Conference statistics from GWS Executive Director Dave Harmon

We do this meeting every two years, so the last one was in 2011.  The total attendance there was 1,140, of whom about 610 were NPS and another 20 were DOI.  I assume virtually all of them were on official travel.    This year, as of the first day of the conference, we have 350 people registered.  Of these, 0 are from the Park Service, 0 from USGS, and 0 from USFWS (in an official capacity).  There are perhaps 10 federal people in attendance in either an official capacity or on their own.  This represents a 70% decrease in overall attendance from 2011 to 2013.

Less quantifiable, but equally important, are the indirect impacts involved in the immense amount of extra planning work that we and our federal partners had to do in anticipation of the possible sequester.  And, perhaps most profound of all, is the cost of the lost opportunities for improved understanding and management of national parks and other protected federal lands and marine areas.  There are literally hundreds of federal employees who were eager to advance their skills and bolster their professional networks at our conference, and the sequester needlessly prevented them from doing that.  If not corrected, over the long term the inability of federal researchers, resource managers, educators, and other professionals to attend scholarly and scientific conferences will do real and permanent damage to our public lands and waters.

Despite all this, let me close by emphasizing that we have a dynamic and engaged crowd of highly committed people who are here for a week of collective learning, with plenty of high-quality sessions on tap.  The spirit and dedication of people who work on behalf of parks, protected areas, and cultural sites is admirable, and it's on full display at GWS2013.