IBS

Conservation Biogeography: Integrating Biogeography and Conservation Science in A Changing World

The UNESCO is holding an International Year of Biodiversity Science-Policy Conference in Paris during 25-29 January 2010. As part hereof, a conference session dealing with the theme: ‘Conservation Biogeography: Integrating Biogeography and Conservation Science in A Changing World’, will be held, in association with the International Biogeography Society, on day 2 of the Conference, 26 January 2010 (Conveners Robert J. Whittaker and Jens-Christian Svenning).

The International Biogeography Society:

The International Biogeography Society (IBS) was founded as a non-profit organization in 2000 with the following mission:

· Foster communication and collaboration between biogeographers in disparate academic fields - scientists who would otherwise have little opportunity for substantive interaction and collaboration.

· Increase both the awareness and interests of the scientific community and the lay public in the contributions of biogeographers.

· Promote the training and education of biogeographers so that they may develop sound strategies for studying and conserving the world’s biota.

Further information available at: http://www.biogeography.org/

Remit of the Conservation Biogeography Symposium:

Conservation Biogeography has been defined as the application of biogeographical principles, theories, and analyses, being those concerned with the distributional dynamics of taxa individually and collectively, to problems concerning the conservation of biodiversity” It is thus a sub-field of conservation science and of the discipline of biogeography, being concerned with pattern and process over large extents of space (and time), and the insights this subject brings to understanding patterns of biodiversity and the processes that threaten biodiversity in the 21^st century. Conservation Biogeography can contribute to understanding the impacts of habitat loss, climate change, biotic homogenization, and other drivers of biotic change, while also contributing to conservation solutions, and especially to strategic conservation planning.

The aim of the Conservation Biogeography session is to link biogeographic theory and practice to improve the conservation and sustainable and equitable use of biodiversity – the three main objectives of the CBD. The session will feature a series of prominent biogeographic scientists who will speak on how the long-term, large-scale perspectives provided by the various subfields of biogeography, which collectively provide crucial insights for biodiversity conservation and management:

· Robert J. Whittaker (University of Oxford) “Conservation biogeography: assessment and prospect”

· Jens-Christian Svenning (Aarhus University) “Historical biogeography: implications of long-term macro-scale biodiversity dynamics for conservation”

· Kathy Willis (University of Oxford) “Long-term ecology and conservation science”

· Sara Lourie (McGill University) “Marine conservation biogeography”

· Wilhelm Barthlott (University of Bonn) “Global assessments of plant species richness and endemism: implications for conservation in a changing world”

· Miguel Araújo (CSIC, National Museum of Natural Sciences, Madrid) “Spatial conservation planning and climate change”

· Richard Pearson (American Museum of Natural History) “Predicting species distributional shifts and extinction risk under climate change”

· Josh Donlan (Advanced Conservation Strategies) “Rewilding”

· Vincent Devictor (University of Oxford) “Citizen science and conservation biogeography”

For further information and registration, please see www.unesco.org/en/biodiversity.