ARLINGTON, VA – August 24, 2006 – The Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), in collaboration with Blackwell Publishing and Elsevier Publishing, announces that online access to Conservation Biology, Conservation In Practice, and Biological Conservation is now free to SCB members in developing countries. Elsevier has also added Ecological Indicators, Ecological Complexity, and Ecological Informatics to the free publications. SCB is also negotiating to acquire similar access to a suite of other conservation-related journals from a variety of publishers, including additional titles from Blackwell and Elsevier.
Providing free access to conservation publications will greatly benefit our conservation colleagues in developing countries worldwide. Conservationists in developing countries want to do effective conservation work, but many cannot afford scientific publications and do not have access via their institutions. "The destruction of biodiversity worldwide is so rapid that there is no time to waste. Information must get out to conservationists who otherwise would not have access. SCB is leading the way in making scientific information available to conservation professionals and students in developing countries," said SCB Executive Director, Dr. Alan Thornhill.
Thanks to a grant from The Nature Conservancy (TNC), SCB is able to offer free memberships to a large number of conservationists in developing countries and therefore provide access to the growing list of free conservation publications. Jonathan Adams, Program Director for Conservation Knowledge and Communities at TNC said, "It's extremely important that conservation professionals have access to current scientific information. Much of the Earth's biodiversity can be found in developing countries, and scientists there often cannot get the most current information either about the species themselves or about the tools that are available to conserve them."
For updates and more information on these great new benefits, check the upcoming SCB newsletter and the SCB website: http://conbio.org. For further information, contact Dr. Alan Thornhill, Society for Conservation Biology at athornhill@conbio.org or (703) 276-2384 or Jonathan Adams, The Nature Conservancy at jadams@tnc.org or (301) 897-8570.
The Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) is an international professional organization dedicated to promoting the scientific study of the phenomena that affect the maintenance, loss, and restoration of biological diversity. The Society's membership comprises a wide range of people interested in the conservation and study of biological diversity: resource managers, educators, government and private conservation workers, and students make up the more than 12,000 members world-wide.