International Conference on Scenarios and Models of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Support of Decision Making

Scientists, policy-makers and practitioners are invited to travel to Montpellier, France, for the "International Conference on Scenarios and Models of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Support of Decision Making." The conference is organised by the Biodiversity and Ecosystem Scenarios Network (ScenNet). bioDISCOVERY, a global research project of Future Earth, is also supporting the event, which is funded by the Belmont Forum.

The conference will cover a number of themes relevant to how researchers and others can use models and scenarios to make better decisions around conserving biodiversity and ecosystem services. It will focus specifically on:

• Exploring recent advances in modelling human impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem services
• Addressing the use of scenarios and models for decision support
• Mobilising observations of biodiversity and ecosystem services for model development and testing
• Capacity building for developing scenarios and models and for their use in decision making
• Horizon scanning and addressing gaps in knowledge.

Plenary speakers for the conference include Sandra Díaz, a member of Future Earth's Science Committee, and Paul Leadley, chair of the Scientific Steering Committee of bioDISCOVERY. The event will run from 24 to 26 August with an evening cocktail reception on 25 August.

To learn more about this event or to register, see the conference website.