Joint ventures: A different approach to conservation

Abstract

Robert Mesta sits in a dingy office in an old converted YMCA building a few blocks from the University of Arizona campus in Tucson, pondering the answer to a reporter's question. "We are facilitators," says Mesta, coordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service's Sonoran Joint Venture program. "We are a collaborative partnership that works through local and regional groups in a nonregulatory way to achieve bird conservation. We represent a relatively new tool for doing science-based conservation".