Capercaillie, Banya and hot discussions: The Board goes north-east.

Lake Ladoga, Russia: Leaving from the big city of St. Petersburg, it takes only 5 hours (including 2 hours traffic jams) to reach the taiga and the largest lake in Europe, holding 1% of the world’s freshwater. Few wooden huts, simple-style toilet and a small Russian sauna („Banya“) served the perfect settings for our board meeting. The Board has now covered its most significant proportion of geographic Europe, from Portugal (Francisco) to St. Petersburg (Rustam, hosting  the meeting) – an aerial distance of 3600 km. It also included Edina, our new coordinator (who will introduce herself officially in the next blog entry).

Following the tradition, our meeting opened with a symposium at the University of St. Petersburg, jointly organised by the university, the regional NGO Baltic Fund for Nature, and SCB. It comprised  two presentations by Russian conservationists, and several introductory contributions by the Europe Section on how SCB works, what it does and a collection of main issues on our agenda at the regional, national, and international levels (e.g. CAP, IPBES, roadless areas). The venue – a spectacular Rococo-style room within a 400m-long corridor, added a particular historical aura to the event: A man-size golden clock took the elegant, luxurious Tsar way of reminding the speakers to keep to their time slots.

Having our Board meeting in Russia is indeed a historical event for the Society: An important strategic aim was to strengthen the links between East and West, improve the integration of Russian researchers and students in the SCB community, and, overall, draw greater attention to the Greater Europe in the Section’s agenda.

To experience wilderness and near-roadless areas, we travelled into the taiga and visited the beaches of Lake Ladoga and a bird-ringing station in the strictly protected, Nizhne-Svirsky Nature Reserve, encompassing an area of 41,000 ha. A travel on a narrow road (video taken by Francisco will come soon, to demonstrate how shaky it was ;-)) gave us the opportunity to watch several capercaillies, millions of mushrooms, and several spots of beaver activity. Finally, at the sandy shores of the (sadly over-fished and still-too-polluted) lake, we came to a crossroads: Where a small stream ends at the waters, animals have to pass as well. There we found the footsteps of elks, wild boars, wolves, raccoon dog and a bear. A crossroads also for us: here we shared a glass of champagne (actually plastic cups) with our András to commemorate 12 years of service to the SCB on his last board meeting.

 

Back at the beautifully simple venue, an attentive crew allowed us to maximise the time allocated for intense discussions. Issues of particular importance in our Board meeting involved membership and involvement: how can we improve participation of students, and better serve their wishes and needs? Can we facilitate the creation of new, vivid Chapters that would support local themes? And how can we improve communication – especially toward ICCB-ECCB? Other thematically important issues were wilderness, roadless areas and EU policy (e.g. the CAP).

We are indebted to Rustam (Board member and Director of the Baltic Fund for Nature), his assistant Tanya and the team at the reserve for making the visit of the Society in “true” eastern Europe so smooth.

For more information on issues such as the ICCB-ECCB, Šumava and the Common Agricultural Policy, and to know more about our Edina, our new coordinator, please await the next blog entries over the coming days.

IPBES and Strategy - BoD Meeting in Rome, Day 2

The Board meeting continued on Saturday and Sunday in (sunny but cold) Rome.

The current progress in IPBES was discussed among the Board following a  report by Bege Jonsson and Guy Peer  (involved in the IPBES process from SCB-ES). As the IPBES is finally launched, professional societies as SCB should find the more effective ways to promote and ensure scientific input into the process. The Society's contribution depends heavily on  the expertise of its professional membership as its greatest resource. The knowledge and professional input from members should be therefore channeled effectively into the IPBES process. András Báldi, president of the Section was elected into the IPBES Multidisciplinary Expert Panel (as an independent expert among the 25 members), which is expected to help to strenghten the position of the scientific community in the process.

Discussion on IPBES and strategy

The next European Congress will be held in 2015, possible locations were discussed. The Board expressed its strong wish to be able to comment the bids as soon as possible in order to ensure  that the Section's considerations are taken into account at the beginning of the planning - based on the lessons learnt from Glasgow, ECCB2012.

The rest of the board meeting was revolving around the Section strategy. The Board started to formulate the Section strategy for the coming years. This document should be embedded in the SCB global strategy but has to highlight and detail the specific European aspects. It was agreed that the uniqueness of the European  landscapes (their high natural and social diversity, the rich history of human land-use all over the continent), our prosperity as Europeans (we after all belong to the richer part of the human population) entrust us with a great responsibility for conserving biodiversity both in a European and also in a global scale. It was also noted  during the discussions that promotion of transdisciplinarity and sustainability through the Section's work is also a high priority to be endorsed in the strategy.

After the intense and tiring agenda, the Board headed for a sightseeing in the centre of Rome. While walking in the streets of one of the largest European cities founded more than two and a half thousand years ago, the specific perspective and challenge of SCB-ES work becomes more apparent: to maintain and restore biodiversity in a continent with such a long history of human impact on ecosystems.

Symposium at the university and SCB-ES committee reports - Board Meeting in Rome – 1st day.

Europe Section Board is having its regular semi-annual meeting in Rome between 8 and 10 February. Starting with a symposium organized at the University, the Board discussed the achievements of the previous months.

Symposium is about to start

Before the opening of the official meeting, a seminar was conducted by the Board members at the University of Rome for invited students, academics and conservation professionals. The seminar was hosted and organized by Piero Visconti, an SCB Board member (currently now in Cambridge) and  Carlo Rondinini at the Department of Biology and Biotechnologies of Sapienza University of Rome.

Conservation hot issues also with European relevance were presented like IPBES, green infrastructure, CAP reform, optimizing forest management to preserve biodiversity and the impacts of agri-environment schemes on grassland biodiversity.

In addition to the professional lectures, SCB and the Section was introduced by the coordinator, Barbara Mihók to the audience. The idea of the establishment of an Italian chapter was apparently supported by the participants of the meeting- let’s hope we will soon can foster its birth as the next European chapter.

Skyping with non-attending BoD members
(from r to l: Mikko, Piero, András and Barbara)

After lunch and having the fabulous Italian espressos, the Board began its discussion on last months progress.
ECCB2012 was agreed to be a success in scientific terms, and the Section successfully recruited more than 280 new members during the congress. However, in financial terms ECCB had raised some challenges which had to be overcome in the last months.

Committee reports
The Policy Committee’s members visited the Sumava National Park and backed the current protest again the exploitation of the forests with professional support. Regarding the Roadless Initiative (RI), study and further work is going on to expand it to a global scale, presentations and events were promoted by Kriton Arsenis including COP 11 CBD: Hyderabad, while Nuria Selva and Stefan Kreft presented the RI  at IALE conference in September in Potsdam. Discussion of Green Infrastructure with DG Environment was attended by Guy Pe’er.  Chapter and Management Committee reported on the ongoing chapter activities by the Swiss and the Hungarian chapters organizing national conservation meetings.  The Communication Committee started to build up a strategy and an active membership by Guy Pe’er, newly elected chair. Rob Marrs said farewell as a Chair of Education Committee, replaced by Piero Visconti.The Student Affair Committee's chair, Nuno Curado is also leaving,, following a very active period.  The Mediterranean Committee formulated a statement after ECCB2012 and works on recruiting interested members from Europe. A Mediterranean symposium is under organization by the committee for IALE 2013.

In the evening, the Board had a magnificent Italian dinner at Emilio’s helping the members to gain momentum for next day discussions on IPBES, ICCB2015 and so on...

Enjoying the Italian dinner
(from l to r: András, Mikko, Bege, Piero, Guy, Barbara and Judit (András's wife)

BoD Meeting in Bern

The Board held its regular 2-day meeting in Bern hosted by Raphael Arlettaz, chair of the Membership and Chapters Committee. The first day of the meeting was dedicated to the upcoming ECCB2012. With the presence of the chair of the Local Organizing Committee, Dr Owen Nevin, the Board discussed several issues including: proposals for symposia and workshops, the structure of the congress, student activities, media representation and many more. 

In the second day, the BoD matters were raised and detailed: the current call for nominations and elections, the IPBES process, the Chapter Initiatives and so on. Besides the long discussions,  there was also  time to visit the beautiful town of Bern, to see the BearPark next to the river and to enjoy plenty of stodgy raclette meals. In Sunday a one-day excursion in the Alps closed the Board meeting for the delight of the bird watchers and mountainer conservation biologists.

Birdwatching in the Alps

Autumn

BOD Meeting in Glasgow

The BOD and the Local Organizing Committee in front of the SECC, February 25 2011

The Board of the Europe Section held its semi-annual meeting in Glasgow at the end of February.
During the 3 day-meeting, the BoD met the Local Organizing Committee of the 2012 ECCB (www.eccb2012.org) and visited the venue of the congress:
After the discussions regarding the organization of the ECCB 2012, the BoD listed the advancements and tasks for the future months. A new mechanism for formulating and issuing statements was approved. The possibilities to establish chapters in Europe was also discussed along with our possible role in the IPBES. The BOD was happy to welcome the chair of the Ad Hoc Student Affairs Committee, Nuno Curado in the meeting who reported on the ongoing student initiatives and further plans. After the long days, the BoD did not miss the opportunity to taste the famous Scottish haggis!