Can the food security agenda and the conservation agenda be reconciled?

This event has now taken place

The goal of the food security agenda is to provide the world’s growing population with a sustainable and secure supply of safe, nutritious and affordable high quality food. These targets are currently associated with considerable challenges, as the human population of the planet now numbers over 7 billion and is predicted to continue expanding until at least the middle of this century. Securing access to food to people across the globe will require governments to develop strategies that are likely to impact wildlife conservation, with e.g. increasing food demands likely to lead to an increase in both the area of land that is managed for agricultural production and an increase in the intensification of production on land already managed to agriculture. As food demand increases, so will food price, which may then increase hunting pressure on wild species. How can we reduce the rate of biodiversity loss while meeting the targets set by the food security agenda? This event will discuss this apparent contradiction.

Talks

Food security: is biodiversity doomed (4.7 MB)? - Iain Gordon, Chief Executive, The James Hutton Institute (22.2 MB)

Sustainable Intensification, Food Security & Biodiversity Conservation (1.9 MB) - Charles Godfray, Hope Professor and Director, Oxford Martin programme for the Future of Food, Oxford University (23.3 MB)

Crop wild relatives: the biodiversity that underpins food security (3.3 MB) - Nigel Maxted, Senior Lecturer in Genetic Conservation, University of Birmingham (23.5 MB)

Q&A with the speakers (23.6 MB)

This meeting will be chaired by Nathalie Pettorelli, Institute of Zoology

Further Information: please contact Megan Orpwood-Russell, Scientific Meetings Coordinator, Zoological Society of London, Regents Park, London NW1 4RY.
Tel:+44 (0)20 7449 6227. Fax: +44 (0)20 7449 6411. E-mail: megan.orpwood-russell@zsl.org.

3 course dinner with the speakers

A dinner will follow this Science and Conservation Event and everyone is welcome. Dinner places cost £35 per person including two glasses of wine and reservations should be made before 5pm on Wednesday 6 March.

Please download this flyer for booking information (240 KB)

This event in the 'Wildlife Conservation' series will begin at 6.00pm (doors from 5.00pm) and talks are scheduled to finish at 7.45pm; admission is free and open to everyone (no advance booking or registration required). This event will be held in the ZSL Meeting Rooms and seats will be on a first-come, first-served basis.

ZSL Science and Conservation Events: An essential part of ZSL's work is to communicate relevant, high-quality zoological and conservation science. The integrated ZSL Science and Conservation Events programme includes Symposia, and the new 'Wildlife Conservation' and 'Communicating Science' series. Topics cover a wide variety of zoological and conservation themes, and international experts present and discuss their research.

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