Call for Abstracts
Call for Abstracts is Now CLOSED!
SUBMISSION PROCESS
Session & Abstract Proposal Deadline: February 19th, 2021
*ALL FINAL abstracts, including those that are part of a symposium or forum, are due by February 19th, 2021. All abstracts submitted at this time will be reviewed by the Hawaiʻi Conservation Conference Abstract Committee based on the Evaluation Criteria. Abstract Authors will receive an email about whether or not your abstract has been accepted to the conference on Wednesday, April 7th.
Click Here for our Call for Abstracts (CFA)
Click Here for our Abstract Format Descriptions
Click Here for our Evaluation Guidelines
*NEW* Tips for Writing a Strong Abstract for the Hawaiʻi Conservation Conference
Check out this document produced by the Hawaiʻi Conservation Alliance for additional support, tips and best strategies for crafting a strong abstract.
Session and Abstract Proposal Deadline: February 19th, 2021 (5pm HST)
*ALL abstracts, including those that are part of a symposium or forum, are due by February 19th, 2021 by 5pm HST. Please note that late submissions will not be considered.
Updated Revisions Deadline: Early May 2021
Deadline for Presenters to Register*: June 2021
*ALL presenters are required to register for the conference. Only presenters with accepted abstracts that are registered by June 2021, will be considered for inclusion in the program book. Abstracts must be submitted online.
*We are accepting oral presentations, symposium, and forum delivered in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian Language) or other bilingual sessions; Abstracts must be submitted in English. During the submission process, indicate “ ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi Presentation” or other bilingual session requests in the “additional information” box on the last page. Contact conference@hawaiiconservation.org for more information.
*We have updated our evaluation guidelines to include separate criteria for conservation research and management presentations. Please read our call for abstracts document, format description, and evaluation guidelines carefully before submitting your abstract.
CONFERENCE THEME
Kūlia i ka huliau — Striving for change
Transforming the future of biodiversity
Transforming the way we do conservation
Transforming the way we live and interact with our environment
Kūlia i ka Huliau [Strive at the Turning Point] Forging a New Hawaiʻi – the pandemic certainly marks a turning point, forcing a rethink of how we should live and work in our special place. Now is the time to strive to affect changes that could be forged lest we revert to a comfortable “business as usual” that has proven unsustainable and prone to disruption. It clearly showed us how tenuous and vulnerable our externally-facing visitor economy is. It also showed us the benefits of a lighter human footprint on our living resources, and how we should consciously rework to minimize our impacts as well as take action to protect and strengthen the resilience of our life-sustaining lands and waters.
The 2021 Conservation Conference will focus on the idea of striving for change through the following six (6) tracks. Each track includes relevant concepts identified by the conference planning committee with the recognition they are not comprehensive and not intended to be exclusive. Abstracts should explicitly address the conference theme, how it relates to the field of conservation, and tracks which may reference concepts listed below.
CONFERENCE TRACKS
1. Cultural Values and Practice in Conservation
In times of change conservation work benefits from values from many worldviews and cultural connections to the places we work. As such there is also a wealth of knowledge tied to the history and people of these places upon which to draw from in order to increase our conservation success. This track will focus on both the foundations of culturally integrated conservation, as well as examples of cultural innovations to conservation. Sessions proposals may include, but are not limited to:
- Decolonizing conservation
- Rebuilding and growing biocultural foundations in conservation
- Indigenous languages in conservation practice
- Cultural values and practice in contemporary resource management
- Growing an inclusive culture of conservation across sectors
- Indigenous approaches to science and resource stewardship
2. Capacity in Conservation
The urgent need to meet new challenges and adapt to rapidly changing conditions requires sufficient and appropriate human, technological, institutional, and financial resources to conduct effective resource stewardship. Engaging youth and young professionals and providing them with the training and tools needed to become conservation leaders is a priority. Additionally, we recognize the need to build and maintain meaningful partnerships and to foster communication and exchange within the conservation community and across sectors. With growing interest and demand for conservation as well as increasing pressure on natural systems, we encourage submissions that address 21st century conservation capacity needs, programs, and opportunities which may include, but are not limited to:
- Building and illuminating conservation career pathways
- Intergenerational knowledge transfer
- Working across boundaries, interdisciplinary, cross-sector collaborations and approaches
- Innovative sustainable financing mechanisms
- Community co-management of biocultural resources
- Collaborative thinking and problem-solving
- Resilience in the face of loss; mourning and persevering in the conservation community
- Building and sustaining partnerships in conservation
3. Global and Regional Change & Challenges
Collective human impact on the natural environment is recognized as profound and extremely difficult to reverse. Many of the conservation threats within Hawaii are driven by global processes and may require both local and global solutions. We invite proposals that explore the research, tools, and stewardship approaches that address challenges that may include, but are not limited to:
- Making global impact with place-based, time-limited projects
- Implementing large-scale projects to address global and local threats
- Nature-based solutions for climate change and its impacts
- Tackling challenging emerging issues such as species translocation and assisted colonization, genetic modification, permanent phase shifts etc.
- Managing natural resources in the context of uncertainty
- Urgent needs and opportunities in terrestrial, aquatic, and marine aquatic biosecurity
- Addressing established invasive species: management, eradication, adaptation
- New and spreading diseases impacting rare and abundant native species
4. Putting Research into Management Practice
Research efforts in natural resources science broadly defined provide information on species biology, ecology at species and ecosystem levels, ecosystem processes and services, and the socioeconomic and socioecological context of human relationships with the natural world. This knowledge base underlies all of our conservation efforts, and provides managers and legislators with the best available knowledge and skills to take actions and formalize policies. Similarly, management needs frequently define the direction of research, and presentations of managers are a vital context for conservation efforts. We welcome symposia, forums, and workshops that facilitate matchmaking between applied conservation managers and researchers. This track may include, but are not limited to:
- Successful scaling up of effective restoration
- Highlighting how current research informs day-to-day conservation
- Revisiting and growing proven methods
- Social science applications in conservation
- Regenerative agroforestry and integrative agriculture advancing conservation objectives
- Conservation impact assessment and evaluation
- Tools and approaches to empower and enable community leadership in conservation
- Sessions that bring together researchers and managers to increase effective co-production of knowledge that leads to improved conservation outcomes
5. New Technologies in Conservation Research and Management
This track will explore the latest emerging research, application of innovative conservation techniques, and studies that demonstrate development of novel technology or application of technology to address conservation issues. Topics may include, but are not limited to:
- Cutting edge surveillance and monitoring technologies
- Drones and other autonomous vehicles in research and management
- Conservation genetics application and innovations
- Novel eradication techniques
- Social science applications in conservation
- Engaging the public in novel citizen science research
6. Place-based Conservation
This track is intended to create space for thinking about conservation grounded in Place, and is meant to bring together individuals who may work in what are usually presented as different fields or approaches, but who are unified by their work in Place. As such, we are inviting abstracts for sessions that string together different components to convey system-level conservation in a particular place. Session abstracts should identify the geographic parameters of its focus – it could be an ahupuaʻa, a moku, a watershed, a district, or an island (the geographic scope should be more specific than an entire country or state). Abstracts in this session are expected to be primarily symposia or forums. Individual oral or poster presentations will not be considered in this track.
