[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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