Lynn Dicks - Agri-environment schemes: conservation success story or massive waste of public money?
I will tell the story of agri-environment schemes from the beginning. Agri-environment schemes are designed to support the environment and biodiversity by providing incentives to farmers to change management. European agricultural policy has included them since the 1980s. I will take a critical look at the evidence and ask: What have agri-environment schemes achieved? Are they worth the investment or are there better ways to reduce the impact of farming on biodiversity? In the end, I want to know what you think: after Brexit, should the UK keep agri-environment schemes? If so, what should they look like?
Barbara Mihók and Zselyke Molnos - „Conservation means behaviour” – putting the human mind in the equation
In addressing conservation crisis, humans in particular should be in our focus of attention, as the one species having a key impact on global biodiversity. We might “get the biology right”, but conservation actions still may fail to succeed, often due to the insufficient knowledge and understanding of the human context, motivation and behaviour. In the last decade conservation scientists have become more and more familiar with the „Conservation means behaviour” statement (Schulze 2011). However it is still a long way to go for wider application of psychological knowledge in designing conservation actions. In this plenary we address the question: what are the underlying dimensions of human-nature connection and how conservation scientists could and should utilize the vast knowledge provided by psychological research and practice in conservation efforts, referring to the advancements of environmental, conservation and eco-psychology.
Francisco Moreira - Ploughing and Fire: biodiversity conservation dilemmas in the Mediterranean
The Mediterranean region, with its unique biodiversity values, has a long history of
disturbance regimes and anthropogenic influences that are at the origin of challenging
questions for conservation biologists. Focusing on agriculture and wildfires, I will
address important dilemmas in targeting conservation goals in this geographic context,
and show the need to evaluate trade-offs when setting conservation objectives.
Andrew Pullin - Show me the evidence - developing an evidence service for conservation and environmental management
Collating and synthesising evidence to address question in conservation and environmental management is easy to do badly but takes considerable organisation and effort to do to sufficient standards of rigour to provide a reliable service to decision makers. This talk will consider some of the tasks and challenges of evidence synthesis and how we might present evidence in a form that decision makers find useful.