For this month's Donor Spotlight series, I sat down with Jon Mellberg, a Bay Area-based contributor who has supported CSF's videos on economic valuation, part of our popular animated video series. He recently spent some time with me to discuss his background, why he supports CSF and even the best way to calculate the economic value of an elephant!

Aja: Can you tell me a little about your career to date?

Conseravation Strategy Fund is delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Mubariq Ahmad as the first Director of CSF-Indonesia. Mubariq has enjoyed a 30-year career working as economic policy researcher and professional activist in a variety of organizations including The World Bank (2009-2015), WWF (2003-2009), and LEI/Indonesian Ecolabeling Institute (1997-2000). He will take the helm of CSF's program on February 1.

Native Kudu.

In September, CSF led several modules in a four-day workshop in Okahandja, Namibia sponsored by the GIZ ValuES program. ValuES is a global project that helps decision-makers integrate ecosystem services into policy making, planning and implementation of specific projects. A key element of the program is training on the selection and application of methods and tools for the assessment and valuation of ecosystem services. The Namibia course is one of several regional training courses taking place around the world in 2015 and 2016.

Last month, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and CSF presented the second annual Economic Tools for Conservation in Mexico and the Mesoamerican Reef. Twenty participants from different regions of Mexico and the Mesoamerican Reef came together to learn what economic drivers cause environmental problems and the potential solutions to them. The two-week course was held June 15th-26th at UNAM’s Chamela Biological Station in Jalisco, Mexico.

Amazonas native. © Fernanda Preto

The 2014 Brazil Economic Tools for Conservation course was held July 28 and August 8, 2014 at the Serra do Cipo, Minas Gerais.

CSF's Economic Tools for Conservation, a well known and renowned course among conservation professionals around the world, provides participants with skills in economic analysis on which to build more efficient and effective strategies for environmental conservation.

Entre os dias 22 e 25 de julho de 2014 a CSF em conjunto com a GIZ (Agência Alemã de Cooperação Internacional) realizaram em Brasília o Curso de Capacitação TEEB/ISE: Integração de serviços ecossistêmicos ao planejamento para o desenvolvimento. Esta capacitação foi desenvolvida pela GIZ e tem como objetivo desenvolver capacidades sobre a Economia dos Ecossistemas e da Biodiversidade e a integração de serviços ecossistêmicos a processos de planejamento por meio da(o):

• Introdução de conceitos relacionados aos serviços ecossistêmicos e à abordagem da Economia dos Ecossistemas e da Biodiversidade (TEEB);

On January 15th 2014, together with 6 other passengers and 3 crewmembers, I embarked on the polar sailing yacht Kotik to the Antarctic Peninsula.

It all started in the beginning of 2012, when an old friend of mine, historian and photographer João Paulo Barbosa, invited me to go to Antarctica to try and summit Mount Rio Branco. A 976 meter-high mountain that rises west of Cape Perez at the entrance of Beascochea Bay, it is thought of as one of the most beautiful, fascinating and unexplored regions of the Antarctic Peninsula.