Get to know our Keynote Speakers!

Sue Stolton – Equilibrium Research and IUCN WCPA

How Good Governance can unlock Effective Management.

Sue Stolton has researched and studied Protected Areas Management Effectiveness (PAME), for over two decades; helped develop several internationally well-known assessment tools and worked in countries as diverse as Bhutan, Finland and Tanzania on PAME. Co-founder of Equilibrium Research and a member of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas and Commission on Environmental, Economic, and Social Policy, her work is founded in the belief that biodiversity conservation is an ethical necessity, which can also support human wellbeing. However, biodiversity conservation itself needs effective management to have the desired impacts and benefits, and good governance is key.

Brian MacSharry – Head of Group, Nature and Biodiversity · European Environment Agency

Measuring Change: The Metrics of Success
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it” -Peter Drucker

The EEA have an important oversight in nature and biodiversity in Europe. Brian has stated that current regulations, directives, legislation, and strategies are necessary but not sufficient for tackling the biodiversity crisis, implementation is the key. He further reiterates the importance of viewing biodiversity targets as qualitative rather than quantitative, and that nature should not be considered as outside the system, but as the fundamental system. Protected Areas managed effectively, can help drive that transformative change, linking across sectors, society and embracing a longer time horizon.