BES Facebook pagePast Meetings
2011
Should a DIVERSITAS National Committee be established in the United Kingdom?
Friday 25 November 2011, London
DIVERSITAS is one of the four Global Environmental Change (GEN) programmes sponsored by the International Council for Science (ICSU). The purpose of this meeting, consisting of presentations and discussion, was to seek the views of the biodiversity research community in the UK regarding whether a DIVERSITAS committee for the UK would be a useful development that would strengthen the science - policy interface. The outcomes of the meeting are available to read here. [Adobe PDF, 70 Kb] The BES was pleased to host this event at their conference centre, Charles Darwin House.
Update: Following the meeting in November, nominations are now welcome (by the end of April 2012) for a new UK National Committee for Biodiversity. Find out more about this opportunity and how to get involved [Adobe PDF, 9 Kb].
Landscapes of the Future
Wednesday 8 June 2011, Westminster
Eleanor Kean, the British Ecological Society Fellow at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology in 2010, organised a seminar in Westminster to launch POSTnote 380 on 'Landscapes of the Future'.
The event was chaired by Barry Gardiner MP, with presentations from Professor Joe Morris, Cranfield University; Dr Peter Costigan, Defra; Val Kirby, Natural England; Howard Davies, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and Simon Marsh, RSPB.
Podcasts of the presentations are available from the POST website.
What next for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and IPBES?
Tuesday 13 September 2011, BES Annual Meeting, University of Sheffield
This session at the BES Annual Meeting was organised in partnership with the UK Biodiversity Research Advisory Group. The meeting considered the following questions, through a series of presentations from invited speakers.
- What are the next steps for the NEA?
- How will the results inform future Government policy across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?
- How can the research community build on the findings of the Assessment?
The session also considered what the formation of the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) might mean for the future direction of ecological research in the UK, and how the IPBES might inform how the NEA is taken forward.
Presentations from this meeting are available here.
Natural England - BES Conference
11 - 12 January 2011, Charles Darwin House, London
Natural England and the British Ecological Society organised a two-day conference in January 2011, exploring how practical conservation measures could facilitate adaptation to climate change.
There is much interest in approaches allowing conservation and climate change adaptation objectives to be met simultaneously, using what is sometimes called ecosystem-based adaptation, for example, identifying where creating wetlands can provide flood defence. This conference aimed to provide a timely review and synthesis of this area of research.
Effective adaptation research requires a strong partnership between researchers, practitioners and policy makers. It is essential that adaptation measures are developed on the basis of sound science, combined with a rigorous assessment of their feasibility and acceptability to society. This conference aimed to bring scientists together with policy makers and those implementing adaptation measures.
