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2019-10-16
Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston;
Few organizations in Jewish life can match the scale and scope of CJP's search for a new CEO—or the pedigree of its search committee. But in assembling a team of all-stars—and then executing a search with precision and professionalism—CJP's board provides a model to which all organizations can aspire.
2019-10-07
Ascendium;
Ascendium Education Group (formerly known as Great Lakes Higher Education Corporation & Affiliates) has invested heavily to advance postsecondary success for low-income students, students of color, and first-generation students. Since 2012, Ascendium has awarded over $10.2 million in Dash Emergency Grants to 63 two- and four-year institutions. Through Dash, colleges administer emergency aid (EA) grants to meet students' unanticipated expenses so that more of these students stay on track for completion. These small grants, often $500 or less, can make the difference in whether a student is able to remain in school. Ascendium contracted with Equal Measure in late 2017 to create a set of tools to help the field codify the process of awarding emergency aid. Emergency Aid for Higher Education: A Toolkit and Resource Guide for DecisionMakers is the result of more than 10 months of research, interviews, focus groups, and webinars with Dash Emergency Grant recipients that elucidated current best practices, and gaps, in administering EA programs.
2019-10-07
Current Biology;
Coastal zones, the world's most densely populated regions, are increasingly threatened by climate change stressors — rising and warming seas, intensifying storms and droughts, and acidifying oceans. Although coastal zones have been affected by local human activities for centuries, how local human impacts and climate change stressors may interact to jeopardize coastal ecosystems remains poorly understood. Here we provide a review on interactions between climate change and local human impacts (e.g., interactions between sea level rise and anthropogenic land subsidence, which are forcing Indonesia to relocate its capital city) in the coastal realm. We highlight how these interactions can impair and, at times, decimate a variety of coastal ecosystems, and examine how understanding and incorporating these interactions can reshape theory on climate change impacts and ecological resilience. We further discuss implications of interactions between climate change and local human impacts for coastal conservation and elucidate the context when and where local conservation is more likely to buffer the impacts of climate change, attempting to help reconcile the growing debate about whether to shift much of the investment in local conservation to global CO2 emission reductions. Our review underscores that an enhanced understanding of interactions between climate change and local human impacts is of profound importance to improving predictions of climate change impacts, devising climate-smart conservation actions, and helping enhance adaption of coastal societies to climate change in the Anthropocene.
2019-10-07
CIVICUS - World Alliance for Citizen Participation;
The Goalkeepers Youth Action Accelerator is a youth-led and multi-partner global programme dedicated to accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It brings together a pioneering and truly inspiring generation of 26 young and diverse leaders to address the world's major challenges. These leaders create impact by sharing powerful stories, analysing data, forming robust partnerships and ultimately holding governments accountable for their SDG promises.
This brief shares key outcomes, reflections and recommendations from the young people who have taken part in the Youth Action Accelerator programme. It suggests ways of ensuring strengthened and more meaningful youth engagement across partnerships, policies and programmes, specifically in the areas of resourcing, health, climate change and technology.
2019-09-25
Royal Society Publishing, The;
The distributions of migratory species in the ocean span local, national and international jurisdictions. Across these ecologically interconnected regions, migratory marine species interact with anthropogenic stressors throughout their lives. Migratory connectivity, the geographical linking of individuals and populations throughout their migratory cycles, influences how spatial and temporal dynamics of stressors affect migratory animals and scale up to influence population abundance, distribution and species persistence. Population declines of many migratory marine species have led to calls for connectivity knowledge, especially insights from animal tracking studies, to be more systematically and synthetically incorporated into decision-making. Inclusion of migratory connectivity in the design of conservation and management measures is critical to ensure they are appropriate for the level of risk associated with various degrees of connectivity. Three mechanisms exist to incorporate migratory connectivity into international marine policy which guides conservation implementation: site-selection criteria, network design criteria and policy recommendations. Here, we review the concept of migratory connectivity and its use in international policy, and describe the Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean system, a migratory connectivity evidence-base for the ocean. We propose that without such collaboration focused on migratory connectivity, efforts to effectively conserve these critical species across jurisdictions will have limited effect.
2019-09-23
High Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy (HLP);
The ocean is a dominant feature of our planet, covering 70 percent of its surface and driving its climate and biosphere. The ocean sustains life on earth and yet is in peril from climate change. However, while much of recent attention is focused on the problems that the ocean faces, the ocean is also a source of potential solutions and innovation. This report explores how the ocean, its coastal regions and economic activities can provide opportunities in the fight against climate change.
2019-09-19
CLTS Knowledge Hub;
This issue of Frontiers of CLTS explores current thinking and practice on the topic of tackling slippage of open defecation free (ODF) status. It looks at how slippage is defined and identified, and at different patterns of slippage that are seen after ODF is declared. Although a considerable amount has been written on how to establish strong Community-Led Total sanitation (CLTS) programmes that prevent slippage from happening, this issue looks at how to reverse slippage that has already taken place. Note however, that at a certain level, strategies used to reverse slippage and those used in advance to set a programme up for success to prevent slippage occurring overlap.
From the literature, there is little documented evidence on how slippage can be reversed; evidence and guidance tend to focus on prevention. This review begins to address this gap. Implementers are encouraged to use the proposed patterns of slippage framework and slippage factors section to understand the type and extent of slippage experienced, then use the examples in the section on tackling slippage to identify potential slippage responses.
In addition to a review of current literature, in depth interviews were carried out with key informants at global, regional and country level. Key informants were selected purposively to identify experiences and innovations in tackling slippage from across the sector.
Issue 14, September 2019
2019-09-13
ScienceDirect;
Despite worldwide demand for tuna products and considerable conservation interest by civil society, no single global dataset exists capturing the spatial extent of all catches from fisheries for large pelagic species across all ocean basins. Efforts to spatially quantify the historical catch of global tuna fisheries have been restricted to the few taxa of major economic interest, creating a truncated view of the true extent of the fisheries for tuna and other large pelagic fishes. Individual Regional Fisheries Management Organizations (RFMOs) have given varying degrees of attention to minor taxa and non-target species only in more recent years. Here, we compiled and harmonized public datasets of nominal landed catches, as well as spatial data on reported catches of large pelagic taxa reported for the industrial tuna and large pelagic fisheries by tuna RFMOs for the last 60+ years. Furthermore, we provide a preliminary estimate of marine finfishes discarded by these fisheries. We spatialized these data to create a publicly available, comprehensive dataset presenting the historical reported landed catches plus preliminary discards of these species in space for 1950–2016. Our findings suggest that current public reporting efforts are insufficient to fully and transparently document the global historical extent of fisheries for tuna and other large pelagic fishes. Further harmonization of our findings with data from small-scale tuna fisheries could contribute to a fuller picture of global tuna and large pelagic fisheries.
2019-09-12
Pew Charitable Trusts;
The transshipment of catch, which allows fresh fish to get to market sooner, is a vital but largely hidden part of the global commercial fishing industry. Transshipment involves hundreds of refrigerated cargo vessels, or carrier vessels, roaming the oceans, taking in catch from thousands of fishing vessels and transporting it to shore for processing. While transshipment touches a wide range of seafood products, most is made up of bigeye, yellowfin, and skipjack tuna. Salmon, mackerel, and crab also account for a substantial portion of transshipped products.
2019-09-12
Frontiers in Marine Science;
Better scientific knowledge of the poorly-known deep sea and areas beyond national jurisdiction (ABNJ) is key to its conservation, an urgent need in light of increasing environmental pressures. Access to marine genetic resources (MGR) for the biodiversity research community is essential to allow these environments to be better characterised. Negotiations have commenced under the auspices of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) to develop a new treaty to further the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity in ABNJ. It is timely to consider the relevant issues with the development of the treaty underway. Currently uncertainties surround the legal definition of MGR and scope of related benefit-sharing, against a background of regional and global governance gaps in ABNJ. These complications are mirrored in science, with recent major advances in the field of genomics, but variability in handling of the resulting increasing volumes of data. Here, we attempt to define the concept of MGR from a scientific perspective, review current practices for the generation of and access to MGR from ABNJ in the context of relevant regulations, and illustrate the utility of best-practice with a case study. We contribute recommendations with a view to strengthen best-practice in accessibility of MGR, including: funder recognition of the central importance of taxonomy/biodiversity research; support of museums/collections for long-term sample curation; open access to data; usage and further development of globally recognised data standards and platforms; publishing of datasets via open-access, quality controlled and standardised data systems and open access journals; commitment to best-practice workflows; a global registry of cruises; and lastly development of a clearing house to further centralised access to the above. We argue that commitment to best-practice would allow greater sharing of MGR for research and extensive secondary use including conservation and environmental monitoring, and provide an exemplar for access and benefit-sharing (ABS) to inform the biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ) process.
2019-09-12
Native Americans in Philanthropy;
From 2002 to 2016, large U.S. foundations gave, on average, 0.4 percent of total annual funding to Native American communities and causes, although the Alaska Native and American Indian population represents 2 percent of the total U.S. population. This report provides the latest data on foundation funding for Native Americans, alongside important historical context that has contributed to the unique experiences and challenges Native Americans face today. The report also consolidates advice and feedback from philanthropic and Native leaders, who reflect on successful work and practices in partnering with Native organizations and communities.
2019-09-10
Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution;
Intermediate-duration archival tags were attached to eight blue whales (Balaenoptera musculus; four females, three males, one of unknown sex), and five fin whales (B. physalus; two females, one male, two of unknown sex) off southern California, USA, in summer 2014 and 2015. Tags logged 1-Hz data from tri-axial accelerometers, magnetometers, and a depth sensor, while acquiring Fastloc GPS locations. Tag attachment duration ranged from 18.3 to 28.9 d for blue whales and 4.9–16.0 d for fin whales, recording 1,030–4,603 dives and 95–3,338 GPS locations per whale across both species. Feeding lunges (identified from accelerometer data) were used to characterize "feeding bouts" (i.e., sequences of feeding dives with
