Nancy Glover, who had recently stepped down from a very successful tenure as senior program officer of the Secretariat for Conservation Biology, died on July 25. Her passing has saddened everyone who knew her not only because of her warm, generous personality but also because of her professional stature and the effectiveness of her work with the conservation community.
Nancy received her bachelor’s degree in Soil Science from New Mexico State University in 1978 and then worked in Costa Rica for four years, first in the Peace Corps and then as an agroforestry researcher at the Centro Agron—mico Tropical de Investigaci—n y Ense–anza (CATIE). She came to Hawai`i in 1983 and completed work on a master’s in science in forest genetics from the University of Hawai`i in 1986. For six years, she was vice president of the Nitrogen Fixing Tree Association, gained additional international experience in a variety of consultancies, and then enrolled again in graduate school at UH to begin work on a Ph.D. in Soil Science, which was awarded in 1994.
During this time, she also began a long involvement with the Waimanalo community where she had settled with her husband, Michael Buck. She worked not only on environmental issues, especially water quality and watershed management, but also community development and community health.
Nancy began working for the Secretariat for Conservation Biology in 1996. The Secretariat is a consortium of 10 state and federal agencies and private organizations that work together to bring better science to management issues that impact conservation in Hawai`i. Under her leadership, the Secretariat diversified its sources of funding and its agenda to undertake natural resource valuation, environmental education, and strategic discussions of conservation strategy, while continually improving the interdisciplinary workshops and conferences that have become its hallmark. Her talent was seeing clearly what was needed, going after it, and nurturing it.
One of Nancy’s most visible contributions was to build the annual Hawai`i Conservation Conference from an important local forum for scientists and managers to a major regional event that attracted people from across the country and around the Pacific Rim as well. Her open and friendly personality was a major factor in bringing disparate groups together and forging new relationships. She instigated concurrent panel sessions that provided a venue for open discussion among a broader representation of stakeholders in the conservation community. The meeting grew to twice its original size and more during Nancy’s tenure. This year, regular attendees moved comfortably among more than 1,100 others at the Society for Conservation Biology meetings in Hilo, encountering many old friends who had exchanged ideas with them in previous years.
Not a conservation biologist herself by training, Nancy had no hidden agenda, and her comfort with scientists and practitioners at all levels enabled her to broaden the community well beyond its original boundaries. Nancy also embraced the University of Hawai`i’s Hawaiian Internship Program, sponsoring an intern herself and making the entire group feel welcome and useful as budding conservation biologists at the meetings. The same warm, nurturing spirit she brought to her community involvement and her own garden helped the Secretariat and the conservation community to ensure its own future.
Nancy shepherded the Secretariat into new priority areas. Perhaps the best example is Malama Hawai`i, which has grown into an outstanding, self-sustaining entity that empowers local communities to play a major role in conservation. Nancy took particular interest in bringing economists into the conservation/management dialogue, and she also began the process of working with the marine conservation community to build a forum, perhaps similar to the Secretariat, for bringing scientists, managers, and stakeholders closer together.
Nancy’s own voluntary transition from her leading position with the Secretariat to one where she would provide major support from the sidelines was characteristically smooth and professional. We recognize only now, tragically, that in the process of this move, she was tying up loose ends and taking her leave of us. Nancy Glover’s powerful vision and impressive accomplishments have helped the Secretariat move ahead with under its new program officer and continue to help her beloved friends and neighbors in Waimanalo improve their community. She was awarded the Secretariat’s Distinguished Service Award posthumously at the Society for Conservation Biology meetings; the most appropriate memorial will be the achievement of the conservation goals to which she contributed so much.
— Katherine Ewel on behalf of the Advisory Group to the Secretariat for Conservation Biology
Volume 12, Number 3 September 2001
Julia Marcoux
This is my aunt and I miss her every day.