Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units Program: Idaho
Education, Research and Technical Assistance for Managing Our Natural Resources

Idaho Project


Enhancing diversity in conservation and natural resource professions

January 2014 - May 2025


Personnel

Participating Agencies

  • Doris Duke Charitable Foundation
  • US Geological Survey 
  • US Geological Survey

Participation of women in the natural resources and conservation professions has improved dramatically in the recent decades, but only very modest gains have been made in increasing racial and ethnic diversity of the conservation field. Diversification of the conservation workforce is essential for the long-term protection of the environment for a suite of reasons. A bottleneck in efforts to diversify the conservation science workforce is recruitment and graduation of undergraduates. Only 10% of conservation-related undergraduate degrees are typically awarded to minority students, despite their earning approximately 24% of all undergraduate degrees.