Monitoring ecosystem recovery at the landscape scale
Ambition to reverse ecosystem decline, and put nature on a path to recovery, is accelerating landscape-scale restoration efforts in the UK and globally. Evidencing progress towards ecosystem recovery relies on reliable measurements of baselines conditions and change. The growing interest of the public and private sectors in ecosystem recovery following the irrefutable evidence for biodiversity loss, impacts of pollution, and the need to support climate change mitigation, has driven the development of novel monitoring methodologies. This international conference will explore how innovative monitoring approaches can help understand and report progress towards reversing biodiversity decline, restoring ecosystem functioning and the enhanced provision of ecosystem services at the landscape scale.
We aim to bring together people from across science, policy, conservation, finance and industry, to learn and share approaches to monitor and report ecosystem recovery. Our programme will showcase environmental monitoring efforts in several contexts, including measuring the outcomes of habitat restoration efforts, assessing the success of local and national government policies, and understanding long-term trends and drivers of ecosystem condition. This multidisciplinary conference will appeal to anyone with an interest in landscape restoration, impacts of anthropogenic disturbance on landscapes, nature-based solutions to climate change, and natural capital markets. We are seeking contributions that provide insight, innovation, and solutions to the challenges of monitoring landscape-scale change.
Themes will include:
- Technological innovations in landscape scale monitoring
- Nature restoration exemplars
- Scaling monitoring to the landscape scale
- Novel reporting solutions
The conference will take place on 1 and 2 July in the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, followed by a field trip on 3 July. Abstract submission will open in January.
The conference is organised by Caitlin Lewis, Prof. Marc Metzger, Dr Jess Neuman, Dr Chris Foster, and hosted by the University of Edinburgh Centre for Sustainable Forests and Landscapes.