Fostering Collaboration and Linkages with Our Latin American and Caribbean Neighbors

Abstract

The title of my Presidential Address to the 2009 annual meeting of the Florida Entomological Society (FES) was carefully chosen because one of my goals as President of the Society was to amplify our presence in the region, specifically Latin America and the Caribbean. The society has always maintained fairly good connections with Latin American and Caribbean countries. In fact, we have had 4 meetings in the region within the last 15 years (Table 1). In 2004, we attempted to arrange a meeting off-shore and ended up meeting in Fort Lauderdale, which was referred to as our 5th Caribbean meeting. And, in 2008 we again attempted to arrange a joint meeting with the Colombian Entomological Society. But, due to cost and other logistic problems we ended up sending a delegation of FES professionals comprised of students, faculty and USDA scientists to Cartagena, Colombia where their annual meeting was held. The FES society has maintained a mandate in its by-laws to institute a meeting in the Caribbean once every 5 years and to foster good relations with organizations in the region. The publication of the Spanish abstract in Florida Entomologist that was initiated in 1981, and the placement of An International Journal for the Americas on the cover of the journal were designed to increase readership in Latin America and the Caribbean. Immediately after becoming President of the society in 2008, I immediately initiated protocols with the goal of having the 2010 or 2011 annual FES meeting at some location in the Caribbean. I revived and reestablished the Long-range and Caribbean sub-committees and asked Drs. Howard Frank and Stephen Lapointe, respectively, to chair these sub-committees. Both subcommittees worked together to conduct an informal survey of potential meeting sites for the 2010 or 2011 FES meeting and agreed on the Dominican Republic as a possible site. The decision was based on the fact that there was local interest, inexpensive hotel rates, and direct flights from Florida to the Dominican Republic. In addition, there was potential for FES amateurs and professionals to do some insect collecting on the island. However, there were some disadvantages with the Dominican Republic site including finding an appropriate hotel with sufficient space to hold an entire FES meeting, language barriers (Spanish versus English), and different ways of doing business. For instance, when meetings are held within the state of Florida, the FES business manager negotiates a contract with the hotel that contains all of the details of the meeting 6 months to a year prior to the meeting. This is not possible in the Dominican Republic because some hotels are reluctant to negotiate contracts 1 year prior to the meeting. Some of the FES members may question the reasons to foster ties and build relationships with Latin American and Caribbean countries. There are several reasons for this, as follows: