Open to the Public
Conserving the planet’s biodiversity poses immense challenges for humanity, given the need to address complex problems require input from policy, science and other disciplines. Effective conservation practice depends on identifying the status of species and communities, identifying the threats and determining the most effective actions.
In this seminar William Sutherland will discuss the importance of collating the evidence for the effectiveness of actions, consider the challenges, and describe the solutions. He will then describe how AI is transforming evidence reviews. He will also discuss how AI can undermine science due to the ease of creating false information and will consider means of reducing this problem.
Speaker: William Sutherland
William Sutherland is an ecologist and conservation scientist who has showed how behaviour and population ecology could be linked through game theory models of the decisions individuals make and that such models can then be used to predict the consequences of future states, such as agricultural change or climate change. This was summarised in his Oxford University Press monograph From Individual Behaviour to Population Biology.
Much of his career has been devoted to developing novel processes for integrating science and policy including horizon scanning and evidence-based conservation. With over eleven hundred named collaborators he has created the website www.conservationevidence.com (which reviews the evidence for the effectiveness of 3155 conservation actions), and a set of tools for making evidence-based decisions and embedding evidence into practice. This is summarised in his recent edited open-access book Transforming Conservation: a Practical Guide to Evidence and Decision Making. He regularly advises government and conservation organisations.
Registration
To attend, please register at: https://tinyurl.com/NSSTalk1
Note:
• Registration is on a first-come-first-serve basis.
• Registration will close once the maximum number of participants is reached, or on closing date.
• Only confirmed participants will be contacted by email, after the closing date.
Max. No. of Participants
30 pax
Closing Date
12 Jan 2026, Monday
Enquiries
For any enquiries, please contact Shreeyaa at [email protected]