Cambridge Conservation Forum

CCF policy debrief on Durban Climate Change Conference

This debrief, held on 10th January 2012 at UNEP-WCMC, discussed the outcomes of the 17th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC (and related meetings) held in Durban, South Africa, during November–December 2011. Presentations were given by: Melanie Heath (BirdLife International) on the overview of the conferences; Barney Dickson (UNEP-WCMC) on the outcomes in terms of REDD+; and Rob Munroe (BirdLife) on adaptation and ecosystem-based adaptation.

CCF Summer Symposium – “Landscape and localism: future directions in habitat management”

The CCF Summer Symposium took place on 23rd June 2011 at the Judge Business School. Some 70 participants from a wide range of CCF Member and other organisations discussed the challenges for habitat management at a local and landscape level, arising not least from the Government’s new focus on localism. A copy of the final programme is available here. Abstracts of some of the talks are also available here.

CCF Annual Symposium 2011

The 12th CCF Annual Symposium took place at the Judge Business School on 6th January 2011, with nearly 100 registered participants. It included a stimulating programme of talks (the abstracts of which are available here), and a lively interactive session (the final report of which is available here), which built on the CCF Vision developed during 2010.

CCI/CCF workshop on carbon management and offsetting

A joint CCI/CCF workshop, aimed at progressing the thinking on reducing the carbon footprints of conservation organizations across Cambridge, was held at UNEP-WCMC on Thursday 9th December 2010, and attended by 17 people from a variety of CCI/CCF organizations. The minutes of the meeting, which include a summary of the presentations and overall discussion, are available here.

CCF Summer Symposium:  Climate change adaptation in the International Year of Biodiversity

Over 80 people  attended the CCF Summer Symposium, which was held on Monday 21st June,  to hear a range of interesting speakers reflect and challenge current thinking on climate change adaptation in the International Year of Biodiversity.  The programme is available here.  Many of the presentations are available in pdf form here and a summary of the discussions in the ’speed date’  session is available here.

Global Analyses of Protected Area Impacts

This seminar was given by Lucas Joppa of Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University / Microsoft Research on November 10 2009, at UNEP-WCMC. The talk discussed methods for estimating the effectiveness of protected areas in preventing land use change, making use of global land cover datasets and the World Database on Protected Areas.

This is a pre-publication version of a paper, “Re-assessing the forest impacts of protection: the challenge of non-random location and a corrective method” to be published in the inaugural issue of the journal Ecological Economics Reviews.

Downloads

Presentation slides (PDF – 7.4MB); Associated paper “Re-assessing Protected Area Impacts” (PDF)

Discussions on Valuing Ecosystem Services

The papers supporting these discussions are available here.

A paper on climate change impacts in the Fens is also available here.

7th CCF Annual Symposium – Climate change: biodiversity impacts and mitigation measures

CCF took the unprecedented step of focusing its Annual Symposium on the subject of Climate change: biodiversity impacts and mitigation measures. The aim of the symposium was to review current predictions of the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and the potential mitigation measures that we can take to minimise them. The specific subjects covered included the evidence for climate change and the contribution of human activities to such changes, current predictions of climate changes and impacts on habitats and species, strategies for minimising climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and possible adaptation measures that may reduce biodiversity impacts. The issues were discussed in relation to international and national impacts, and generic lessons that are applicable to each will be identified.

Sir David King gave the keynote opening speech at the symposium and reviewed the need for global action on climate change. Other climate change experts that gave presentations were Dr Pam Berry (Environmental Change Institute, Oxford University), Professor Peter Cox (CEH), Dr Dave Hole (Durham University), Dr John Hopkins (English Nature), Professor Brian Huntley (Durham University), John Lanchbery (RSPB) and Professor Ian Swingland (DICE and Sustainable Forestry Management Ltd).

There were also four workshop discussion sessions on climate change research, carbon offset schemes, the UK climate change bill and climate change adaptation measures. Summaries of the outcomes of these sessions will be provided on this website shortly.

The following presentations are available for download in Adobe PDF format:

• Sir David King – The need for global action from the science of climate change (1.1MB)
• Professor Peter Cox – Climate change and eco-systems (9MB)
• Dr Pam Berry – The sensitivity and vulnerability of UK biodiversity to climate change (0.4MB)
• Dr Dave Hole – Impacts of climate change on Africa’s Important Bird Area network and potential mitigation measures (4.8MB)
• Dr John Hopkins – Climate change adaptation measures for UK biodiversity (0.8MB)
• John Lanchbery – An overview of climate change mitigation policies (including Kyoto, EU and UK policies) (0.25MB)
• Professor Ian Swingland – The business of sustainability (2.1MB)
• Oliver Blakeman – Carbon offset schemes (0.24MB)

Poster paper abstracts (Word documents)

• Rob Marchant, Jon Lovett and Colin McClean – The York Institute of Tropical
  Ecosystem Dynamics
• J. H. Sommer, W. Küper, J. C. Lovett, W. Barthlott – The future of Africa’s
  plant diversity – Potential effects of climate change on species distributions

Workshop notes (Word documents)

• Current CCF research on climate change and research priorities
• Biodiversity adaptation measures – medium and long term requirements