Expressions of interest are invited to attend a 3 day sandpit as part of the NERC/Defra Marine Renewable Energy Research Programme.

The aim of the sandpit is to fund research project(s) which will develop an understanding of the environmental benefits and risks of up-scaling marine renewable energy schemes on the quality of marine bioresources (including biodiversity) and biophysical dynamics of open coasts.

The sandpit will be taking place from the 8-10 December 2010.
The closing date for expressions of interest is 16:00 on Thursday 14 October 2010

For further information and contacts please visit the programme webpage.

Do you want to increase the impact of your research?

The BES maintains a database of over 500 ecologists who are prepared to comment upon a range of ecological issues. Members of the BES are now able to join them by registering your expertise via our *new online questionnaire*.

Do you want your science to inform decisions which shape society? Is it important to you that policies are evidence-based? Are you looking for ways to communicate the excitement of your research to the public?

By joining the BES expertise database you can make sure that you are kept informed of all the opportunities that the Society can offer to increase the wider impact of your research.

– Find out about workshops and events
– Contribute to a briefing, consultation or inquiry on a topic you are passionate about.
– Be first in line when the media contacts the BES, looking for a comment

The online questionnaire consists of 19 questions and should take no more than 10 minutes of your time.

The BES is now recruiting for a Policy Intern, to join the BES Policy Team in Lonodon for two days each week for up to three months. The internship will begin in October. This opportunity is unpaid but the BES will reimburse travel expenses within London and cover lunch costs of up to £5 per day.

Full details of this position and how to apply are available on the BES website.

Applications close at 9.00am on Friday 17th September.

Interviews will be held on Friday 1st October.

2-4 November 2010
Dublin, Ireland

The conference aims to:

- investigate how biodiversity policies and legislation including the Common Agricultural Policy, Fisheries Policy and the Marine and Coastal Access Bill) are affecting and driving biodiversity conservation;
– showcase biodiversity tools and methods available to ecologists; and
- review case studies of some of the more practical methods used in biodiversity projects.

Keynote speakers include:

Mairead McGuinness, MEP
John Cross, NPWS
Damon Stanwell-Smith, UNEP WCMC
John Finn, TEAGASC
Patricia Almeida-Villella MIEEM, Marine Management Organisation
Neil Wellum, Marine Management Organisation
Liam Lysaght, Director, National Biodiversity Data Centre
Matthew Jebb, Director of Dublin Botanical Gardens
Heather Thompson, Chief Executive, Ulster Wildlife Trust
Paul Wilkinson, Head of ‘A Living Landscape’, Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts

To view the full programme and to book you place, please visit the IEEM conference webpage.

Companies are increasingly seeking business opportunities in preserving biodiversity rather than viewing it as a threat to their profits, according to a new McKinsey survey. The survey of some 1,500 executives of companies in all global regions and industries found that 59% of respondents view biodiversity as an opportunity rather than a threat to their company. They identified opportunities to boost corporate reputations by taking action to preserve biodiversity or develop new products from renewable natural resources.

More from this week’s Society of Biology’s Science Policy Newsletter

A group led by Professor Bill Sutherland at Cambridge University has identified the top 25 issues in conservation in greatest need of attention from policy-makers; either through the production of new or amendments to existing policy. The group, representing governmental organisations, NGOs and academia, focused on those areas where there may be options to fill gaps, improve implementation or where new research may be required. The result was a long-list of 117 issues, honed to 25 through a two-day workshop and a voting process. Sutherland et. al. intend that the list be of use to amongst others, policy-makers, providing knowledge on areas in need of attention and the policy options which may be available to address these areas and researchers, who can use the paper as a guide to policy-relevant, scientific questions which could form the focus of research efforts.

Issues identified in the paper cover both terrestrial and marine environments, ranging from protected areas and climate change, to habitat banking, restoring floodplain functionality for nature conservation and ecosystem services, peatland restoration, nanotechnology, marine spatial planning and non-native invasive species.

To take ‘protected areas’ as an example of the authors’ approach, Sutherland et.al. identify that the management of protected sites was developed at a time when landscape-change was generally directly human-induced and was therefore largely controllable. How should these areas be managed now, given the indirect and unpredictable effects of climate change? Policy options given include designating sites now which are likely to make an important biodiversity contribution in the future. The authors then identify a number of research questions, including the need to investigate what site properties enable widlife resilience under climate change.

The authors acknowledge in the discussion section that ‘ecosystem services’ is a thread running throughout the paper, and recognise that the future of biodiversity conservation will embrace this approach. Therefore they call on policy-makers and the research community to explore how policy instruments promoting ecosystem conservation can best be directed to maximise benefits for biodiversity.

The authors recommend that the exercise be repeated for the UK every five years and encourage other countries to carry out a similar activity.

Sutherland, W. J., Albon, S. D., Allison, H., Armstrong-Brown, S., Bailey, M. J., Brereton, T., Boyd, I. L., Carey, P., Edwards, J., Gill, M., Hill, D., Hodge, I., Hunt, A. J., Le Quesne, W. J. F., Macdonald, D. W., Mee, L. D., Mitchell, R., Norman, T., Owen, R. P., Parker, D., Prior, S. V., Pullin, A. S., Rands, M. R. W., Redpath, S., Spencer, J., Spray, C. J., Thomas, C. D., Tucker, G. M., Watkinson, A. R. and Clements, A. , REVIEW: The identification of priority policy options for UK nature conservation. Journal of Applied Ecology, no. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2010.01863.x

The Cambridge Conservation Initiative, a partnership of NGOs and departments at the University of Cambridge, is seeking your views on whether the way in which climate change has been communicated to policy-makers and the public can provide lessons for the communication of biodiversity loss. How can biodiversity move up the political agenda, with policy-makers and members of the public recognising the seriousness implications of its loss? Will studying how climate change has moved to the forefront of policy and public awareness help in achieving a similar shift for biodiversity?

Your views will help the CCI and the conservation community more widely, in efforts to make sure that biodiversity loss achieves a higher policy and public profile.

You are invited to complete a brief survey, giving your view on 35 statements, drawn from interviews with experts in climate change and biodiversity conservation. This should take you no more than 20 minutes. The deadline for completion of the survey is 31st August.

The Royal Institution is running an evening event on Thursday 23rd September, exploring neutrality in scientific reporting by the media.

Guest curator Mark Henderson (Science Editor of The Times) leads an expert panel who will debate the key issue of journalistic neutrality in science. What should journalists do when one side of an argument has more scientific credibility and support than another? And to what extent do they have a responsibility to weigh up competing opinions, to decide whether some are more equal than others?

Find out more and book tickets (£8/£6 or £4 for RI members)

The scheme promotes partnership between eligible research organisations and public or private sector organisations, and enhances the training of the student who can spend between 3 and 18 months in a workplace outside the academic environment.

The CASE partner should provide the impetus and initial requirement for the studentship and must supplement the student’s maintenance grant by at least £1000pa.

The closing date for applications is 16.00 on 14 October 2010.

As well as an open round for applications within NERC’s remit, up to five studentships will be awarded in each of the six priority areas listed below, to facilitate collaboration with private sector partners:
a) water
b) energy
c) Food and agriculture
d) resource management (minerals, forestry, waste etc)
e) financial services (risk management and valuation, including insurance)
f) environmental monitoring

Visit the Call’s web page for further information.
The JeS form will be available from 1 September, and more detailed guidance will be on the web page before the end of August.

The BES Ecology and Policy Blog has been picked to feature on the list of the ‘Top 50 Public Policy Bloggers’, by the ‘Policy Police’, a site which scans the public policy blogosphere. The list includes categories on General Politics, Environment and Energy, Poverty and Homelessness, Education, Food and Drug and Health Care. See the full list here.