Training and Other Services
The EBM Tools Training Program connects practitioners with the knowledge of tool developers and tool application experts. Services the EBM Tools Training Program offers include:
- Organizing on-line and in-person events and activities to inform practitioners about relevant tools. Events and activities include webinars, workshops, listserves, newsletters, and databases (e.g. www.ebmtoolsdatabase.org). Learn more about our work and feedback from practitioners.
- Developing customized trainings on tools or toolsets to help local planners and managers gain skills in the application and use of tools to address EBM issues. Learn more about our work and feedback from practitioners.
- Providing consulting services to local planners and managers to understand and define their needs, select appropriate tools or toolsets for addressing EBM issues, and develop work flows and processes for using tools effectively. Learn more about our work and feedback from practitioners.
- Synthesizing and analyzing tool information to develop tailored toolsets to address specific EBM issues. Learn more about our work and feedback from practitioners.
The EBM Tools Training Program recognizes that every coastal and marine planning process is unique and requires a tailored approach for participants to reach their goals. The Program works closely with the people involved in a planning process to determine tools that best meet their needs. Selections depend on process goals as well as access to data and technology.
The EBM Tools Network is currently focusing on tools for:
- Climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning
- Ecosystem-based coastal and marine spatial planning
- Integrated land-sea planning to minimize the impacts of land use on coastal and marine environments.
Several suites of tools and toolkits have been assembled for these planning areas, and tailored trainings or services can be provided to assist in addressing these issues.
Interested in training or other services? Contact the to discuss.
Examples of Our Work and Feedback
Some examples of the EBM Tools Network’s and EBM Tools Training Program’s work and feedback from coastal and marine practitioners:
Providing Information and Making Connections
- Our popular webinar series on cutting-edge methods for coastal-marine conservation and management reaches over 2,500 coastal and marine practitioners per year
- Our EBM Tools database (www.ebmtoolsdatabase.org) and website (ebmtools.org) provide the most comprehensive information available about tools and methods for holistic coastal-marine conservation and management
- Our monthly EBM Tools Network newsletters reach over 4,000 coastal and marine conservation and management practitioners monthly with information about new developments in ecosystem-based management and marine spatial planning
- The EBM Tools Network is frequently cited as a key resource for critical coastal-marine conservation and management information
- EBM Tools Network events have led to numerous collaborations
- Our listserve with over 2,800 network members enables vibrant knowledge exchange amongst practitioners. Recent threads have covered mobile device “apps” relevant for coastal and marine conservation and management, resources for conducting long-term social and economic monitoring of coastal and marine environments, and fisheries models that account for climate change
- The EBM Tools Network provides the best-available compilation of tools for climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning
- Since 2006, the EBM Tools Training Program has provided in-person training workshops to over 600 coastal and marine decision makers on the use of methods and tools for holistic coastal and marine conservation and management
- A recent workshop “Data and Tools for Incorporating Climate Change Impacts into Planning and Project Design” co-organized with the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission highlighted data and tools available for planners dealing with climate impacts and adaptation planning
Providing Technical Assistance and Guidance
- In 2008 and 2009, a team of EBM Tools Network members developed and used a toolkit for integrated land-sea planning in Aransas County, Texas. Working with local decision makers, the team analyzed potential urbanization scenarios and their impact on water quality and estuarine/coastal habitats and trained local participants in toolkit use.
- In 2009 and 2010, a team of EBM Tools Network members developed and used a toolkit for integrated conservation-natural hazard coastal planning in the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester County region of South Carolina. The helped inform the regional planning process, providing information about where land should be developed to avoid putting people and property at risk, and where to conserve natural areas, like marshes and floodplains, so they could continue to protect coastal neighborhoods, regional economy and quality of life.
- The EBM Tools Training Program is currently working with the Humboldt Bay Initiative in California on a demonstration of the capabilities of climate change planning tools for regional conservation and planning. The demonstration will further climate planning activities for both the natural and built environment in the Bay
EBM Tools Network Work and Feedback
Providing Information and Making Connections
Our popular webinar series on cutting-edge methods for coastal-marine conservation and management reaches over 2,500 coastal and marine practitioners per year
“You and your colleagues continue to astound me with all you great products and services. Webinars are a great thing for all of us in far flung, small communities.”
--- EBM Tools Network webinar participant
“Thank you so much for putting these sessions together. There is no way that as an NGO in a developing country we can access this type of learning any other way. And absolutely no chance the local NGO’s will ever get the info unless it is provided for free by the experts.”
--- EBM Tools Network webinar participant
“I found the webinar very useful. Having access to high caliber speakers without having to make time and find money to travel to a conference is amazing.”
--- EBM Tools Network webinar participant
“I was just looking at the stats from yesterday’s webinar and was shocked to see that 130 people from 13 different countries attended. That blows my mind! Is attendance to webinars usually that high / diverse? You are doing such valuable work, helping us reach that many
people.”
--- EBM Tools Network webinar presenter
“I work mainly to provide scientific information to policymakers. I use the network to research tools that policymakers might use to better meet their objectives. I think the Network does a great job--professionally and thoughtfully run. They put a lot of thought into how best to allocate their efforts and they listen to what people want and are looking for. They’re accessible—seem to want to hear from everybody and they make that clear.”
--- EBM Tools Network webinar participant
Our EBM Tools database (www.ebmtoolsdatabase.org) and website (ebmtools.org) provide the most comprehensive information available about tools and methods for holistic coastal-marine conservation and management
“It is great to find all those tools gathered in one place to look through.”
--- EBM Tools Network database/website user
“I find the information very enriching and well-organized. It is always up to date regarding new tools coming. I browse through the website and find lots of options.”
--- EBM Tools Network database/website user
“We recommend the EBM Tools Network to our managers and stakeholders in our conservation sites throughout the country. We encourage them to check out the website and try the modeling software available that suits their needs. Since our approach to conservation is science-based, we highly suggest they try the network tools. The Network is a rich source of information especially on marine and coastal conservation models [for the] country’s geographic characteristic.
--- EBM Tools Network database/website user
“The Network’s utility for me is the information it provides; that it’s a repository for the kinds of info that we need. I like that all these tools are collected in one place—saves a lot of time.”
--- EBM Tools Network database/website user
Our monthly EBM Tools Network newsletters reach over 4,000 coastal and marine conservation and management practitioners monthly with information about new developments in ecosystem-based management and marine spatial planning
“I count on your updates and the information I get off the EBM site for new ideas and approaches to sanctuary management.”
--- EBM Tools Network database/website user
“I just wanted to thank you for the latest EBM Tools Network newsletter - it was packed with great information.”
---EBM Tools Network member
“When this began, I saw it as just another network and actively avoided it. Then I started reading the emails and saw how useful it was. I became a convert.”
---EBM Tools Network member
“The Network helps me keep myself updated in technological advances, methodologies, and techniques for conservation work.”
---EBM Tools Network member
The EBM Tools Network is frequently cited as a key resource for critical coastal-marine conservation and management information
“The EBM Tools Network is a good example of a ‘boundary organization’: it works at the boundary of science, policy-making and practice and facilitates the communication among them. Boundary organizations play significant role in providing adaptive solutions for complex problems, like most of the problems we face in conservation, biodiversity or other natural resource management or increasing the resilience of stressed social-ecological systems. The EBM Tools Network offers an impressive searchable tools database, case studies, news, and trainings. It is, however the regular webinars that would be most attractive to CEC Members… Mirroring the ‘boundary’ nature of EBM Tools Network, learners – and their questions - represent a diverse group of stakeholders ranging from research students, educators to protected area managers from all over the world. Even if your work is not directly related to EBM, these webinars give you the sense of the latest and greatest approaches tested in real conservation projects, and offer you the opportunity of exploring the role of educators, sensu lato, in contributing to the successful implementation of EBM tools.”
----Citation in 2010 IUCN Commission on Education and Communication publication
The treatment of moving from theory to practice would also have been enhanced with more discussion of tools for making decisions. Place-based planning tools (e.g., Marxan, InVEST, MarineMap, EcoSpace, NatureServe Vista) provide enormous opportunities for EBM education and implementation. Interested readers can find descriptions of these tools and illustrations of their use at the EBM Tools Network (ebmtools.org).”
---Citation in Science (2009)
EBM Tools Network events have led to numerous collaborations
“As a result of the EBM Tools Network webinar we presented, we're now doing trainings about analyzing social networks for projects working with watershed groups in the lower Hudson Valley, isolated resource-dependent coastal communities in the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, and the ecological and cultural sustainability dynamics of the Kalahari bushman community. If not for the network, none of this activity would ever have occurred.”
--- EBM Tools Network webinar presenter
“Participation in the Tools Network has been an incredibly valuable experience for me. I've learned about a great variety of tools I didn't know were available. I've talked with many people working on concerns similar to mine, which has broadened my perspective and given me new ideas. And I've developed new collaborations that may not have been possible otherwise. Thank you! It’s a great initiative that helps rapidly advance the use of tools.”
--- EBM Tools Network member
Our listserve with over 2,800 network members enables vibrant knowledge exchange amongst practitioners. Recent threads have covered mobile device “apps” relevant for coastal and marine conservation and management, resources for conducting long-term social and economic monitoring of coastal and marine environments, and fisheries models that account for climate change
“I received a lot of fantastic responses from people on EBM list...I am in the process of checking out all the websites now and compiling a table and literature review which will then form a paper down the track.”
---EBM Tools Network listserve participant
“…the recent conversation among various folks regarding connectivity was great to see. A question is posed about what is available, within days several tools and papers are provided by a range of reputed people, and the original researcher posing the questions is right up to speed ... The thought that watching this conversation triggered in me was ‘I wonder what the financial value of this might be?’. Without the Tools Network enabling that conversation we would undoubtedly have had a researcher spending a huge amount of time searching the background and probably ending up with spending a lot of resources reinventing several wheels. Not to speak of the more difficult to quantify benefits of delivering scientifically credible answers to ocean management questions more quickly.”
--- EBM Tools Network listserve participant
The EBM Tools Network provides the best-available compilation of tools for climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation planning
The Network’s climate change vulnerability assessment and adaptation toolkit (http://www.ebmtoolsdatabase.org/resource/climate-change-vulnerability-assessment-and-adaptation-tools) has been used in trainings nationwide, and the EBM Tools Training Program is currently co-authoring the technical section of the Coastal chapter in the 2012 National Climate Assessment.
Providing Training
Since 2006, the EBM Tools Training Program has provided in-person training workshops to over 600 coastal and marine decision makers on the use of methods and tools for holistic coastal and marine conservation and management
“Great training workshop. Thanks very much. The folks in my lab got a lot out of it, and I learned some exciting things about implementation needs that will shape my research directions for many years.”
--- EBM Tools Training Program workshop participant
“Overall I found the workshop extremely useful for networking, knowledge acquisition and brain and spirit stimulation.”
--- EBM Tools Training Program workshop participant
“Congratulations to the organizers, trainers, and presenters as this was one of the best workshops I’ve attended.”
--- EBM Tools Training Program workshop participant
“I have limited time to keep abreast of development of technological tools, and … getting a flavor of the types of things that are now possible helps spur my imagination in designing projects.”
--- EBM Tools Training Program workshop participant
A recent workshop “Data and Tools for Incorporating Climate Change Impacts into Planning and Project Design” co-organized with the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and the Bay Conservation and Development Commission highlighted data and tools available for planners dealing with climate impacts and adaptation planning
94% of evaluation survey respondents felt that their knowledge of tools and data increased after the training and intended to apply this knowledge to their work.
Providing Technical Assistance and Guidance
In 2008 and 2009, a team of EBM Tools Network members developed and used a toolkit for integrated land-sea planning in Aransas County, Texas. Working with local decision makers, the team analyzed potential urbanization scenarios and their impact on water quality and estuarine/coastal habitats and trained local participants in toolkit use.
A comprehensive report on the structure and use of the toolkit (http://www.ebmtoolsdatabase.org/resource/integrated-land-sea-planning-technical-guide-integrated-land-sea-planning-toolkit) is now available to help other practitioners with integrated land-sea planning.
In 2009 and 2010, a team of EBM Tools Network members developed and used a toolkit for integrated conservation-natural hazard coastal planning in the Berkeley-Charleston-Dorchester County region of South Carolina. The helped inform the regional planning process, providing information about where land should be developed to avoid putting people and property at risk, and where to conserve natural areas, like marshes and floodplains, so they could continue to protect coastal neighborhoods, regional economy and quality of life.
A report documenting the project and the toolkit (http://www.ebmtoolsdatabase.org/resource/integrated-planning-resilient-communities-technical-guide-integrating-hazard-ecosystem-and-) is now available to help other practitioners with integrated conservation-natural hazard coastal planning.
The EBM Tools Training Program is currently working with the Humboldt Bay Initiative in California on a demonstration of the capabilities of climate change planning tools for regional conservation and planning. The demonstration will further climate planning activities for both the natural and built environment in the Bay