Conservation Messaging in the Bucketlist Era

Nature and wildlife can serve as ambassadors for Earth's most precious and protection-worthy places. Join the Yale Center for Environmental Communication on Wednesday, March 1, 2023, 5:30-6:30pm ET, for a panel discussion with international sustainable tourism and conservation experts on how to leverage growing interest in nature-based tourism to promote conservation and responsible travel.

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The panel, moderated by Dr. Amy Vedder of the Yale School of the Environment, will discuss questions such as what stakeholders should be engaged in order to most effectively communicate the value of green (and blue) spaces around the world. We are thrilled to have the following speakers:

Dr. Anna Spenceley | Chair, IUCN Tourism and Protected Areas Specialist Group
Dr. Anna Spenceley FRGS, is a sustainable tourism consultant who Chairs the IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) Tourism and Protected Areas Specialist Group (TAPAS Group), sits on the board of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), the UN World Tourism Organisation’s Panel of Experts, and on the Independent Advisory Group of Travalyst. She compiled the Handbook for Sustainable Tourism Practitioners: The Essential Toolbox and co-edited the IUCN Best Practice Guidelines on Tourism and Visitors Management in Protected Areas.

Dr. Susanne Etti | Global Environmental Impact Manager, Intrepid Travel
Dr. Susanne Etti is the Global Environmental Impact Manager of Intrepid Travel, the world’s largest adventure travel company. She has a PhD in natural science, specializing in climate change and vector borne diseases. Her work at Intrepid Travel centers around global decarbonization, specifically around climate change performance, biodiversity, carbon reporting, and transitioning the business to a low-carbon economy. Intrepid, who are globally recognized as leaders in responsible travel, have been carbon neutral since 2010 and in 2018 became the largest B Corp in the tourism sector. In 2020, they became the first and only tour operator in the world with a verified science-based emission reduction target.

Mauricio Miramontes | Strategic Partnership Coordinator, La Mano del Mono
Mauricio is the Co-Founder of La Mano del Mono, a non-profit dedicated to forming alliances among key stakeholders of nature-based tourism destinations to promote conservation and the wellbeing of local communities in Mexico and Latin America. Trained as a biologist with 20+ years working on sustainable tourism with a specialty in experiential education in protected areas and in the co-design of social business models in areas of high poverty, he is an Ashoka Fellow, Ambassador of the Adventure Travel Trade Association, and member of International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Dr. Amy Vedder | Lecturer, Yale School of the Environment
Moderating is Dr. Amy Vedder, who worked as a practitioner of international wildlife and wildlands conservation for 35 years before joining Yale School of the Environment. Her ecological studies of mountain gorillas and Angolan colobus, combined with the socio-economic work of her colleague Dr. Bill Weber, led to their launch of pioneering ecotourism and community outreach programs in Rwanda and Burundi to help conserve multiple montane forests and their highly endangered and endemic fauna. She has since served in various international advisory roles to strengthen protected areas in the U.S. and in Rwanda.

This event is hosted by the Yale Center for Environmental Communication and the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.