[Coral-List] ICRS 12 Meeting Costs

Phillip Dustan dustanp at cofc.edu
Mon Jul 18 08:46:41 EDT 2011


Dear Listers,
I've been following this discussion with the thought that reef research 
has become more vogue due to the crisis that reefs are facing from human 
actions/activities.  While this is certainly important, lets not lose 
sight of the fact that most of  our knowledge about reefs has come from 
curious people who were driven, not necessarily funded, to ask and 
answer questions (academics and their students- mostly students).As 
reefs degraded, and continue to degrade there has been an increase in 
funding for directed research, management, and government agencies, not 
necessarily curiosity. Due to no fault of anyone, I fear that the high 
price of the meeting is another consequence of this trend.
I would favor a far more stripped down meeting that enables many more 
people to participate and share their ideas. Maybe a prime consideration 
for future meetings should be inclusiveness which would go farther 
towards promoting the goal of ICRS "to promote the production and 
dissemination of scientific knowledge and understanding of coral reefs, 
both living and fossil". Perhaps the organizing committee can figure out 
a way to video stream the ICRS12 talks to members who cannot afford to 
attend and thus be more faithful to our stated goal.
                 Phil


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