How human activities cause biodiversity loss : Interactions and relative contributions of human activities; What do we know, what do we need to know ?

Louvain-La-Neuve

October 24, 2019

Louvain-la-Neuve

Place Cardinal Mercier

This conference stems from the observation that the interactions between, and the relative contributions, of different types of human activities have unclear contributions on current and future biodiversity loss unclear for most researchers. This is largely due to the fact that very few publications compare the effects of these different activities in the same model, and since all these activities have been growing exponentially since 1850, they all correlate well with the quantifications of biodiversity loss.

This conference aims to make people from areas of research involved in biodiversity degradation and conservation, including biologists and geographers (IPBES), and climatologists (IPCC), share data and a vision in the context of the IPBES and IPCC coming reports about common sections focusing on biodiversity. We aim that this conference allows a thorough discussion of the causes of biodiversity loss. We expect it to be also an occasion to spread the excellent work of IPBES and IPCC editors and chairs to the political community in Belgium, which hosts the European parliament and commission. Key players will be invited to join the conference (UCLouvain is located 30 min from Brussels).

The conference can conveniently take place at the Earth and Life Institute (450 researchers) at UCLouvain, which hosts internationally recognized expertise in biodiversity, climate change, land use, forestry, and agricultural practices notably, including Profs. Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Eric Lambin, Patrick Meyfroidt, Hans Van Dyck, and our university also hosts other key actors of UN goals such as Prof. Olivier De Schutter. This conference will also be an excellent training for ELI PhD students.

https://uclouvain.be/fr/node/64037