Third ESP Europe Conference

Ecosystem Services Science, Policy and Practice in the face of Global Changes

The third ESP Europe Regional conference took place in Tartu, Estonia, from 7-10 June 2021. This conference was organised as a hybrid event, allowing for both in-person and digital participation. More than 480 delegates from over 50 countries participated in this conference.

The conference program included a variety of activities. Different keynote speakers reflected on the conference theme from different perspectives, and more than thirty-eight break-out sessions took place. Delegates could additionally register for the conference trainings, conference dinner and field trips.

Impacts of Global Changes on ecosystems and human societies are manifold. Changes have led to already tangible impacts, such as Climate Change which has unfolded over the course of the last decade in form of weather extremes, droughts and large wildfires, for example. Along with shifting climate patterns, biodiversity loss is causing structures and functions of ecosystems to be more vulnerable to change, and is altering the supply of vital ecosystem services. Land use and land cover changes as well as global trading and land ownership patterns cause further impacts on social-ecological systems. Such changes often lead to inequality between richer and poorer countries and to the radicalization of politics, which then undermine a society’s capacity to cope with these growing impacts. In this context, ecosystem services science, policy and practice offer tools needed to tackle the challenges ahead. More importantly, the appropriate use of the ecosystems services concept can shift societies and governance systems towards sustainable pathways.

The ESP Europe 2021 Regional Conference was part of the bi-annual cycle of ESP regional conferences around the globe. The regional conferences followed our world conferences, of which the last world conference in Germany hosted more than 750 delegates from over 65 countries.

Announcements

We are happy to announce that the ESP Europe conference was a success, and we hope you enjoyed it and gained lots of insights and experience. Below we provide you with some last conference announcements:

Conference proceedings

All collected presentations, recordings and outcomes are available here. If your presentation is not included in the sessions, but you would like us to upload it or if you wouldn't like your presentation uploaded on the website, please contact us at conference@es-partnership.org with the session name.

Conference photos

The official pictures from the conference are available on our Flickr page. If you have also made some pictures and you'd like to share them with us, you can email them to conference@es-partnership.org.

Conference survey

We kindly invite you to fill out the ESP Europe conference survey. This survey is an opportunity to give your feedback on the organisation of the conference. Your input will help improve the upcoming conferences. Thank you in advance for your time!

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