On the 4th and 5th of May 2020, the BIOCHANGE group at Aarhus University hosted a symposium on megafauna restoration. Initially meant to take place at the beautiful Moesgaard Museum in Aarhus, the meeting had to be reorganized as an online event due to the COVID-19 pandemic. If it meant missing out on the fun that is usually associated with social activities in conferences, we managed to reproduce most of the benefits of a face-to-face meeting and make it a very enjoyable moment! The symposium gathered 9 guests and 7 local speakers from the fields of megafauna restoration, macro-ecology, climate science and human-wildlife coexistence to address key questions regarding upscaling of megafauna restoration for global biodiversity and climate gains, in front of an audience of ca. 60 people from all over the world. This was the occasion to present my recent paper on Anthropocene refugia, for which you can find a PDF of my slides HERE. Importantly, we invited the talented Catherine Williams, veterinarian, postdoc and illustrator to attend the symposium. She illustrated each presentations with inspired sketches that she drew at an impressive speed. This was a huge plus to make the meeting more lively and interactive. I love her take on my research! Check her website here: https://catherinewilliams.weebly.com/ Overall, in addition to very rich scientific discussions, this experience taught us that online meetings have a great potential to bring together the scientific community while reducing the environmental costs of travelling. In fact, removing the barrier of travel allowed from a much more diverse audience to participate in the discussion than if the symposium had been held in Aarhus, as originally planned. A win-win for everyone! As many other scientific groups are experiencing the same situation throughout the world a the moment, one can hope that this solution will be increasingly considered in the future, even after we are allowed back in the air. For additional reading on virtual conferencing for ecology and conservation, you might want to have a look at this paper: https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.12837
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