Logistics
Date: 27-30 November 2022 (tbc)
Location: Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing, China
Description
Eastern Asian countries (including China, Mongolia, and Japan), will face unprecedented socio-environmental challenges over the next decades (IPCC, 2021). Regional climate changes, together with land-use intensification and increasing livelihoods demands represent a key challenge in regions among the most populated in the world (UNFCCC 2021). A more sustainable, and spatially-coherent approach to ecosystem management is presently lacking, often resulting in conflicts between restoration goals and people’s needs (e.g. Squires, 2013).
Two case studies at species and community levels exemplify the existing challenges for conservation in Asia, and the potential for integrative long-term studies:
1) Pinus yunnanensis (Franch.) forest in Southwest China are considered an intermediary stage of succession toward evergreen broad-leaved forest (Tang et al., 2013), and often under-valued. Population dynamic need to be contextualized in light of the longer-term perspective (e.g. Whitlock et al., 2018), and paleo data can offer here a key insight for prioritizing Pinus yunnanensis conservation in light of future environmental changes (IPCC, 2021).
2) Low biodiversity patterns across the woodland-steppe ecotone of southern Mongolia are considered the result of historical fragmentation (Liu and Cui, 2009). Yet, this observation needs to be re-assessed in light of a longer-term ecological perspective: baseline information is in fact critical for identifying biodiversity targets and which ecological processes (grazing, fire, and other disturbance regime processes) maintain Asian steppe biodiversity patterns.
Aims of the workshop
By bringing together the paleoecological and stakeholders communities, this workshop will specifically focus on the following objectives:
1) The Identification of management “controversies”, i.e. where existing conservation measures fail to achieve set restoration targets;
2) The cross-comparison of management “solutions” under different national schemes (e.g. steppe in China vs Mongolia, or temperate ecosystems across Japan and China); and
3) The identification of best conservation approaches in light of the paleo-evidence base (pollen, macrofossils, disturbance regime indicators, tree rings, Whitlock et al., 2018 ).
Key speakers/ participants organizers
To be confirmed.
Registration
To be confirmed.
More information
Please contact Qiaoyu Cui for more information via email: qiaoyu.cui@igsnrr.ac.cn