The World Congress Silvo-Pastoral Systems 2016, Silvo-Pastoral Systems in a changing world: functions, management and people, will be held in Évora, Portugal, between 27-30th September 2016. It is our pleasure to host this conference and we want to invite all of you to participate.
Since silvo-pastoral systems around the world have different compositions and strutures, this world congress focus on systems that combine trees with animal grazing, in combination with crops, in regions of the world with two seasons, one dry and one wet, and thus drought as a limiting factor.
These highly complex and dynamic tree based systems, under today’s globalized world and increased competition in global markets, face growing pressures for intensification or extensification, threatening their own balance and survival. The transformation of these systems will bring increased risks of soil and other natural resources degradation and socio-economic decay, in the concerned regions. The ancient origins and cultural identity of these systems is threatened but these systems are increasingly valued by society, from the local to the global level, due to the multiple goods and services they provide.
These should create the conditions for new adaptive management models and public policy intervention that can create novel sustainability conditions for the silvo-pastoral systems, also in regions of environmental and economic marginality.
The congress aim is to gather researchers from different disciplines, practitioners and policy makers at different governance levels that deal with the management and sustainability of silvo-pastoral systems. In this way the congress will create a fertile context to progress through interdisciplinarity research approaches that can help translate scientific knowledge into new adaptive management solutions, and thus bridge from science to practice. The aim is also to gather and compare knowledge from silvo-pastoral systems around the world, which share drought as a limiting factor, so that they can be discussed and evaluated.
Researchers, practitioners, both private and from the public sector, as well as policy makers, are all highly welcome to World Congress Silvo-Pastoral Systems 2016.
We hope to see you all during World Congress Silvo-Pastoral Systems 2016.
Teresa Pinto-Correia
Organizing committee