Conference

SEFINS Opening Conference - 24 September 2014 at OPEN (Norwich, UK)

The INTERREG 2 Seas Programme Authorities, along with the SEFINS partnership, hosted a free event focussing on the effective management of invasive non-native species in Europe.

This was a unique opportunity to hear international experts from a range of fields relating to the management of invasive species sharing their knowledge.

The event focused on ‘Bridging the Gap’ - between research, policy and action but also in an important, but frequently overlooked habitat - the estuarine environment. A wide variety of hot topics such as risk management and citizen science were covered and interactive Workshops promoted discussion on how to better tackle the challenge of invasive species in estuaries.

Programme 

The full programme is available for download here. 

Speakers included:

An introduction to SEFINS (available here)

Katy Owen (Norfolk County Council, UK)

 An introduction to MEMO 

 Johan Robbens (Insitute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research - ILVO - Belgium)

An introduction to Invexo (available here) 

 Tim Adriaens (Institute for Nature and Forests - INBO - Belgium) 

An introduction to RINSE

Michael Sutton-Croft (Norfolk Non-Native Species Initiative)

Citizen science and awareness raising (available here)

Heather Sugden (Newcastle University)

Data and inventories (available here)

Quentin Groom (Meise Botanical Garden, Belgium)

Risk management and impact advice (available here) 

Sonia Vanderhoeven (Belgian Biodiversity Platform)

Knowledge transfer, training and advice 

Olaf Booy (GB Non-Native Species Secretariat) 

Identifying the gap between the rivers and the sea (available here)

Sander Wijnhoven (Royal Netherlands Institute of Sea Research - NIOZ)

The importance of crossborder working in tackling invasive species (available here)

Karen Gibson (Norfolk County Council, UK) 

Opportunities offered by the 2014-20 Two Seas Crossborder Programme in relation to crossborder working (available here)

Michelle Armstrong (Interreg IVA Two Seas, UK) 

A summary of the output from the Discussion Workshops is available here.

If you would like to access any of the presentations not currently available online, please email katy.owen@norfolk.gov.uk for further information. 

This event took place on European Cooperation Day. For more information, visit www.ecday.eu