by Todd Aschenbach

SER MWGL members at the SER 2015 meeting in Manchester (l to r:  Young Choi, Stuart Allison, Todd Aschenbach, John Shuey, Hua Chen, and Mary Beth McCormack [not pictured]).

The Society for Ecological Restoration International’s 6^th World Conference on Ecological Restoration was held August 23-27, 2015 in Manchester, UK. Approximately 700 participants from over 60 countries attended the conference. Half of the participants hailed from Europe, while a quarter of the participants crossed the pond from North America. Our very own Midwest-Great Lakes Chapter had 6 members attend the conference.

The conference began with a welcome reception which was a great opportunity to visit with old friends and colleagues and make some new ones. The start of each day began with a broad-scale, thought provoking plenary session: “What is resilience? The case of the Wanderer Butterfly”, “From commitment to action: successful implementation of global landscape restoration initiatives”, “Challenges in achieving effective conservation through ecological restoration”, “The tyranny of typologies: classifying, predicting, dreaming in landscape restoration”, “The new large dam and irrigation scheme in Africa: preparing for ecosystem restoration”. Workshops, symposiums, and presentations on the art, science, and practice of ecological restoration filled the remainder of the day. All totaled, over 500 oral presentations and 150 poster presentations were given at the conference.  The SER MWGL chapter presented a poster that summarized the chapter benefits and outreach efforts we are conducting as part of our 5 year strategic plan implementation (see photo).