Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Rural Development Collaboration

Additional partners: Center for Tropical Research; Tropical Conservation and Development .

The University of Florida’s Tropical Conservation and Development (TCD) Program and the Universidad Veracruzana’s Center for Tropical Research (CITRO) are collaborating to train a new generation of Mexican leaders in conservation and sustainable development.

The program is expanding a network of diverse stakeholders invested in conservation of Mexico’s managed landscapes. They're training students in the expansion process and bringing multiple perspectives and talents to bear on biodiversity conservation and sustainable rural development.

Two important components of the partnership are expanded experiential learning opportunities and long-term exchanges of faculty members, which provide in-depth training and exposure to the local context. Leveraged funding from the United States Fulbright Scholar Program has allowed two University of Florida faculty members to spend the academic year at Universidad Veracruzana to team-teach courses alongside their Universidad Veracruzana counterparts.

Universidad Veracruzana faculty members will also participate in nine-month sabbaticals at University of Florida, during which they will participate in the university’s Natural Resource Leadership Institute, the model the partners are using to develop the new Universidad Veracruzana curriculum.