Early in the 2000s, Conservation International (through Lee Hannah) organized a series of workshops to discuss the interface between climate change and quantitative spatial conservation prioritisation methodologies. More than 10 years have elapsed since these workshops took place in Montpellier, Évora, and Cape Town and several highly-cited papers were published as a consequence (e.g., Araújo et al. 2004 GCB; Williams et al. 2005 Conserv. Biol.; Hannah et al. 2007 Front. Ecol. Env). Some of us think that the research agenda in these meetings is now accomplished and that new directions need to be identified. One critical issue for discussion is that although much progress has been made on the conceptual and analytical fronts, a disconnect still exists between the science of conservation planning and the realm of applications. This begs the question of whether more realistic approaches need to be developed, for example to account more explicitly for socio-economic factors, or whether investment should be primarily undertaken at the level of the translation of the scientific methodologies to planners and decision-makers alike.

To address these issues, we are organising a 4-days workshop at the Monastery of Arrábida in Portugal (16-19 May 2014) with a small number of international colleagues working in conservation planning. We aim to discuss how spatial conservation prioritization can feed into international initiatives such as the IPBES (Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) and write a public statement on this topic. Assuming the discussions will benefit from a follow up (they usually do), we will also use outline a proposal for seeking longer-term funding for a series of workshop meetings.

Organizers
Diogo Alagador & Miguel Araújo

Additional participants
Neil Burguess – WCMC, UK & University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Silvia Carvalho – CIBIO, University of Porto, Portugal
Lee Hannah – Conservation International, USA & University of California Santa Barbara, USA
Amanda Lombard – Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, George, South Africa
Andrew Knight – Imperial College London, UK
Heini Kujala – University of Melbourne, Australia
Atte Moilanen – University of Helsinki, Finland
Hugh Possingham – University of Queensland, Australia & Imperial College London, UK
Niels Strange – University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Claire Vos – Alterra, Wageningen, The Netherlands
Kerry Wilson – University of Queensland, Australia
Brendan Wintle – University of Melbourne, Australia