The ZSL Institute of Zoology is organizing a one day symposim "Space - the final frontier for biodiversity monitoring?" to take place on 29 April 2016. The event will bring together leading experts in biodiversity monitoring and satellite remote sensing to discuss ways to better capitalise on this technology to monitor biological diversity globally.

For more information on participation and logistics, please visit the official event 's page.

The Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin are glad to welcome you to the 2016 GGBN conference, held from June 21 through June 24, 2016, in Berlin, Germany.

The 33rd (International Society of Limnology) SIL conference "Science for sustainable freshwater use" will be held from 31 July until 5 August 2016 in torino, Italy. 

Our planet is under pressure due to increased demand for freshwater. The availability and suitability of water resources are threatened by human influences, directly, through globally unbalancing the slow and fast water cycles and impairing water quality, and indirectly through the adverse effects of climate change. Many freshwater ecosystems are deteriorating in quantity and quality. As a result, an increasing number of people are chronically short of water.

In this context, limnology must represent the answer to the planetary water crisis as we need more science and more scientists to urgently face a sustainable and effective freshwater recovery. This need can be satisfied only improving our knowledge in Limnological Sciences and the people awareness of what science can do for a more sustainable use of freshwater ecosystems.

More information available here: http://www.sil2016.it/

The conference covers scenarios and modelling applications in marine, freshwater and terrestrial systems, across all relevant disciplines of natural and social sciences. It is open to scientists and experts working in the field, policy makers and practioners. The conference focuses on: (i) Exploring recent advances in modelling human impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services, (ii) Addressing the use of scenarios and models for decision support, (iii) Mobilising observations of biodiversity and ecosystem services for model development and testing, (iv) Capacity building for developing scenarios and models and for their use in decision making, (v) Horizon scanning and addressing gaps in knowledge.

More information available on the conference website.

The 5th International EcoSummit Congress, EcoSummit 2016 - Ecological Sustainability: Engineering Change, will take place at The Corum Convention Centre, Montpellier from 29 August – 1 September 2016.

This conference series was founded in 1996 in Copenhagen, as a forum to meet the demands of scientists working in several new ecological disciplines, and who required a better understanding of the concepts and methods for a holistic use of ecology in environmental management. Since 1996, EcoSummit has been taken around the world (Canada and China), with EcoSummit 2012 hosting 1600 participants from 75 countries in Columbus, Ohio, USA.

EcoSummit 2016 will centre on the ecology of terrestrial ecosystems and all habitats that are integrated within those ecosystems, including river networks, wetlands and coastlines. 

More information: http://www.ecosummit2016.org/

Theme:  FishBase and SeaLifeBase: a diversity of uses for biodiversity studies  

Date:      September 9, 2016

Venue:   Amphitheatre Rouelle, Museum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN), Paris

See tentative program/agenda below..

Open to all interested. If you wish to attend this event, contact:

Patrice Pruvost
Chargé de conservation d'ichtyologie
UMR Borea-7208
Département milieux et peuplements aquatiques
Museum national d’Histoire naturelle (MNHN)
CP26 - 43 rue cuvier
tel : 33 1 40 79 37 60
fax : 33 1 40 79 37 71
75005 Paris
E-mail: pruvost@mnhn.fr

The 5th edition of the DEST course "Basics of Taxonomy" is co-organised with the Scandinavian Research School in Biosystematics (ForBio). The course will take place from 10 to 21 October 2016 at the Sven Lovén Centre for Marine Sciences, Kristineberg.

Course topics covered: DELTA, digital drawing, scientific illustration, scientific writing and communication, Scratchpads.

For more infromation and to register, please go to: http://taxonomytraining.eu/content/basics-taxonomy-describing-illustrating-and-communicating-biodiversity-0

Sfécologie2016, the 2016 International Conference of the French Ecological Society, will take place  in Marseille (France), from 24-28 October 2016. Local organizer is the 'Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie' (IMBE).

Following the former successful events (Ecologie 2010 in Montpellier and Joint Meeting British Ecological Society/Sfé 2014 in Lille), Sfécologie 2016 will promote and support exchanges around the latest developments in research and the most exciting challenges raised from the different disciplines of ecology, sharing scientific evidences, confronting experiences, developing collaborations around the Mediterranean Sea, across Europe, across the world.

The 4-days programme will be extensive, including 5 plenary speakers, thematic sessions and 14 symposia as well as inviting social events (conference outline here). 

For more information visit the official event's page.

The 4th EU BON roundtable will take place on Thursday, 17 November 2016 at the premises of the Museum fuer Naturkunde in Berlin with the motto "Pathways to sustainability for EU BONs network of collaborators and technical infrastructure".  

One of the key questions will be how to achieve sustainability for the many different products of EU BON, such as tools, software, models and infrastructure after the project ends. It should be discussed how a European Biodiversity Observation Network and its essential components could be sustained after the project will end in May 2017, by which institutions or networks and how the products can be used in the best way for European policy and research needs.  

The 13th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity will take place from 4 to 17 December 2016 - Cancun, Mexico.

More information to follow here: https://www.cbd.int/doc/?meeting=cop-13

By lending access via the Internet to biodiversity data in open data infrastructures, biodiversity informatics worldwide allows anyone, anywhere to access and analyze data about all types of life on Earth. In applying common standards, research not previously possible is enabled, and better decisions to conserve and sustainably use the biological resources of the planet made possible.

In this symposium an overview of present and future opportunities will be given alongside recent research presentations and demonstrations of up-to-date tools for providing and acquiring information, handling data and presenting results.

The symposium is arranged as an Oikos Satellite Symposium but is open to anyone, i.e. also those not attending the Oikos conference can register for the symposium.

This symposium is organised by Swedish LifeWatch, GBIF Sweden and Department of Ecology at SLU and it will take place on February 6 2017, in Ecology Building, Sölvegatan 37, Lund, Sweden.

For more information, please visit the official event's page: http://www.slu.se/biodiversity-informatics

BIOTALENT is a multilingual blended e-learning training programme to gain crucial skills and knowledge in biodiversity. Protecting life on earth in all its forms also involves introducing innovative ways to address pressing environmental issues of today. A strong investment in environmental education and a passion for science is therefore essential to this programme.

This one-day event, Taking place on 18 May 2017, in Brussels, will illustrate the uniqueness of the BIOTALENT project and programme in the way environmental education is brought to the course participant. The various expert speakers that are invited are all very passionate about innovation in education and the new ways in which scientific and environmental education can contribute to conserving biodiversity.  

To register and find out more visit the official announcement.

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Interview: Imprisoned politician Josep Rull awaits trial for rebellion

THE IRISH TIMES

By GUY HEDGECOE

Decembre 20, 2018

In early November 2017, Josep Rull, the former Catalan minister for territory and sustainability, posted the following on his Twitter account: “If you see this tweet then I’ve been jailed for being loyal to the ballot box.”

More than 13 months later, Rull (50) is still in prison, although he was released on bail for several weeks earlier this year. He and 17 other pro-independence leaders are awaiting trial for their alleged role in Catalonia’s failed bid for independence last year and nine of them are in custody. At the beginning of December, Rull and three others – Jordi Sànchez, Jordi Turull and Joaquim Forn – began a hunger strike at Lledoners prison where they are being held.

Their protest is driven by the fact that they remain in jail even though their trial has no scheduled date. They also argue that the Spanish judiciary has deliberately blocked appeals they have made in order to prevent their complaints from reaching the European Court of Human Rights.

“I want my case – and those of my colleagues – to reach the European courts,” Rull told The Irish Times, in a written interview carried out via email. “But the Spanish courts put up obstacles because they fear being undermined by a truly impartial and independent judiciary.”

The Catalan government says Rull has lost 7kg since beginning the strike. Yet the quartet who are carrying out the action appear to have embarked on it with caution. Jordi Sànchez told a radio interviewer recently: “I don’t want to be the Catalan Bobby Sands.” He added: “We haven’t gone crazy. We’re not going to immolate ourselves.”

Reoffending

The supreme court says it was keeping Rull and the other prisoners in custody in order to prevent them from reoffending and from fleeing the country, as former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont and several others did.

The independence movement has sought to place the nine imprisoned leaders, who also include former Catalan vice-president Oriol Junqueras, at the centre of Spain’s ongoing territorial crisis. It argues they are political prisoners being punished for their views, not their actions.

Rull says that he is “in jail for fulfilling the mandate expressed by Catalan society in democratic elections: calling a referendum and applying its result”, a reference to the outlawed independence vote held in October 2017, during which police attacked many Catalans as they attempted to cast their vote.

As for the upcoming trial, Rull says that the guilt of the defendants is a foregone conclusion. If he is found guilty, he could face a jail sentence of up to 16 years for rebellion, sedition and misuse of public funds. Junqueras faces a possible 25-year sentence.

“Our trial does not have the objective conditions necessary to make it trustworthy,” Rull says, adding that after the verdict he will appeal to the European judiciary. “I want to take the opportunity to show how this trial is designed [by Spain] to serve as a lesson to those who want independence, with the aim of making them give up their desire for freedom.”

Recent controversies

A string of recent controversies within the Spanish judiciary – including some affecting the supreme court – has helped fuel such criticism, despite the insistence of the central government and others that the trial will be fair.

Yet while the hunger strike seeks to draw international attention to the Catalan issue, it also seems to have underlined divisions within the independence movement. The four prisoners carrying out the protest are all members of the Together for Catalonia (JxCat) parliamentary group, whose relationship with the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), which represents four of the other prisoners, has been deteriorating.

On Wednesday, five former Catalan presidents, including Carles Puigdemont, were among those who appealed to the hunger strikers to call off their action in order to safeguard their health.

Rull, however, denies that the strike could make relationships within the independence movement worse.

“The movement is broad and diverse,” he says. “It’s not necessary for us all to do the same thing because we all respect the peaceful actions of others.”  

Yet the movement’s unity is clearly under pressure and the Catalan president, Quim Torra of JxCat, is struggling to balance the political demands of his post with the need to remain popular among grassroots activists. His recent praise for the Slovenian route to independence, which saw dozens of people killed in 1991, has been seen as a mistake by many, including some allies.

Unimpressed

But Rull insists that blame for the lack of improvement in relations between Madrid and Catalonia lies squarely with Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. His efforts to reduce tensions by taking a series of measures aimed at normalising the relationship with the region have left pro-independence Catalans unimpressed.

“[The] Spanish government should take much bolder steps in order to be able to embark on an effective process of political dialogue, which is the only way of finding solutions to the conflict,” Rull says.

Yet it is the political right that appears to have been emboldened, demanding that Sánchez reintroduce direct rule in Catalonia. Meanwhile, the leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP), Pablo Casado, has dismissed the hunger strike as a “high-protein diet”.

Reckless response

There is speculation in many quarters that if Spain’s political turmoil continues, resulting in a reckless response to the Catalan crisis by Madrid, it could benefit the independence movement, which already casts itself as the victim of an undemocratic state.

“There are, without a doubt, pro-independence Catalans who think like that, but I’m not one of them,” says Rull.

“Anyway, the ones who benefit most from the tensions between Catalonia and Madrid are not the Catalan [pro-independence] parties but rather the Spanish parties which share the vision of Spain that the Franco regime had.”

© 2018 irishtimes.com

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