Kelly Cerialo (Photo provided by Paul Smith's College)

PAUL SMITHS — Kelly Cerialo, an assistant professor and communications program manager at Paul Smith’s College, will co-chair an ecotourism workshop at EuroMAB, a biennial conference hosted by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization in Dublin, Ireland, on Wednesday.

EuroMAB — short for man and the biosphere — will host attendees from over 300 UNESCO biospheres and 36 countries across Europe and North America. The conference focuses on ideas on how to improve human interaction with protected landscapes in order to maintain social, economic and ecological integrity.

Cerialo will host alongside Camille Belurier, from the Iroise Biosphere in France, and Adeline Gladieux, from the United Kingdom’s North Devon Biosphere. Together, the three will focus on how to design, implement and monitor new models of community-based ecotourism in their respective regions.

“It’s an honor to present at this conference,” said Cerialo. “I’m looking forward to learning new sustainable development strategies to share with the PSC community and stakeholders in the Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve.”

Earlier this year, Cerialo, co-chair for the UNESCO Champlain-Adirondack Biosphere Reserve, attended a related MAB conference in San Francisco. It was there that a UNESCO program specialist, Meriem Bouamrane, reached out to see if she would lead a workshop on tourism. Cerialo, who has also worked on sustainable tourism projects in both South Africa and Italy, signed on.

The aim of the four-day conference, which begins today, is to provide a space for biosphere reserve managers such as Cerialo to collaborate with politicians and scientists and collectively explore sustainable development through the lenses of ecosystem management and economic development. This April’s conference will be held at the Dublin Castle, once a 13th-century Viking settlement and now both a government complex and tourist attraction.