Conference Agenda

ID: 570 / 3.04.4:

Challenges and opportunities for monitoring grassland and savannah conservation at global and continental scales

Geoff Smith¹, Bruno Combal², Karl Ruf³, Sergio Bolívar Santamaría⁴, Adriana Martin Ramirez⁴, Michelle Chevelev-Bonatti⁴, Stefan Sieber⁴, Leonie Meier⁵

1 Specto Natura Ltd., United Kingdom; 2 DG Environment, European Commission; 3 space4environment sàrl; 4 Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research – ZALF; 5 World Wide Fund for Nature – WWF International

· Grasslands and savannahs are key landscapes globally, whether as hay meadows, grazing marshes, open rangelands or woody clearings. They maintain biodiversity and food production, but also influence ecological processes including pollination, water supply, carbon sequestration, and climate regulation. They cover a significant part of the EU and 70 % of the world's agricultural land, resulting in grasslands that are both diverse and extensive habitats.

· These important habitats are currently facing numerous threats, agriculture conversion, tree plantations, intensification and abandonment, and may be considered to have been undervalued in conservation and restoration policies. However, European legislation (under the Habitats Directive) actively protects natural grasslands and requires the European Union Member States to take steps to avoid degradation in their protected sites with the Natura 2000 network, and reports on their actual conservation status. They highlight the urgent need for effective monitoring although until recently there have been some limitations to monitor their actual extent and ecosystem dynamics using remote sensing techniques. However, in recent years interest has increased, and new technologies have been used for monitoring different features related to degradation or sustainable land use.

The aim of this workshop is to provide a forum to present and exchange information on novel grassland research, operational user requirements, monitoring approaches for biodiversity and land management practices. The workshop focuses on the advances in Earth Observation solutions to address grassland characteristics and properties, including:

• Essential Biodiversity Variables, ecosystem extent and connectivity, biophysical parameters, species distribution, climate change impacts and ecosystem services. The final outcome will be recommendations and onward collaborations to support research and services to conserve and restore grasslands and savannahs worldwide.

• The workshop is organised by the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF), the Global Grasslands and Savannahs Dialogue Platform organized by WWF and the EU Grassland Watch team.