Integrative Conservation Webinar Series  

Time: 4:30- 6:00 pm (Beijing time)

Date: 28 Feb 2023 (Tue)

Venue: Zoom ID: 312 430 8960, PWD: 666666

Panelists

Professor LI Dezhu, Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Dr Alice Hughes, University of Hong Kong

Dr LI Binbin, Duke Kunshan University

Moderator

Professor Harald Schneider, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences

About the event

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM-GBF) agreement has received a large amount of attention. For example, a German newspaper published a commentary titled ‘The day humanity decided to save Earth’. Of course, not everyones expectations were full filled and the published text is shaped by the carefulness required in any international dialog. Given the significance of the KMGBF, Integrative Conservation wants to provide a platform to discuss the delivery of the targets outlines in the pathway toward biodiversity conservation outlined in the statement. In this month’s Integrative Conservation Webinar Series we will hold an online panel discussion with three outstanding conservation scientists who attended the COP-15 meeting in Montreal in December 2022 and who will discuss the their views on KMGBF’s significance, implications, and hurdles.

About the Panelists

Professor LI Dezhu

Professor at Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Director of Germplasm Bank of Wild Species in Southwest China. He has been engaged in plant taxonomy and phylogeny research for a long time, and has made systematic contributions to the study of taxonomy, phylogeny and evolution of bamboo plant. He has lead the research on plant DNA barcoding and new generation flora, analyzing the early evolution history of angiosperms, and revealing the origin of the geographical pattern of representative groups in East Asia flora. He also lead the establishment of Asia’s largest and world-class germplasm bank of wild species and a germplasm system preserving seeds, isolated materials and DNA banks, and established the standard procedure of collecting and preserving of tens of thousands of wild plant seeds in China. In 2021, he won the Outstanding Contribution Award of the third ‘Wu Zhengyi Botany Award’.

Dr. Alice Hughes

Associate Professor at The University of Hong Kong. Alice is a conservation biologist based in Asia. Alice holds board positions for around 7 ecological societies and 2 NGOS and works through these to build conservation capacity in upcoming conservationists and to try to implement conservation science and help guide conservation on regional scales. Her research aims to understand patterns of biodiversity and drivers of biodiversity change, with an aim to inform more rigorous & appropriate conservation. She and her team use a wide variety of approaches and tools for anything from understanding species biogeography, to developing monitoring tools or understanding interactions. She currently also has projects on threatened ecosystems (especially karst) to understand biodiversity patterns & develop effective conservation & management approaches. Editorial Board Member of Integrative Conservation.

Dr. LI Binbin

Dr. Binbin Li is the Assistant Professor of Environmental Sciences of the Environmental Research Center at Duke Kunshan University. Her research focuses on loss of biodiversity, endangered and endemic species conservation such as giant pandas, priority setting and management of protected areas, and promotion of innovative technology, markets and policies to solve conservation problems and local community development. Dr. Li’s work covers the identification of conservation priorities and national parks in China, impacts of One Belt One Road on biodiversity, giant panda conservation and management via Footprint Identification Technique (FIT), impacts of oil palm and rubber plantations on biodiversity in Southeast Asia, influence of national environmental policies on human-wildlife conflicts, and behavioral study of endemic species. She is also a member of the IUCN SSC Small Mammal Specialist Group. Dr. Li is engaged in science communication and nature education. She is a signed nature photographer at Swild in China. During 2013-2015, she served as a science advisor for Disney nature documentary “Born in China”. She is devoted in using photography, social media, drama, and other art formats to promote conservation science in the public. EC50-One of the fifty scientific explorers changing the world, Explorers Club 2021. Associate Editor of Integrative Conservation.

About the Moderator

Professor Harald Schneider

Prof. Harald Schneider’s current research interest is focused on genomic mechanisms shaping the evolutionary history of land plant diversity since the colonisation of land and their survival in the anthropocene. He promotes integrative research approaches with the aim of incorporating state-of-the-art research, together with the knowledge accumulated during centuries of botanical exploration of the world. During his research carrier, he contributed to many important publications reporting result that are now part of every textbook on plant taxonomy and diversity. Originally trained as a botanists in Germany and Switzerland—including obtaining his PhD at the University of Zurich—he held positions at many famous academic institutions such as the Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, Georg August Universitaet at Goettingen, Duke University at Durham, University of California at Berkeley, and the Natural History Museum at London before joining XTBG. Currently, he served as Associate Editor of Integrative Conservation.

About the series

The Integrative Conservation Webinar Series are monthly events featuring cutting-edge presentations and topical discussions on the theory, practice, and policy of biodiversity conservation. The series is sponsored by Integrative Conservation (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/27709329) and the webinars’ content is generally related to work published in the journal. The Integrative Conservation webinars take place the last Tuesday of every month (4:30 to 6 pm, Beijing time), on Zoom (freely accessible to anyone, ID: 312 430 8960, PWD: 666666), and are embedded within the weekly seminar series of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG).