Held once every 10 years, the IUCN World Parks Congress provides a unique opportunity to bring about change, not only for today, or tomorrow, but for the decade ahead. It will be a gathering not just for protected area professionals but for everyone who cares about the health of humanity and our natural world.  On behalf of the IUCN and its partners, Parks Australia and NSW National Parks and Wildlife Services,  I encourage you all to join us on this journey and help provide inspiring solutions for our planet’s most precious natural areas.

Congress registration is now open online. The ‘Early Bird’ registration fee is available until 30 June, and you can also benefit from the preferential rates for IUCN Members, Commission members and staff.

An excellent way to keep up to date is to visit the World Parks Congress website and to subscribe to the Congress newsletter.

The aim of the event is to inform and guide prospective applicants preparing project proposals, to facilitate sharing of ideas and experiences. It will give participants the chance to network and to find partners for their projects.

ICT-16 is part of Horizon 2020's ICT work programme 2014-2015

The activities supported under this topic contribute to the Big Data challenge by addressing the fundamental research problems related to the scalability and responsiveness of analytics capabilities (such as privacy-aware machine learning, language understanding, data mining and visualization). Special focus is on industry-validated, user-defined challenges like predictions, and rigorous processes for monitoring and measurement.

The current outline of the draft agenda can be found HERE

Registration

The registration to the event is now open and is on the first-come-first-serve basis. Click HERE to register. The closing date is 8 January 2015.

After the registration you will have the possibility to upload a presentation for the ICT-16 networking and partner finding session which will take place in the afternoon (max 3 slides for 3 minutes presentation).

In parallel to the ICT-16 networking session a workshop on multilingual data value chains will be organised. Therefore, you should pay attention to which part of the event you enrol.

Please note that bilateral meetings with EC Project Officers to discuss proposal ideas (proposal clinics) will *not* be possible, in compliance with H2020 regulations.

More information available here.

The RS4EBV workshop organized by GEO BON will take place on 28 & 29 January 2015 at the iDIV, Leipzig.

The second EU BON WP6 & 7 Workshop will take place from 16 to18 Feb 2015  in Aix-en-Provence, France.

The objective of the workshop is to further develop on cross WP and task interactions and to define outputs. 

Place and date: Joensuu, Finland, 17-20 March 2015

Purpose of this meeting is to launch several EU BON products, give a related training workshop, work on upcoming deliverables, and gain synergies by working with CETAF. Registration for the workshop is now open, see below!

More nformation is available here: http://digitarium.fi/en/content/eu-bon-and-cetaf-joint-informatics-workshop

The "Open Science at the Global Scale: Sharing e-Infrastructures, Sharing Knowledge, Sharing Progress" conference will take place on March 31, 2015 in Brussels, Belgium. The conference is organized under the aegis of the European Commission (DG CONNECT) to bring together policy and research stakeholders from all the regions targeted by the project (Asia, Africa, Arabia, India, Europe and Latin America) to discuss major developments and perspectives in the field of global e-Infrastructures for Research and Education.

The main outcomes of the CHAIN-REDS project will be also presented on this occasion:

• The development of a Distributed Computing Infrastructure interoperation model between Europe and other regions
• The promotion of international standards and technical guidelines for interoperability of cloud services across continents
• One of the largest existing e-Infrastructure-related digital information systems, the CHAIN-REDS Knowledge Base
• A complete methodology for better sharing and using scientific data
• The CHAIN-REDS Science Gateway: a single portal for accessing remote computing and data services anywhere in the world
• The support of the creation of Identity Federations to make Authentification and Authorisation easier for users and service providers worldwide
• The main outcomes of the six awareness-raising workshops organised by CHAIN-REDS in Asia, Africa, Arabia, and Latin America

For Registration and more information, please visit the oficial conference webpage: https://agenda.ct.infn.it/event/1110/

European Geosciences Union
General Assembly 2015
Vienna | Austria | 12 – 17 April 2015

http://www.egu2015.eu/home.html

One Workshop partiicluarly relevant for EU BON: ESSI2.17 Aggregation, consolidation and coordination of Earth observation networks. Harmonization and gaps

Convener: Joan Masó
Co-Convener: Ivette Serral

Abstract
We are investing in many efforts in creating pan-European or global EO thematic networks but are managed independently and coordination between them is limited. Europe is investing in the Sentinel constellation an at the same time, several initiatives are setting out to create, maintain and operationalize networks of in-situ sensors. These observation networks are usually conceived with a specific purpose in mind (e.g., air quality monitoring in the main cities or coastal water contamination), and they often lack a general coverage, are scattered irregularly in the territory, and sometimes are removed when the measurement campaign ends. There is a need for integrating systems and coordinating them more efficiently, explore synergies and make progress in harmonized and extend them.
Some initiatives aim to coordinate several themes into a single observation set. This is the case of the Critical Zone Exploration (the Earth’s outer layer from vegetation canopy to the soil and groundwater that sustains human life). The CZEN (Critical Zone Exploration Network; http://www.czen.org) is a network of field sites investigating processes within the Critical Zone.

This session is asking for presentations on the coordination between observation network examples and solutions to overcome technical and political barriers that help to reduce the cost and increase value by combining and sharing structures. Papers discussing gaps or redundancies in the current Earth observation networks are also welcome.

http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2015/session/18560

http://geobon.org/bon-in-a-box-workshop-colombia/

GEO BON in partnership with Colombia’s Instituto von Humboldt held the first BON in a Box (Biodiversity Observation Network in a Box) regional workshop in Armenia, Colombia.

Over 50 participants from Mexico, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil and several ‘external’ GEO BON participants convened over 4 days to enthusiastically define the structure and content for this regional toolkit for biodiversity observations.

The workshop outcomes are directly guiding the development of the first prototype of this web-based, customizable toolkit which will be released in November of this year.

EU BON was represented by Hannu Saarenmaa, who gave a presentation on using GBIF IPT for sharing sample based data and the related new data standards.

The SETAC Europe 25^th Annual Meeting will be held in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, from 3-7 May 2015.  

The innovative use of chemicals and nanomaterials in new technologies, industry and agriculture challenges many aspects of the ecosystem functioning of the global environment. However, these new technologies and materials also offer opportunities to remediate or minimise these anthropogenic insults. Finding innovative solutions to environmental problems is ever more important in the current economic scenario.  This international conference brings together experts from government, industry, consultancy and academia to meet this challenge. The conference will focus on the most recent advances in environmental sciences and will provide platforms for implementing this knowledge, for improving the protection of our environment and to shape policies from current viewpoints to future needs.

Learn more here: http://barcelona.setac.eu/general_info/welcome!/?contentid=790&pr_id=766&last=769&sub=790

The GEO Workplan Symposium 2015 is planned to take place on 5-7 May 2015 in Geneva, Switzerland.

For more information, please consult the GEO meetings list.

There is a world of tools, standards and data out there, ready for you to use. Biodiversity Informatics deals with the application of informatics techniques to biodiversity information for improved management, presentation, discovery, exploration and analysis of scientific data. Combined with open data sources on the Internet, this is a powerful new approach in doing research. During this conference, organised by the Belgian Biodiversity Platform and several key institutes, we would like to take you on a trip to the world of biodiversity informatics & open data. After this conference a series of related workshops will be organized.

Teh GEO BON 2nd RS4EBV workshop will take place 27 to 28 May 2015 in Frascati, Italy.

The 2015 edition of Green Week, the biggest annual conference on European environment policy, will take place from 3 to 5 June at The Egg Conference Centre, Rue Bara, in Brussels. The theme will be nature and biodiversity.

Green Week is open to the public and participation is free of charge.

For more inforation about the conference, programme and registartion, please visit the official conference webpage: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/greenweek/

• reviewing extensively the status of existing essential variables in different Societal Benefits Areas (SBA) of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO);
• assessing their observational needs and readiness (in terms of temporal frequency, spatial resolution, accuracy, etc.);
• describing the monitoring networks currently operational;
• capturing gaps and requirements for EV operational definition (mainly in terms of integration of all types of Earth Observations);
• identifying the process underlying EV definition in support to less mature domains and the elaboration of new variables.

The 9th GEO European Projects Workshop will take place on 15 and 16 June 2015 in Copenhagen, co-organised by the Danish Meteorological Institute, the European Commission and the European Environment Agency.

The objective of the GEO European Projects Workshop is to bring together European players interested in and actively contributing to the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS). The aim is to enable participants to present their work and discuss how Europe can contribute to this international effort. Its timing has been set to maximise early insight and awareness of the new Implementation plan for the next decade of GEO as well as input to and awareness of Horizon 2020 work programme for 2016 and 2017.

Building on the experience from previous GEO European Projects Workshops, it is intended to continue working towards greater involvement of the European private sector, especially SMEs, in GEO.  The workshop will also focus on user engagement, and the priorities for future flagship initiatives, foreseen to be strengthened in the next phase of GEO, in order to fulfil GEO's ambition to provide information for decision making.

While registration is now closed, due to demand the event will be recorded and streamed live on  http://stream.dvc.dk/9thgeo/ 

More information available on the official event page: http://geo.pbe.eionet.europa.eu/

An GEO BON - EU BON workshop iis scheduled for 20-24 July in Manaus, Brasil for a targeted group of representatives of the different EU BON WPs or task forces.

The workshop will specifically target the following:

– Issues of designing and running biodiversity monitoring observatories (i.e. optimization and guidelines for planning biodiversity monitoring)

– Analyses of biodiversity data to be addressed for assessing changes and patterns

– Linkage of (meta-) data to EU BON portal

Being hosted in Manaus, this workshop will facilitate the integration of Brazilian and European expertise, for instance by updating about the progress made by Brazil in starting participatory resource monitoring in Brazilian National parks and the development of databases to integrate this information. The workshop will be held at the Federal University of Amazonas Experimental Site.

The 2015 Biodiversity Informatics TDWG Annual Conference will be held from 28 September to 3 October 2015 in Nairobi, Kenya. The theme of the conference is Applications, Standards and Capacity Building for Sustaining Global Biodiversity.  Subprograms will include: Digitization, Semantic Technologies, Phyloinformatics, Outreach and Collaboration, ePublications, Trait Data, and Conservation informatics. 

A  5-day capacity building workshop for African participants in the conference is being organized for the week before the conference (21-25 September). The primary focus of the training is on biodiversity collection digitization, biodiversity databases, data cleaning, and georeferencing, but other topics are being considered. 

For more information about the conference, how to register, programme and call for papers, please visit the ofiicial event webpage.

The International Symposium "What can Remote Sensing do for the Conservation of Wetlands?" will take place on 23 October 2015 in parallel with the XVI Congreso de la Asociación Española de Teledetección (XVI Meeting of the Spanish Remote Sensing Association) in Seville, Spain.

The Symposium aims to become an interdisciplinary meeting for wetland managers and scientists interested in remote sensing as well as remote sensing experts doing research in wetlands.

Wetlands are fragile and dynamic ecosystems sensitive to changes in climate and land-use, and rich in biodiversity. For centuries they were considered to have little or no value, and most have been drained or transformed. In 1971 the first international convention for the protection of Wetlands, the Ramsar Convention, was signed to promote their conservation and sustainable use. Now it is recognized that wetlands provide fundamental ecosystem services, such as water regulation, filtering and purification, as well as scientific, cultural, and recreational values. Wetlands constitute an extensive array of ecosystems ranging from lakes and rivers to marshes and tidal flats. An increasing number of wetlands have some kind of legal protection, and many wetlands are monitored and actively managed.

For more information on the symposium, please visit the official webpage: http://wetlandssymposium.com/

DINA Technical Comittee will have a workshop in Copenhagen with updates on ongoing module developments and coding sessions.

http://www.dina-project.net/wiki/Physical_TC_meeting_2015

The Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) is a worldwide network, founded in 2008, to enhance the science and practical application of ecosystem services. To facilitate the needed dialogue between scientists, policy makers and practitioners ESP organises an annual international conference in different parts of the world.

8th ESP World Coference will be held in South Africa from 9-13 November 2015 and is hosted at a very special location: Spier Wine farm and Conference Centre in Stellenbosch.

The central theme is ‘Ecosystem Services for Nature, People and Prosperity’. The conference will pay special attention to the public and private sector dialogue on how the ecosystem services concept can be used to support conservation, improve livelihoods and engage the business community.

We especially encourage delegates from businesses to attend the ESP conference in order to discuss challenges and opportunities in using the concept of ecosystem services to achieve conservation and sustainable use of our ‘natural capital’ within a market-context. The conference will provide an excellent platform to engage with experts who can generate solutions to these challenges and start making a difference in practice.

For more information and for registration, please visit the conference website: http://espconference.org/espconference2015

The Europena Conference "Nature-based Solutions to Climate Change  in Urban Areas and their Rural Surroundings: Linkages between science, policy and practice" will take place from 17 to 19 November 2015 in Bonn, Germany.

The event is a joint European Conference held by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the European Network of Heads of Nature Conservation Agencies (ENCA) in co-operation with the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) / German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv).

Climate change has significant impact on society and biodiversity in Europe. Urban inhabitants are most likely to experience climate change effects directly because currently 73 per cent of Europeans live in urban areas. Here, management of urban ecosystems offer sustainable and cost-effective solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation while contributing to human well-being.

This European conference will bring together experts from science, policy and practice to highlight and debate the importance of nature-based solutions to climate change in urban areas and their rural surroundings. Emphasize is given to the potential of nature-based approaches to create multiple-benefits.

The conference is divided into three main areas (day 1: science, day 2: practice and implementation, day 3: policy and business), each of which will be opened by keynote speakers including:

• Hans Bruyninckx (Executive Director European Environmental Agency, EEA)
• Wilhelm Krull (Chair of the H2020 expert group on nature-based solutions and re-naturing cities, Secretary General Volkswagen Foundation)
• Georgina Mace (University College London – UCL, Director of Centre for Biodiversity and Environment Research)
• Christine Wamsler (Lund University, Centre for Sustainability Studies)
• Nataša Jazbinšek (Head of Department for Environmental Protection City of Ljubljana and Head of working group for European Green Capital programme 2016)
• Wolfgang Teubner (ICLEI Regional Director for Europe)
• Kurt Vandenberghe (Director for Climate action and resource efficiency at the European Commission's Directorate-General for Research and Innovation)
• Chantal van Ham (IUCN – EU Programme Manager Nature Based Solutions)
• Dirk Sijmons (Delft University of Technology)

Keynote speeches are complemented by plenary presentations given by leading experts in the fields of urban biodiversity, climate change, and socio-economic effects of nature-based solutions, interactive sessions and a poster exhibition.

Deadline for abstract submission is 24 July 2015 (abstract submission guidelines)

Registration:

Early bird registration deadline: 18 September 2015

Final registration deadline: 30 October 2015

For more information and to register please visit: http://www.ecbcc2015.com/

The 3rd EU BON Stakeholder Round Table "Biodiversity data workflow - from data mobilisation to practice" will take place on 10&11 December 2015 Granada, Spain.

One main objective of the round table is to understand how the workflow from data mobilisation to decision making functions in practice, including within the context of EU BON.

Firstly, we want to evaluate what kind of (biodiversity) data are available and what workflows and best practices already exist. Secondly, we want to assess which gaps still exist and what will be needed to improve the current situation to overcome existing barriers.

Please register here: http://societas.biodiv.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/?q=node/64

The "International Workshop Decision Models and Population Management" will take place from 2 to 4 February, 2014 in Paris, France. The three days international and interdisciplinary workshop is devoted to the decision making, in particular in presence of multiple actors with or without interaction. These problems occur in a natural way in management of populations, where the dynamics are strongly related to the decisions. The workshop aims to bring together Mathematicians, Computer Scientists and Ecologists around the problem of populations management. The population dynamics, viability theory and game theory form an umbrella of helpful mathematical tools in this context. On the other hand, the computer sciences bring the online and algorithmic mechanism design.

The workshop is motivated by concrete problems proposed by ecologists and aims to create a synergy between scientists from different backgrounds to address the challenging modelling of decision making in the context of ecological paradigms.

Invited Speakers
- Michel BENAIM (Université de Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Swtizerland)
- Renato CASAGRANDI (Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
- Denis COUVET (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France)
- Sylvain DUCTOR (LIP6, UPMC, Paris, France)
- Marino GATTO (Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria-Politecnico di Milano, Italy) 
- Ihab HAIDAR (Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France)
- Sophie MARTIN (UR LISC - IRSTEA)
- Nicolas MAUDET (LIP6, UPMC, Paris, France) 
- Paco MELIÀ (Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria Politecnico di Milano, Italy)
- Jean-Baptiste MIHOUB (UPMC-Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France)
- Vianney PERCHET (Université Denis Diderot, Paris, France)
 - Karl SIGMUND (University of Vienna, Wien, Austria)
- Sylvain SORIN (IMJ-PRG, UPMC, Paris, France)
- Jean-Philippe TERREAUX (IRSTEA-ADBX, Bordeaux, France)
- Tristan TOMALA (École des hautes études commerciales de Paris, Paris, France)
- Vladimir VELIOV (Institute of Statistics and Mathematical Methods in Economics, Vienna University of Technology, Vienna, Austria)
- Yannick VIOSSAT (Université Paris-Dauphine, Paris, France)

Workshop 1 and 2 have the aim to identify the options and problems associated with the general challenges of provisioning the research infrastructures to deliver capabilities for supporting the generation and calculation of EBVs. The two workshops (Figure 1) will focus on the EBV class ‘Species populations’ (EBVs ‘Species distribution’ and ‘Population abundance’) for which the data, models and understanding are presently much better developed than for other EBV classes.

Workshop 1 will have integrated as well as parallel sessions with ecologists and biodiversity scientists (with special expertise in species distributions and abundance and its monitoring), biodiversity informaticians and infrastructure operators, and legal interoperability experts.

http://www.globis-b.eu/33/workshop_1.html

EU BON is organising a "Biodiversity data sharing and data publishing workshop" to take place in Sofia, Bulgaria on 22-23 March 2016. The event is directed to biologists and other life scientists from Eastern Europe who are actively involved in monitoring  and managing biodiversity data. A core topic of this training will be the  publishing of biodiversity data, in particular species occurrences, sample-based and citizen science data. The training will include a practical session during which participants will be assisted by experienced trainers from the EU BON project.

Addressing global problems, such as biodiversity loss and impacts of climate change requires open access to data. This was concluded by world leaders at Johannesburg Summit in 2002 when they established the Group for Earth Observations (GEO).  EU BON (Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network) seeks to enhance biodiversity data availability and integration, and is the European contribution to the GEO Biodiversity Observation Network.

All biodiversity databases need to be integrated in GEO. Therefore, EU BON undertakes capacity building of biodiversity communities (e.g. researchers, citizen scientists, non-governmental organisations) that are involved in collecting and disseminating biodiversity information, including monitoring initiatives.

The sessions on data sharing will cover introductory overview of key concepts,  demonstration and  practical  exercise using the GBIF Integrated Publishing Toolkit  (IPT). The Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is the world's largest initiative for enabling free access to biodiversity data via internet.

Special attention will be paid to data paper publishing led by specialists from Pensoft Publishers - a company well known among biodiversity scientists worldwide for technologically cutting-edge open access journals, such as: Research Ideas and Outcomes, ZooKeys, Biodiversity Data Journal, Nature Conservation, and a strong advocate of data publishing. Registration of data in GEO registry system will be also addressed during the workshop.

The following topics will be covered (detailed program will follow):

• The data publishing landscape, gaps and mobilization efforts
• Demonstration and practical session on data publishing using the GBIF IPT: step-by-step demo will show in detail (and in practice) how to publish a dataset using IPT.
• Data papers: types, structure, opportunities
• Citizen Science gateway and demo of PlutoF Citizen Science module
• GoldenGate Imagine tool and copyright issues
• Registration of data in the GEO Registry System

To register and for more information, click here.

Biodiversity without Boundaries (BWB) 2016 takes place on 18-22 April in the biodiversity-rich, abundant, and beautiful Puerto Rico.

In collaboration with our Puerto Rico Network Partners - the Puerto Rico Department of Environmental and Natural Resources (DRNA) and the leading environmental and educational nonprofit Para la Naturaleza - the NatureServe Network’s annual conference will convene hundreds of the world’s leading conservationists for a week of plenaries, symposiums, workshops, panels, presentations, and field sessions.

To register and for more information, please visit the official event's page.

Workshop on beta versions of data mobilization systems at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Stockholm.

Registration link: http://goo.gl/forms/pCvjglXpcN

The GEO Work Programme Symposium will take place from 2 to 4 May 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland. The objective of this first Work Programme Symposium is to actively engage the GEO Community in the implementation of the new GEO Strategic Plan 2016-2015: Implementing GEOSS (GEO 2016-2025 SP).

The Symposium will:

• Reflect on the GEO 2016-2025 SP, on its targets, and on activities that GEO should put in place;
• Ensure a common understanding of the new arrangements defined by the Strategic Plan (Programme Board, Monitoring and Evaluation, Implementation Mechanisms, role of the Secretariat, etc.);
• Ensure a common understanding of how GEO works, what are the links among different activities (GEOSS development and operations, users’ needs, knowledge base development, etc.) and how the Community should plan its involvement;
• Strengthen the participation of users in GEO activities;
• Strengthen the involvement of current stakeholders and involve new ones identified in the GEO 2016-2025 SP;
• Review the approach for GEOSS development (requirements, functional performances, architecture) and provide clear inputs for its further implementation;
• Discuss the content of the GEO Work Programme 2017-2019 and provide clear inputs (technical and programmatic) for its further development;
• Provide an opportunity to explore and consolidate GEO activities at the Global and/or  Regional level;
• Explore opportunities with the private sector;
• Foster regional (caucus) interactions and discuss opportunities to strengthen GEO action at the regional level; and
• Explore opportunities for new global/regional initiatives.

For more information about GEO meetings, click here.

Green Week 2016 will take place from 30 May to 3 June. Focusing on the theme "Investing for a greener future", it hopes to contribute to answering a broader question of how to achieve smart, sustainable and inclusive growth in Europe. Elements such as, for example, innovation for greener cities, sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems or the role of innovative instruments in mobilising adequate financing and 'blue growth' would naturally fit into the programme.

More infromation: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/greenweek/index_en.html

Representatives from science, business and public administration are invited to join the 2016 GEO Workshop for European projects on earth observation from 31 May to 2 June in Berlin.

2016 marks a turning point for the Group on Earth Observation (GEO) with the launch of the new Stategic Plan implementing the Global Earth Observations System of Systems (GEOSS). Now in its 10th edition, the GEO European Projects Workshop 2016 will present and discuss European initiatives contributing to GEOSS.

The conference is jointly organised by the European Commission, the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure of Germany, and the Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science.

For further information on the event (programme, registration, practical information) and most recent updates, please regularly check: https://ec.europa.eu/easme/en/geo-european-projects-workshop-2016

From 7 to 9 June 2016 the city of Venice will host an International Conference titled: "Citizen Observatories for Water Management". The Conference will focus on the potential of Citizen Science in the European water innovation landscape, and in particular in the fields of flood risk management, environmental monitoring and meeting the challenges of the Water Framework Directive (WFD).

The Conference will be an opportunity for actors in the field of science and innovation to exchange experiences on the development, implementation and use of new technologies to bring water-related issues closer to citizens.

Introduction

Citizen observatories are emerging as a virtual and physical place where citizens and decision makers cooperate to gather and share information to promote innovative and shared solutions. Strategic decisions and policies that impact society and the environment require intensive data collection and interpretation. Such information provides an important basis for long term planning as well as short term response (e.g. to flooding, drought,  pollution events, cyanobacterial blooms).

The COWM 2016 conference will explore the role and opportunities for active citizen participation in environmental monitoring and policy making. The event will provide opportunities to engage with researchers, policy makers and practitioners actively involved in improving our understanding of citizen science initiatives. Participants will discuss the growing potential of Citizens’ Observatories in empowering the society and improving the resilience at the community scale.

The meeting will bring together social scientists, surveyors, engineers, scientists, and other professionals from many countries involved in research and development activities in a wide range of technical and management topics related to citizen observatories and their impacts on society and how to maximize the benefit of data emerging from citizen observatories.

More information available here: http://www.conwater2016.eu/index.php/en/

The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and the Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin are organizing the 31st Annual Meeting of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections (SPNHC) to be held from June 20 through 25, 2016, in Berlin, Germany.

Under the heading "Green Museum – How to practice what we preach?" this meeting of the society evaluates green thinking in collections, museums and botanical gardens. In a world of climate change and ever decreasing biodiversity, sustainability  should be the criterion that ideally determines all planning and decisions, ranging from field work to construction projects,  from ethical aspects to cost-benefit analyses.

In practice this often is compromised by constraints beyond the control of the institution, be it monetary, legal or other. The conference will offer a forum to discuss possible ways of reconciling the seemingly opposing requirements. 

More information here.

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.

Held once every four years, the IUCN World Conservation Congress brings together several thousand leaders and decision-makers from government, civil society, indigenous peoples, business, and academia, with the goal of conserving the environment and harnessing the solutions nature offers to global challenges. The next Congress will take place 1-10 September in the Hawaiʻi Convention Center, in the Hawaiian capital, Honolulu. It is being hosted by the State of Hawaiʻi with the support of the Department of State of the USA.

The Congress aims to improve how we manage our natural environment for human, social and economic development, but this cannot be achieved by conservationists alone. The IUCN Congress is the place to put aside differences and work together to create good environmental governance, engaging all parts of society to share both the responsibilities and the benefits of conservation.

The Congress is the place where IUCN’s more than 1,300 Member organisations exercise their rights, influence the global conservation agenda and guide IUCN’s work plan for the four years to follow.

Find out more here: http://www.iucnworldconservationcongress.org/

The ConnectinGEO Workshop on Gap Analysis and Prioritization will will take place on 10 & 11 October 2106 in Asutia to address key issues associated with the societal benefits of Earth observations and the exploitation of Earth observation for societal policy and decision making.

The Gap Analysis workshop will discuss the outcomes of the gap analysis and prioritization performed in the ConnectinGEO project. This gap analysis was guided by the information and knowledge needs resulting from humanity's "Road to Dignity" detailed in the Agenda 2030 and specified in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed upon by the United Nations. Both the monitoring and implementation of actions to achieve these goals require extensive support from Earth observation and science communities. Several directives and crosscuting issues in Europe provided further guidance for the gap analysis.

The workshop will provide a forum to review the methodology for gap analysis and prioritization, discuss the relevant gaps and priorities in the European Earth observation networks and develop a strategy to address those gaps that have a high priority assigned.

The objectives of the gap analysis and prioritization workshop are to:

• Assess the ConnectinGEO methodology for gap analysis and prioritization;
• Review the list of gaps identified and the prioritization achieved;
• Produce a final list of gaps with high priority;
• Discuss a strategy to address these gaps and provide recommendations for the European Network of Earth Observation Networks (ENEON) and the European Commission concerning high-priority gaps.

More on the event's website.

From 10 to 14 October 2016, ConnectinGEO and ENEON will host a joint 'Earth Observation Gap Analysis and Prioritization"  workshop followed by an ENEON Workshop and Plenary. Both events will be held at IIASA in Laxenburg, Austria. The web announcement is available at http://www.gstss.org/2016_Laxenburg and there you can also access 1-page registration for both events. An overview of the schedule during the week is available at http://www.gstss.org/2016_Laxenburg/schedule.php. Extended deadline: 21st September.

The "Gap Analysis and Prioritization" workshop will take place on October 10-11, 2016.

Earth Observation gaps and prioritization actions' Workshop. Preliminary agenda

 *   Session 1: Introduction to the ConnectinGEO Approach to Gap Analysis and Prioritization
 *   Session 2: "Top-Down" approach to Gap Analysis: Thread 1: Identification of a collection of observation requirements; Thread 2: Research programs aims and targets
 *   Session 3: "Bottom-Up" approach to Gap Analysis: Thread 1: Consultation process
 *   Session 4: "Bottom-Up" approach to Gap Analysis: Thread 2: GEOSS DAB analysis
 *   Session 5: "Bottom-Up" approach to Gap Analysis: Thread 3: Industry-Driven Challenges
 *   Session 6: Assessment of the Gaps Identified so far and Steps Towards Prioritization

The ENEON Plenary will take place on October 12-13, 2016.

ENEON Workshop and Plenary. Preliminary agenda

 *   Session 1: ENEON Developments: Networks, Committees, Working Groups, Ambassadors, Achievements
 *   Session 2: ENEON in Support of European Policy Making and Implementation
 *   Session 3: ENEON in Support of Sustainable Development Goals Monitoring and Implementation
 *   Session 4: Addressing Gaps in European Earth Observation Infrastructure, Services, and Knowledge
 *   Session 5: ENEON: European Contribution to the GEO Work Programme
 *   Session 6: ENEON Business

The EU ABS Regulation workshop aims at providing the participants with knowledge about their obligations under the EU ABS Regulation and what they practically imply for their everyday work. In the first part of the workshop, the new legal framework will be explained, providing insight into the main provisions of the EU ABS Regulation. In the second part of the workshop, participants will have a chance to put the knowledge gained into practice through interactive case studies, based on real-life examples and realistic scenarios.

Registration page: http://www.euconf.eu/abs/en/registration/index.html

The EU ABS Regulation workshop aims at providing the participants with knowledge about their obligations under the EU ABS Regulation and what they practically imply for their everyday work. In the first part of the workshop, the new legal framework will be explained, providing insight into the main provisions of the EU ABS Regulation. In the second part of the workshop, participants will have a chance to put the knowledge gained into practice through interactive case studies, based on real-life examples and realistic scenarios.

Registration page: http://www.euconf.eu/abs/en/registration/index.html

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 EU ABS Regulation workshop aims at providing the participants with knowledge about their obligations under the EU ABS Regulation and what they practically imply for their everyday work. In the first part of the workshop, the new legal framework will be explained, providing insight into the main provisions of the EU ABS Regulation. In the second part of the workshop, participants will have a chance to put the knowledge gained into practice through interactive case studies, based on real-life examples and realistic scenarios.

Registration page: http://www.euconf.eu/abs/en/registration/index.html

The TDWG 2016 Annual Conference  will take place from 5 to 9 December 2016 in Santa Clara de San Carlos, COSTA RICA. The conference theme this year is: Standards Supporting Innovation in Biodiversity Research and Conservation.

The GEO Data Providers workshop will take place from 20-21 April in Florence, Italy.

The First GEO Data Providers workshop was held as a side event during the GEO-XIII Plenary in St. Petersburg, to strengthen the dialogue with data providers in order to improve the discoverability, accessibility and usability of GEOSS resources by GEOSS users. Given the high level of interest and success of the first workshop, a more comprehensive event of two days will be hosted by the Italian, National Research Council (CNR) in Florence, Italy, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA).

More information to follow.

The 1st General Assembly of LifeWatch ERIC will take place in Seville (Spain) on 8-9 May 2017.

More specific details about the working agenda and logistics to follow here.