British Land Reclamation Society at SER 2015
The international Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) are holding another large conference on British soil – the last one, organised by Professor Tony Bradshaw, was in Liverpool in 2000. This time, the venue is Manchester and the world conference with the theme “Towards resilient ecosystems: restoring the urban, the rural and the wild” will take place in August (http://www.ser2015.org/).
BLRS will be hosting a Symposium within the conference, entitled ‘Restoration for people and places’. and it will be dedicated to the memory of Tony Bradshaw. In particular, his legacy of pragmatic and scientifically rigorous restoration wisdom will be re-evaluated in the context of current and future needs for restoration policy and practice. Using examples drawn from the restoration of industrial, mineral, waste and other forms of brownfield land, the symposium will explore how ecological principles can be better accommodated with other societal-led restoration outcomes. BLRS wish to add a different perspective from the predominant ecological priorities based on natural and semi-natural ecosystems and nature conservation, and investigate their applicability in newly created anthropogenic systems designed for 21st Century living. The symposium will be designed so that participants produce a policy or position statement with recommendations for how SER could better take forward an agenda which incorporates cultural, community as well as ecological objectives.
