Scope:

Welcome to the conference „Biodiversity Research - Safeguarding the Future“, May 12 - 16, 2008 in Bonn (Germany).

The governing body of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Conference of the Parties, will have its ninth meeting (“COP 9”) in Bonn (Germany) May 19-30, 2008. More than 6000 participants are expected who will discuss predominantly biodiversity-related political issues including the reports from SBSTTA, financial mechanisms and implementation of regulations. There has been increasing complaint that the importance of biodiversity research is ignored in political discussions. This is complemend by the concern that basic and applied research is restricted by political regulations.

This situation gave rise to the "COP8" associated meeting “Biodiversity: the Megascience in focus” held at Curitiba (Brazil) March 15-19, 2006. Its resolutions and recommendations were finally accepted as documents of "COP8". Recognizing the importance and success of the Curitiba meeting, the German National Committee of IUBS felt obliged to pursuit the idea of a COP associated meeting focussing on biodiversity research as a science and therefore will organizes the symposium “Biodiversity Research – Safeguarding the Future“ as a pre-congress meeting.

This conference will consist of three symposia which shall pick up the topics of the Curitiba meeting in a broader sense.

Themes of the symposia:

Symposium I: Acceleration of Biodiversity Assessment and Inventorying

Symposium II: Biodiversity: Functions and uses

Symposium III: Biodiversity Change – The 2010 Target and Beyond

Oral presentations are limited to invited speakers but there is an opportunity provided for poster presentation. For further information see the description of Abstract submission.