The Southern Cone Conservation Leadership Program (SCCL), promotes development of future conservation leaders in southern South America and advances biodiversity conservation, management of parks and reserves, and sustainable resource use in this region. The Southern Cone of South America, comprised of Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, boasts an extraordinary diversity of ecosystems and equally diverse conservation challenges. To address these challenges, SCCL engages Southern Cone students in interdisciplinary graduate training at UF, collaborates with Southern Cone universities to develop their own capacity to train conservation leaders, and develops other partnerships in the region aimed at solving conservation problems. This program builds on and expands UF’s role as the leading academic institution in conservation training in Latin America.

Contributions to the SCCL Fund support graduate fellowships for Southern Cone students with strong leadership potential, small grants for Southern Cone students to conduct problem-focused thesis research in their home countries, faculty exchanges with Southern Cone universities, and other leadership training activities. For more information about the Southern Cone Conservation Leadership Program, please visit the SCCL Web site at http://www.wec.ufl.edu/sccl