New graduate programme to offer degrees in managing protected areas

AMMAN — The Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature (RSCN) launched on Wednesday the graduate level Protected Area Distance Education Programme to qualify professionals in ecosystem protection and the management of the region’s biodiversity.

The programme was designed in partnership with the US Forest Service and the University of Montana, according to the RSCN.

RSCN Director General Yehya Khaled underscored the importance of the programme, noting that the region lacks training and education programmes on the management and sustainability of protected areas.

Khaled highlighted that the courses offered by the programme will be taught at the RSCN’s Royal Academy for Nature Conservation, located in Ajloun Governorate, some 70km northwest of the capital.

“The Royal academy will offer students from the region the chance to study the management of protected areas in Ajloun instead of travelling abroad,” Khaled said.

Mohammad Zarour, head of RSCN’s strategic development, said during the launch that students who complete the courses offered by the programme will be capable of managing nature reserves.

The programme will offer five different courses: foundations of protected area management; protected area planning in an era of turbulence and complexity; tourism and protected area management: striving for sustainability; global ecology, conservation and natural resource management in a changing world; and field experience/research is also required, according to the RSCN.

The University of Montana will award students who successfully complete requirements of the graduate level courses a graduate certificate in protected area management.

Registration will be available though the Wildreness Institute of the University of Montana at (http://www.cfc.umt.edu/wi/), according to the RSCN.