PMC CONFERENCE IN STRALSUND

At this year’s international marine conservation conference “Progress in Marine Conservation” (PMC) – held by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) and the Marine Museum in Stralsund – M.E.E.R. was able to provide progressive impulses on two occasions. On the first evening, our chairman Fabian Ritter took part in a public panel discussion, where he was joined by Ann-Katrin Schröder (moderator), Gesine Meißner (Mission Healthy Oceans; UN Ocean Decade), Sebastian Unger (Marine Protection Commissioner of the Federal Government) and Karen Wiltsher (Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Center for Polar and Marine Research, AWI). The participants had an intensive discussion regarding balanced communication, innovative approaches to marine conservation and the role of emotions in science.
Fabian Ritter was also able to provide inputs regarding the concept of Mindful Conservation. During the conference he also gave a lightning talk on the same topic: mindfulness in marine conservation, which appeared in the conference program as a “Transformative Perspective”.
The theme of the PMC conference was “How to Stop Biodiversity Loss – From Knowledge to Action”. The approximately 200 participants exchanged ideas in lectures and workshops on various topics such as fishing regulation, wind power at sea and current renaturation projects and, particularly noteworthy, developed concrete recommendations for action at the political level.
These recommendations were presented to a representative of the Federal Environment Ministry at the end of the conference.
We are very grateful that novel approaches such as Mindful Conservation are now not only invited to such a prominent setting, but also consciously listened to. Because ultimately, the key question is how to turn knowledge into effective actions or changes to actions.