Is your research relevant for practice?
Raphaël Arlettaz
I’d like to propose an innovative workshop which necessitates an active participation of several conference attendees selected for talks or posters by the conference organisers. On the base of the abstract booklet and of an on-the-spot assessment of the talks and posters delivered during the conference, the idea would be to pick up some presentations, ask the students to join the workshop (and possibly summarise again their main findings with just a few slides) and jointly discuss the case studies in plenum. We will, first, assess where the paper positions itself along a gradient spanning from basic / applied ecology, on the one end, towards conservation biology / restoration ecology, on the other. The underlying assumption is that the latter research is more amenable to delivering practical guidelines for biodiversity preservation and recovery, although management solutions might not be framed concretely enough for proper takeover. Second, we shall try to collectively appraise the various research outcomes presented from the viewpoint of all potential end-users and see whether they deliver the information needed for proper implementation. To assist with workshop preparation, all participants in the conference will be asked, already when registering online, whether they would be ready to contribute to the workshop with their own research (serving as illustrative cases). This means they should be ready to face collective but constructive criticism. The objective is definitely to try to ameliorate research approaches in conservation biology and restoration ecology to enhance the chances of actual implementation of mitigation measures for biodiversity in the real world.
Monitoring of the conservation status of forests
Tibor Standovár
The monitoring of the conservation status of forest habitats of community interest is a task that falls to all EU member states. Nevertheless, the methodologies employed in the production of country reports are not universally compatible, which can give rise to significant methodological challenges when conducting European-scale assessments and trend analyses. In this workshop, students are invited to present and discuss the monitoring methods employed in their respective countries. The objective of this initiative is twofold: firstly, to identify and address the challenges associated with interpreting the data; and secondly, to explore strategies for the effective utilisation of monitoring data to enhance the conservation status of forests.
Carpathian Day: developing communication and policy recommendations for linking biodiversity and sustainable regional development
Tamara Mitrofanenko