Short report on IPBES events, in conjunction with SCB and ICCB-ECCB 2015

IPBES, the Intergovernmental Science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is a major initiative of governments to copy the success of IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change) in the topics of biodiversity and ecosystem services. These are in the focus of conservation biology, and of SCB as well. Our society was involved into the development of IPBES from the very beginning, and still active stakeholder to IPBES. After more than a year of development IPBES get to more visible activities, like the recent meetings on “Guide on production and integration of assessments from and across all scales”, and the “Regional scoping for a set of regional and subregional assessments”. Both deliverables had meeting in Paris, 13-16 August for the Guide, and 17-22 August for the Regional scoping. The Regional scoping is of extreme importance for the academic and non-academic communities, as it defines what regional assessments will be, which are the regions, what are the major policy questions to be addressed, etc. Nearly a hundred experts were involved into the scoping meeting, and many hundreds from around the globe will work in the assessments, including natural and social scientists, and indigeneous and local knowledge holders.

At the recent meeting Piero Visconti, co-chair of ICCB-ECCB 2015 Scientific Committee, Georgina Mace SCB past president and myself SCB-Europe president were invited to the scoping meeting in Paris. In addition, Salvatore Arico from the host organisation (UNESCO), past board member of SCB-Europe was present. Piero and myself initiated discussions with a number of experts about ICCB. We beleive that ICCB can be the best forum to present the first outputs of IPBES to the wide conservation community of c. 2000 participants in Montpellier. Anne Larigauderie, IPBES executive secretary, will give a plenary talk at the congress, and other activities on IPBES are also under planning.

Be prepared – ICCB-ECCB 2015 is approaching! 

Call for symposia is out (http://iccb-eccb2015.org/).

ICCB-ECCB 2015 poster presented at IPBES meeting, with Anne and myself.

András Báldi

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.

Bialowieza: Far East or the centre of Europe? The Policy Committee checks in person.

Białowieża.

Dead wood in a living forest
(left to right: Adam, Nuria, Stefan, Anna, Francisco, Willem.
Picture: Guy)

At the sound of the name, naturalists’ minds reverberate with pictures of temperate European jungle, roamed by bison, wolves, and other representatives of what “wilderness” is. Last week (26-30 Aug), the Policy Committee of SCB’s Europe Section had the chance to check imagination against reality, right at the border between Poland and Belarus. Five of us were welcomed by our charming colleague Nuria Selva, long-standing PC member and a former PC chair, as well as a resident of Białowieża for over 15 years. Nuria is a specialist on large carnivores and carcasses, and both Nuria and her partner Adam (naturalist, journalist) have an excellent knowledge of “their” forest. Adam and Nuria took us for three hikes into the forest, including the core zone of Białowieża National Park that was recently expanded to more than 5,000 hectares: It is by far the largest remnant of primeval temperate forest in European lowlands. Together, we could see in our eyes how a fully-functioning forest looks like, with hardly any management. We found wolf tracks, and were brought by Adam at fresh bison droppings (of impressive size) - even before the dung beetles had found them! All in all, we were happy to learn that Białowieża is, finally, at quite a good conservation status. At the moment no immediate action seems needed for its protection, but we need to remain alert, active and proactive.

 

Białowieża serves an excellent case study for many issues that are at the core conservation agenda in Europe and elsewhere: Wilderness versus management and forestry; strictly protected areas in a matrix of land use; large predators versus hunting; and the blessings and curses of EU policy – Białowieża surely provided inspiration for the true mission of our 2014 PC meeting.

Two days of intensive work were just enough to discuss consider a range of activities and questions which the Policy Committee deals with:

-          Activities around the Common Agricultural Policy with a recent Science article led by SCB-ES members – successfully echoing among decision makers but requiring further actions at the European Parliament;

-         the Roadless Areas Initiative, which started in our committee and is now going global – with a variety of activities including an upcoming plenary talk, session, and a concluding declaration at the upcoming Infra Eco Network Europe (IENE) Congress  2014 in Malmö, Sweden; and´

The Policy Committee at work
(Left to right: Francisco, Nuria, Willem, Guy, Martin.
Picture (and an empty Chair on the left): Stefan)

-         the status of other activities that the PC has engaged with, such as "conservation for peace", the state of Šumava National Park, etc.

One of the most important topics we discussed was the next ICCB-ECCB (International and European Congress for Conservation Biology), which will take place in August 2015 in Montpellier, France. We made various observations, among others, on the preparation process (website, cooperation with the City of Montpellier etc.) and the schedule (e.g. on plenary talks and side events), and brought up numerous ideas (to be reported soon), and we are confident that our work will contribute to the success of the congress.

 

Final note: if you think we travelled to the “Far East” of Europe for that meeting, check the map again. Our continent is tiny, but not THAT tiny. While our respected colleague Francisco made a huge distance from Portugal (by plane, train and taxi), he merely covered half the continent – to reach the very centre of Europe, geographically speaking. Did you know the European part of Russia has about the same size as the rest of the continent? Our trip to the eastern border of the EU should thus serve an important reminder for SCB’s “Europe Section” (not EU!) that we should continue ‘discovering’ the ‘other half’ of Europe. The forthcoming meeting of the Section Board of Directors will take place in two weeks in St. Petersburg and Lake Ladoga, Russia – to further remind us of our whole-European duties.

 

Stay tuned!

 

Stefan Kreft* and Guy Pe’er

Policy Committee of the Society for Conservation Biology - Europe Section (*Chair)

Toward the E/ICCB 2015 - personal report from Montpellier

By András Báldi, SCB-ES President

Montpellier is hosting 2015’s biggest meeting for conservation biology; it will be home to both the International and European Congress for Conservation Biology (August 3-6, 2015 – SAVE the date!).

Street in the old city center. Probably some more people during summer...

Raphael Arlettaz, board member of the SCB Europe Section, and I visited Montpellier from the 24-25th November 2013 to meet the local organizers and researcher colleagues, to see the venue, the city, and feel the atmosphere in general. My flight from Budapest to Paris then to Montpellier was usual the boring travel – except our arrival. The runway of the Montpellier airport is right along the sea shore, and as the plane took a turn above the water, and sank just over the beautiful sandy shore, large lagoons, wetlands, fields, farms, I spotted little pink dots in the wetlands – I am sure those were flamingoes. Montpellier is home to the only breeding colony of this species in Europe.

Then, for 1.60 euro (2 USD) the airport shuttle bus took me to the city in 15 minutes, 5 minutes walk from my hotel (which is 10 minute walk from the old city). It is a great arrival: Evening walk in the beautiful old, historic city center – fantastic. Dinner – great. Price – big.

The venue: Raphael told that he can sleep whole day in these leather armchairs.
Bad news for speaker, good for tired participants.

The venue, Corum Congress Centre, seems to be a good fit for the meeting we expect, not too big or too little to accommodate the expected 1500 or more delegates, posters, exhibitors. The neighborhood is exceptional, just next to the old city, at the end of the Esplanade, a walking street full with little shops, buffets etc., and some green areas.

The local organizers from Agropolis International, our main partner, and other companies working with them, have already arranged a great deal of the local practical issues, and are working hard on the next steps. Our French friends from CNRS, University of Montpellier and the National Park directorate, who joined us for an afternoon brainstorming will help us give a special French flavor of the meeting, including high level science, and field trips to the Camargue for example, historic tours and so on.

View of the old city with cathedral from the top of the venue.

Finally, again a practical point. Getting back to the airport: 20 minutes (yes, a little bit longer than from the airport to the city, as there was a traffic jam on the highway. The driver however immediately left the highway and used rather small, narrow roads; I doubt that this was the official route, but honestly, I don’t know). And finally, there were no other passengers in the check in and security control at the airport, I simply walked through. Not a Heathrow or JFK.

We will be back in January with a larger group, including Geri Unger, SCB executive director to set all the basics for a great meeting. So a lot to do, but promising steps already.

P.s.: Raphael had planned to leave in the evening of the 25th by train. But his train late, then late and again, so finally he came back to the hotel, and at least I had a friend for dinner.