, and population assignment tests. The course will then illustrate how DNA data can be used in animal inventory, census, and monitoring using presence / absence and open and closed model mark / recapture analysis to estimate abundance and track population change over time. The course content is applicable to all wildlife species. The course is designed as an in-service professional development opportunity for those engaged in or planning to become engaged in field studies using DNA techniques. More information is available at http://www.cmiae.org or from Jackie Morris, Columbia Mountains Institute of Applied Ecology, Box 2568, Revelstoke, British Columbia, Canada V0E 2S0, (250) 837-9311, FAX (250) 837-9311.

Meetings and Workshops

The Fourteenth North American Interdisciplinary Conference on Environment and Community will be held 19-21 February 2004 in Saratoga Springs, New York, USA. Proposals are invited for individual papers and group and panel sessions. The organizers encourage submissions from scholars, thinkers, artists, students, and activists from all disciplines, perspectives, and fields of endeavor, from anywhere in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. One-page abstracts should be sent (preferably via email as Microsoft Word attachments) by 15 November 2003 to environ.conference@esc.edu. For more information visit www.esc.edu/EnvironConf or contact Wayne Ouderkirk or Elaine Handley, Empire State College, 28 Union Ave., Saratoga Springs, NY 12866, USA, (518) 255-5320 or (518) 587-2100 x 386, FAX (518) 255-5809.

Upcoming SCB Meetings

• 2004: New York City.
• 2005: Brasília, Brazil.
• 2006: Proposals to host the meeting are now being solicited.

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