Track 2a. Biodiversity and Ecosystem challenges
Track Chairs:
Joachim Spangenberg, Helmholtz Centre for Environment Research UFZ. Germany.
Rob Wallis. Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research & Innovation), Federation University, Australia.
Contacts: joachim.spangenberg@ufz.de; r.wallis@federation.edu.au
Goals and objectives of the track
Healthy, resilient ecosystems are usually considered essential but often neglected requirements for successful sustainable development. Conservation of biodiversity will help provide essential ecosystem services, as well as resources for societal development, but in the urgent rush to promote economic development, the accompanying threats to biodiversity and ecological integrity are often ignored. How then to ensure societies can develop sustainably at the same time as ecosystems are conserved? This track thus aims to investigate how threats to ecological integrity, biodiversity conservation and healthy ecosystems can be managed to simultaneously support sustainable development in a variety of contexts.
Contributions from the followings areas are sought-after:
In the context of the conference focus of rethinking sustainability models and practices, and having in mind the IUCN definition of ecosystems which includes human livelihoods, papers would be particularly (but not exclusively) welcome dealing with the following topics and questions:
(1) Strategic approaches to biodiversity conservation
How successful have different strategic approaches to biodiversity conservation been?
- Private versus public land management for biodiversity conservation
- What are the main ecological and social benefits and downsides of single purpose management that only considers biodiversity as its aim?
- What are the main ecological and social benefits of land sharing (multipurpose) strategies? Have there been downsides, or has traditional human use been beneficial to biodiversity, and if so, how can a positive relation be maintained? Are there thresholds (e.g. population density, consumption patterns) beyond which traditional use is no longer sustainable?
- What is the role of traditional and Indigenous knowledge and institutions when setting up regulations for sustainable use systems? Is benefit sharing possible, effective and positive? Which kind of sharing benefits local communities, and do the communities have the right to decide who gets what?
(2) Landscape approaches to biodiversity conservation
- Is ‘green infrastructure’ sufficient to safeguard biodiversity alongside intensive agriculture, in particular in times of climate change?
- Is connectivity well-defined and sufficient to allow for climate adaptation and overcome spatial impacts on populations? Or is it necessary to modify the agricultural areas in between, from a “chemical desert” to parts of a living landscape?
(3) Ecosystem services
- How are ecosystem services co-produced by species contributing to pollination or biocontrol, where are their reproduction and foraging habitats? Which kind of landscape planning permits the best provision of public and private ecosystem services, and how are cost and benefits distributed?
- What are the benefits and the risks associated with economic valuation of such ecosystem services? In which cases could economic arguments improve decision making? In which cases would they be irrelevant, and in which ones counterproductive?
- How should scientists deal with economic arguments if they can be supportive but also counterproductive for the case at stake?
You may submit your abstract by visiting the Ex Ordo abstract submission system (you will be required to setup an account first): http://isdrs2016.exordo.com/
