This symposium will explore opportunities presented by the UNESCO Biosphere Reserves which are meant to serve as models for addressing livelihood needs sustainably while supporting environmental conservation, based on case studies from different biosphere reserves around the world.

If we do not pay attention and adjust to nature's beckoning, one day nature will humble us. Let's drive towards nature based solutions. 

A multidisciplinary approach in Conservation, Adaptation and Resilience in the Tropics

We will discuss the yearly breeding and molting cycles of birds, and how they differ depending on the region they live in. We emphasize the importance of studying these cycles, especially in tropical birds that have received less attention in past research.

This symposium shows a pioneering initiative in wildlife conservation training for early-career African researchers. Using existing datasets, participants produced peer-reviewed articles addressing biodiversity, human impacts, carbon storage, and climate change effects on great apes and mammal ecosystems. Join us to learn about this transformative training model.

This symposium showcases insect research across the tropics, highlighting potential threats to insects and how they might be better protected in the future, what environmental predictors impact their distributions, and their importance as bioindicators and ecosystem service providers.

Empowering youth in conservation is critical for Africa's future as it ensures  preservation of cultural heritage and sustainable practices. Youth participation not only builds a deep link to tradition, but also ensures the continuance of environmental care, underlining their essential position as torchbearers of conservation and sustainable resource use.

This symposium treats warming responses of tropical plants and how these influence ecosystem processes and services in a changing climate.

African Phenology needs to be standardized and expanded to better understand the forest-climate linkages in the African tropics to guide new management approaches for sustainable forest management and readiness for climate change impacts.

This symposium brings together researchers who aim to better understand the key ecological drivers of avian responses to human-induced land-use change in tropical forest ecosystems at both regional and pantropical scales.

This symposium delves into the multifaceted roles of lianas in tropical forests, expanding beyond carbon dynamics to explore their impacts on nutrient cycling, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration to advance our understanding of these vital components of tropical biodiversity.

This symposium welcomes research in any aspect of species interactions or conservation of such interactions, highlighting – but not requiring – projects that collect data internationally and work together towards joint understanding.

An overview of the activities of a Belgian Network and their partner universities on Socio-ecological resilience and biodiversity in Pantropic.

The symposium focuses on integrating remote sensing with ecological methods to understand and conserve the structure, function, and resilience of tropical ecosystems, promoting interdisciplinary collaboration and driving advancements in conservation strategies.

Session exploring how ong-term vegetation plot data  can be used to inform management and conservation in Africa as the African plot network starts expanding out of forests

With the aim of better understanding the different types of interactions between people and biodiversity, we propose to explore examples of co-construction of tropical conservation strategies, through the integration of traditional and scientific knowledge. Bringing into focus community-based conservation models, exposing ways to increase biodiversity resilience and local empowerment.

This symposium brings together experts to explore fire ecology in tropical savannas, focusing on the impact of fire dynamics on biodiversity, conservation strategies, and policy implications, with a goal to foster interdisciplinary dialogue and actionable insights for managing one of the world's most fire-prone and ecologically significant biomes.

This symposium gives us the opportunity to share our community-based conservation approaches, involving various local stakeholders to address the various challenges facing Grauer's gorilla conservation in Kahuzi-Biega National Park.

This session will focus on the role of tropical peatlands in the carbon cycle, emphasizing their sensitivity to disturbance and climate change, and will feature presentations on peatland distribution, ecosystem ecology, floristics, and the impacts of conservation threats and management strategies.

Participation of local scientists in studies conducted in tropical ecosystems remains low which impedes integration into policy and practices. This symposium aims to present the contributions of local scientists to the management of Rwanda’s only Ramsar site, Rugezi marsh, and share lessons learnt for potential applications in other tropical wetlands.

A showcase of strategic conservation efforts aimed at conserving avian biodiversity in West Africa, encompassing capacity building, citizen science, species survival, and livelihood integration.

Resurveys provide an invaluable opportunity to assess trends in biodiversity in tropical regions where long-term monitoring is absent, and this symposium will combine resurvey findings and expertise from around the tropics and inspire more ecologists conduct their own.

We aim to share findings and lessons learnt from over fifty years of collaborative research, training and outreach by scholars who have through participation in different wildlife research projects dedicated their careers to long-term ecological and conservation research.

This symposium will evaluate the state of the ongoing long-term ecological research in Tropical Africa, discuss the opportunities, the challenges and propose new perspectives.  It will also offer a broad range of approaches and will reinforce the creation of a network for regional research about this topic.