The Conservation and Environmental Management Forum (CEMF) is an information network consisting of conservation and environmental professionals which seeks to provide a platform for new conservation and environmental practitioners and more experienced professionals to share their knowledge and experiences with the strategic objective of improving the “best practices” for these sectors and improve the efficiency of decision making processes related to these industries.
The aim of the CEMF is to create and provide an intellectual resource network for the conservation and environmental community of South Africa to be able access a range of practical management expertise, strategic information assistance and mentorship services and to provide professional input into national, regional and local environmental and conservation decision making systems, as a registered stakeholder.
The target audience for the CEMF is:
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Nature Conservation and Environmental Management students
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Environmental Management practitioners
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Conservation Operations Managers
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Conservation Researchers
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Conservation Institutional programs – lecturers, teachers, etc.
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General public
For individuals interested in joining the CEMF, please download the Application Form – (link from the tab above), fill in the required information and submit it to the e-mail address provided. Once you receive confirmation of your membership you will be able to access the Forum. At this stage there is no membership fee.
Based on the target market profile, due to the nature of the CEMF and to protect “innocent” viewers of the content from misinterpretation, the CEMF consists of 2 forums which apply to different target audiences:
1)
The first forum is an internal forum which can only be accessed by members of the Forum. Members of the
Forum must be conservation and/or environmental practitioners that are directly involved in conservation and environmental management decision making processes (whether as implementer or advisory)
and require information support which they otherwise would not have access to.
2)
The second forum is a blog forum which is open to the general public who will view edited versions of the
discussions that take place between the members.
It is important to note that the CEMF only provides information which decision makers may consider when taking decisions and there is no binding on the decision maker to actually use the information presented. It is important to also note that the information presented is the opinion of conservation and environmental managers based on their experiences and each decision differs from the rest and thus the information extracted must be treated within this frame of reference when used in decision making. However, the information obtained may be used as data in research studies to quantify and qualify trends to obtain reliable information to be used as fact in decision making processes.
In this way, an information network is created where current and relevant conservation and environmental issues are discussed and debated thus allowing the general public to engage and debate with the conservation professionals responsible for making conservation decisions on the ground.
We look forward to the development of the CEMF and the myriad of possibilities and applications that this forum offers the world.
