The LIFE WILDisland project was presented by its Coordinator, Mr. Georg Frank, at the 5th European Conference on Biodiversity and Climate Change: Riverine and Coastal Wetlands, which took place between 26-28 September in Bonn, Germany. The conference was supported by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the Network of European National Conservation Agencies (ENCA Network) with funds of the German Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV).
The European BioClim Wetlands Conference aims to strengthen the exchange of experiences and networking among scientists, policy makers and practitioners. We believe that this is done best through meeting in person, therefore please note that the conference will be an in-person event. The thematic focus lies on the impacts and role of wetlands, specifically on river floodplains and coasts, for biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation and adaptation. During the conference recommendations for action will be developed to raise awareness of the importance of the topic beyond the actual group of participants. Find the key messages of the Conference here.
Mr. Frank was invited as a pannelist in the session devoted on wetland restoration in practice: overcoming barriers and scaling up implementation to share his practical experience, together with Prof. Dr. Bakker, Wageningen University & Research, Prof.Dr. Hering, MERLIN Project and Mr. Guelmami, Mediterranean Wetlands Observatory. The aim of this session was to develop concrete recommendations for scaling up the restoration of riverine and coastal wetlands in Europe. Large-scale restoration initiatives from across Europem such as DANUBEPARKS and the WILDisland concept were presented and common barriers and success factors were discussed.
The organizers also helped us set up a side-event devoted to the elaboration of the Danube WILDisland Ramsar Regional Initiative, where representatives of Germany as well as the Ramsar Secretariat took part. We hope to soon be able to share some great news about the on-going application!
We would like to thank the organizers for the excellent opportunity and looking forward to further cooperation and joint work!
The proceedings from the Conference can be found here.
For more information:
Georg Frank - DANUBEPARKS: g.frank@danubeparks.org
