This weekend Katie Crossman, an alumna of the Conservation Leadership Master’s Program, is attending the World Conservation Congress on behalf of The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) Global Water Team. Crossman is the Conservation Program Manager with the Great Rivers Program at TNC.

Crossman will present during the ‘Balancing Conservation and Development Needs through Engaging with Hydropower’ session. Her talk discusses the hypothesis that system-scale approaches offer a broader set of potential conservation solutions than project-scale approaches to hydropower development. The TNC Global Water Team values finding solutions across whole river basins that balance the need for healthy rivers and low-carbon energy production. During her time at TNC, Crossman has worked on river projects across the globe, including Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Gabon, China, and the United States.

Crossman will also participate in multiple knowledge cafes relating to migratory fish, solutions for balancing water infrastructure development, ecological integrity in freshwater systems, environmental flows management trends, and needs for the future. One of these knowledge cafés will focus on the World Fish Migration platform, convener of the World Fish Migration Day (WFMD). TNC is a partner for WFMD, which is a one-day event with local activities in 63 countries that promotes awareness about the importance of open rivers and migratory fish.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) World Conservation Congress is taking place in Honolulu, Hawai’i from September 1 to 10, 2016. Crossman is attending the Congress with 9,000 other delegates from 190 countries. Crossman’s involvement in sessions and knowledge cafes at the Congress will help to improve water conservation at local, regional, and global scales.

Written by Terra Sampson on September 2, 2016