ConservationBytes.com

It is with both sighs of relief and some sentimentality that I announce my departure from the Senior Editor’s position at Conservation Letters.

After 3 volumes and 17 issues, and a very good prospect for an ISI Impact Factor > 3.0 coming out in June 2011, I feel that I’ve contributed sufficiently for the journal to persist in the conservation publication space for the coming decades.

Now I need a beer. ;-)

The road to Senior Editor certainly involved a steep learning curve for me, and I sincerely thank the four Editors-in-Chief (Hugh Possingham, Bill Sutherland, Richard Cowling & Mike Mascia) for their faith in my abilities and the flexibility to allow me to make important decisions. But most importantly, I thank our highly professional and rigorous editorial board who really did all the hard work (voluntarily, I might add). The full list of editors can be found here, but I want to pass on some extra gratitude to a few specific people here:

• Bill Adams
• James Aronson
• András Báldi
• Jos Barlow
• James Blignaut
• Nick Dulvy
• Andrew Knight
• David Lindenmayer
• Mandy Lombard
• Pablo Marquet
• Atte Moilanen
• Belinda Reyers
• Ana Rodrigues
• Javier Simonetti
• Chris Thomas
• Kerrie Wilson

In a word, you lot were brilliant. Thank you for going well beyond expectations and handling some very difficult manuscripts. Your expertise, professionalism and generosity will not go unnoticed, I can guarantee that.

I also thank Jennifer Mahar for keeping me (mostly) on the ball and for making the whole thing come together. Marjorie Spencer, whose brainchild this journal was, was a breath of fresh air and enthusiasm. Thanks for stepping up for me (oh, and thanks too for the many drinks courtesy of Uncle Wiley).

Finally, I thank the contributors and readers of Conservation Letters for supporting this new journal. Your enthusiasm was rather spectacular and somewhat unexpected. The citations alone speak for the journal’s popularity.

The burden of editorship is a mixed bag, and I apologise to anyone who felt that I didn’t give them a fair go. I tried to blend rigour with just decision-making, and I know in some cases at least, I failed. Someone once said to me that the fastest way to make enemies in academia was to become an editor. While I think my experience proves that true, I think in the end I made more allies.

After some discussion, we decided that it would be best for me to walk away from the journal entirely (clean break, so to speak), so I won’t be handling any manuscripts from here on. I will probably have something to do with certain papers and will provide newbies taking up the reins any advice they wish to hear.

But I’m not leaving the world of scientific editing; indeed, I’ll be keeping my post as ‘In Focus‘ and Associate Editor at the Journal of Animal Ecology, and I’ve just negotiated an editorship with Sue Silver at Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment which will start some time mid-2011. I’m just not going to be at the helm of any journal for some time.

I’ll leave you with the list of ‘my’ last issue‘s papers. As the frogs say: ‘chapeau‘, to all and sundry involved.

• Population decline assessment, historical baselines, and conservation
• Salmon for terrestrial protected areas
• Cryptic destruction of India’s native forests
• Combined effects of climate and land-use change on the future of humid tropical forests
• Habitat vulnerability in conservation planning—when it matters and how much
• Linking site and regional scales of biodiversity assessment for delivery of conservation incentive payments
• Public versus expert opinions regarding public involvement processes used in resource and wildlife management
• The changing landscape of conservation science funding in the United States
• Incorporating local tenure in the systematic design of marine protected area networks

CJA Bradshaw