Innovator of the Year
Dr. Jennie Duberstein, who has been with the Sonoran Joint Venture since 2003, first as Education and Outreach Coordinator and currently as Coordinator, was named 2020 Innovator of the Year for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southwest Region. This award recognizes an innovative individual or team who has creatively resolved an issue in their program, the region, or the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that has changed the way business is done, with an impact larger than themselves.
Jennie was nominated for this award in part for her role in starting and helping to moderate a weekly justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion discussion group. This group began with the staff from the Sonoran Joint Venture but has grown to include the Rio Grande Joint Venture and Central California Coast Joint Ventures, as well. The group is committed to fostering a space to do work as individuals, but also to actively discuss and devise ways to ensure that justice, equity, and inclusion are core to the way that our programs function. This work has also led to the creation of a working group on the SJV Management Board and changes to the funding priorities for the SJV’s annual Awards Program, to encourage proposals that address bird conservation through the lens of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.
“Considering conservation without also considering how it connects with issues of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion is incomplete, at best, and harmful and even violent, at worst,” Dr. Duberstein says. “Thinking about how to address the impacts of energy development on Golden Eagles, but not the ways in which energy development contributes to the ever-growing numbers of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two Spirits is incomplete and causes harm. Calling the National Parks “America’s Best Idea” but not acknowledging the genocide that took place in order to create those parks is incomplete and causes harm. We need to work together to decolonize conservation and rebuild and strengthen systems of responsibility, for ourselves, for each other, and for the world that we are working to conserve. For anyone who, like me, holds privilege, whether from the color of our skin, our gender, our sexual orientation, or for some other reason, we need to use that privilege to speak up and speak out, even if it feels uncomfortable—especially if it feels uncomfortable. This work won’t ever be finished, but I’m grateful that we are creating a space to make it the foundation for our conservation efforts moving forward. With the support of our partners, we’ve taken some concrete actions that feel like steps in the right direction.”
The Eisenmann Medal
The Linnaean Society of New York (LSNY) named Dr. Duberstein as the recipient of their 2022 Eisenmann Medal. The Eisenmann Medal was established in 1983 in memory of Eugene Eisenmann, an “amateur” ornithologist and long-time member of LSNY who passed away in 1981. Each year the Society awards The Eisenmann Medal to an individual who has made substantial contributions to contemporary ornithology, and who has helped amateurs by taking time to help young naturalists/students who express an interest in birds or to help broaden their experience.
Dr. Duberstein was nominated both for her role in coordination of binational bird conservation between the United States and Mexico, as well as for her work in supporting young birders. Over the past twenty-five years, Jennie has directed field courses, summer camps, and conferences; edited young birder newsletters and publications; served as a mentor for the American Birding Association’s Young Birder of the Year program, and generally worked to help connect young birders with opportunities and with each other.
She says, “When I received the news that I had been selected to receive this award you could have knocked me over with a feather. It is humbling just to know that I was even considered alongside the list of my idols, role models, and mentors. To know that my name will appear on that same list is almost too much to believe.”
Dr. Duberstein will receive The Eisenmann Medal at the Society’s virtual annual meeting in March 2022, where she will also be the keynote speaker.