June 2010 ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION 28:2 • 175 Ecological Restoration Vol. 28, No. 2, 2010 ISSN 1522-4740 E-ISSN 1543-4079 ©2010 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System. UW Press / Ecological Restoration SPECIAL THEME: EDUCATION AND OUTREACH IN ECOLOGICAL RESTORATION Ecological Restoration for Future Conservation Professionals: Training with Conceptual Models and Practical Exercises James Aronson, Nikolay Aguirre and Jesús Muñoz ABSTRACT In the context of a new international master’s degree program, “Biodiversity in Tropical Areas and its Conservation,” we led a two-week module on ecological restoration in Ecuador for 34 future conservation professionals from nine nations, including seven from Latin America. One week was spent in the cloud-forest life zone, a second in the lowland tropical forest. The ranges of biomes and socioeconomic and historical settings that commonly occur in tropical regions were discussed. We saw these students as future communicators engaged not only in management of protected areas, but also as deeply involved in outreach, negotiation, and consensus-building among stakeholders. Students were introduced to concepts and techniques for evaluating a degraded landscape in order to determine past and present land uses and conflicts of interest among stakeholders. They were instructed on how to select a reference model using sequential ref- erence sites and to incorporate nine attributes of satisfactorily restored ecosystems into restoration plans. In nine small groups, the 34 participating students prepared proposals to obtain funding for a restoration project in their home coun- tries or in one of the two regions of Ecuador that were visited in the module. For this purpose, each group developed a schematic model showing how the target ecosystems were degraded and landscapes fragmented. In a second schema, they proposed a program to restore or rehabilitate different landscape units and to reintegrate fragmented landscapes. Highlights and lessons learned from this modular exercise are presented and discussed. Keywords: natural capital value, proposal writing, reconciling conservation and economic development, reference models T ropical countries are home to the world’s richest biodiversity, but most knowledge about those areas is generated and published elsewhere— often in more developed “rich” coun- tries and with low returns in terms of capacity building or research train- ing in tropical places. In 2008, an international master’s program called “Biodiversity in Tropical Areas and Its Conservation” was launched in Ecua- dor. Its goal is to ofer profcient Latin American students the opportunity to receive a European MS degree in the areas of biology, ecology, forestry, agri- culture, and related felds that could lead to further academic, research, and employment opportunities. Such programs are scarce in Latin America, and those that exist are usually inac- cessible to a majority of the qualifed students. Many students with great research and professional potential simply cannot aford the costs of competitive degrees, which would aid them in becoming academic or research leaders in their home coun- tries. Tis expertise, in turn, would promote our knowledge of tropical biodiversity more quickly. Te innovative program we present here was created by the International University Menendez Pelayo (UIMP) and the National Research Council (CSIC) of Spain in collaboration with the Universidad Central del Ecuador (UCE). Te government of Spain, through the CSIC, funds the program and provides scholarships to help train future conservation scientists and pro- tected area managers who are working or planning to work in Latin America, especially in tropical countries. Te course is open to European and other non-Latin American students as well. Following an organizational model widely used in Spain, the MS pro- gram’s 19 two-week modules focus on conservation biology, biostatis- tics, park management, planning and executing a research project, and eco- logical restoration—all centered on the tropics. Each module is taught by instructors experienced in their sub- ject areas. Graduating students earn credit towards an MS degree from UIMP for a course completed in a tropical country. Opportunities exist for motivated students to continue in a PhD program in any university in Spain and other European countries, since the program is included in the “European Space for Higher Educa- tion.” Additionally, each academic 4-ER28.2 Aronson (175-81).indd 175 3/23/10 11:33 AM