Postgraduate Career: Master Program in Wildlife Management. Twenty Years of Experience in Training Professionals in Conservation

MARTELLA, M.B.; NAVARRO, J.L.

Conferencia; Capacity Building for Conservation; 2013

The Master Program in Wildlife Management (National University of Córdoba) was a pioneer in the Southern Cone of South America and has been functioning continuously since 1992. The objective of this career is to strengthen the professional skills in conservation and sustainable use of wildlife, with an applied and interdisciplinary approach focused on different ecoregions of South America. This means training professionals able to take an integral approach to research-based environmental problem solving, decision-making and policy design. Up to the present, 75 students from different countries ?Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Paraguay, and Chile? have got their degrees. At present, 20% of them work in government agencies involved in environmental issues, 60% in academic and scientific institutions, 10% in consulting companies, 5% in NGOs, and 5% in their own enterprises. The high percentage of graduated students that have successfully devoted to scientific research indicates, on the one hand, the excellence of the education received but, on the other hand, the need to generate opportunities for analysis and reflection on the profile of the professional that we intend to train, one that can solve conservation problems according to the situation in each region.