In an interview with The Standard prior to his departure, Mr Njie explained: “The organising committee of the 3rd International conference on Biodiversity and United Nations Millennium Development Goals invited me to attend the conference. I am delighted to attend such a high profile conference that will gather scientists from around the world and I am sure that attending this conference, would strongly enrich my future journalism reporting and help me in my prospective career. This conference, the third in a series, organised by the French CNRS Institut Ecologie et Environnement and the German Leibniz Association will take place from the 29 to 31 October, 2014 in Aix-en-Provence in France. The third conference will focus on the theme ‘Biodiversity and Food Security, from trade-offs synergies.
The conference will be opened with a keynote presentation given by Professor José Sarukhán, UNAM, México, and closed by a keynote presentation given by Professor Jacqueline McGlade, UNEP, Nairobi, Kenya. The purpose of the conference is to discuss the interdependencies between biodiversity and food security under ecological, economic and societal challenges, to strengthen a holistic understanding of the related topics and to overcome trade-offs by developing synergies. The conference will cover a range of topics in the biodiversity-food security nexus, including, Impacts of diet change on human and nature including aspects on novel food resources and biodiversity conservation, wild animals consumption and diet change: social-ecological consequences and opportunities of changing farming systems from the perspectives of society and nature; rethinking intensification including aspects on intensification versus. expansion and closed systems like aquaculture; and sustainable use of biodiversity for food security, economical and governance issues.
Mr Njied added: “The conference is intended for a broad and multi-disciplinary community of scientists from basic and applied research, involving also policy-makers and other stakeholders concerned with various field of relevant biodiversity and food security. It is expected that the conference will raise the profile of societally-relevant biodiversity research in the participating institutions, as well as opening for new partnerships between German and French scientists.The conference will also addresses relevant cross-cutting issues, including behavioural change of humans due to a growing understanding of sustainability and an increasing sense of responsibility for nature; technical improvement and development for an effective and sustainable use of resources; increasing use of functional food which seeks to influence major health-related parameters in consumers in a long-term manner; new concepts of health, including the health of humans, animals and ecosystems; development of a science-policy interface (Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services-IPBES) including all major stakeholders into the discussion of the topics.”
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