Nearly 180 students from 53 countries attended the 16th Student Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS) on 24–26 March 2015 in the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, UK. Delegates were given a warm welcome by Patricia Zurita, the new Chief Executive of BirdLife International, whose secretariat is based in Cambridge.
SCCS is an international conference series aimed entirely at young conservation scientists, so its key features are the sessions devoted to student presentations and posters. The conference avoids having a single theme, to encourage contributions that span the social and natural sciences and all taxonomic groups. The 32 student talks were interspersed with student poster sessions, with 97 posters and nine expert workshops on practical skills. Senior conservation scientists provided written feedback on all talks and posters and awarded prizes to the best three of each.
Stimulating plenary lectures were given by Julie Razafimanahaka (Madagasikara Voakajy) on resolving conservation issues in Madagascar, Patricia Majluf (Oceana) on reconciling commercial fishing with marine conservation, Tom McCarthy (Panthera) on novel and diverse approaches to promoting the co-existence of snow leopards and pastoralists, and Paul Ferraro (Georgia State University) on the standards of evidence in conservation science. Julie Razafimanahaka first attended SCCS as a student a decade ago and became the first SCCS alumnus to return as a plenary lecturer.
Social and networking events included a Who's Who in Conservation? session at which 30 conservation agencies, institutes and NGOs displayed posters and provided staff to talk about their work. Conservation practitioners play a key role in SCCS, and the conference was visited by 90 staff or representatives from 37 bodies.
The next Cambridge SCCS will be on 22–24 March 2016, with plenary speakers Tom Brooks (IUCN), Taylor Ricketts (Gund Institute for Ecological Economics), Nancy Knowlton (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History) and Mike Barry (Marks & Spencer). Updates will be posted on the conference website (http://www.sccs-cam.org). There are now sister SCCS series in Australia, China, Hungary, India and the USA. Dates and application details are on the SCCS Cambridge website.
