African Great Lakes Conference, Entebbe, 2-5 May, 2017

The Nature Conservancy’s African Great Lakes Project and the conference organizing committee will convene the African Great Lakes Conference on 2-5 May, 2017 in Entebbe, Uganda. The conference aims to link science and best practices to solutions for conservation and sustainable development of the African Great Lakes region. Spanning 850,000 km² of ecosystems which sustain more than 50 million people in parts of 12 countries, the region boasts high biological diversity, yet faces critical challenges to human and lake health, all within the context of a changing climate. Leaders from government resource agencies and lake basin management groups of the region’s major lake basins (Lake Albert, Lake Edward, Lake Kivu, Lake Malawi/Nyasa/Niassa, Lake Tanganyika, Lake Turkana and Lake Victoria) will come together with multilateral donor agencies, academic institutions, the private sector and non-governmental organizations, to facilitate collaboration, strengthen capacity, inform policy and management with science and practice, and encourage basin-scale ecosystem management. The conference will address the following themes through keynote speakers, concurrent sessions, discussion panels and poster sessions: ecosystem services and biodiversity; benefits sustainable fisheries and aquaculture management; climate change impacts, mitigation, adaptation, and resilience; population dynamics, health, and the environment; balancing conservation and development; and, basin governance and financing. To know more about this event, visit http://www.greatlakesofafrica.org.