19th conference of the European chapter of the Society of Wetland Scientists

Jane Madgwick - Wetlands as vital global commons

Jane is an ecologist and author with 30 years of experience of working internationally on natural resource management, with a special focus on water and wetlands. She became the first Executive Director of the Global Commons Alliance in May 2023. Previously Jane worked for Wetlands International, as well as WWF in Europe and Australia. As CEO of Wetlands International for almost 20 years, she enabled multi-stakeholder coalitions conserve and restore wetland landscapes for biodiversity, human well-being and reduced climate risks and to bring the values of wetlands into the global agenda. Jane is committed to enable urgent action for an environmentally safe and socially just future.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-madgwick-263aba59/

Martin Wassen - Thank you Biebrza!

A professor of Environmental Sciences who studies terrestrial and wetland ecosystems and their functioning in a changing world (land use change, water management, global change). His key expertise is in eco-hydrology, landscape ecology, biogeochemical cycles, biodiversity and nature conservation. He has given > 200 presentations, convened a number of top class symposia and conferences and has published > 180 peer reviewed articles in refereed journals. He was head of the research group Environmental Sciences (2000-2023) and was head of the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development (2007-2016) at the Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University. He acts as a member of external review commissions (Dutch National Research Council (NWO), EU, external academic research assessments) and he is a regular reviewer of manuscripts for high impact journals. He is member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Water and land Development. He was awarded with a honorary medal by the Institute for Land Reclamation and Grassland Farming, IMUZ, Poland (2005) and in 2007 and 2024 he received a honorary award of Warsaw University of Life Sciences, SGGW, Poland. He is active in several advisory commissions and committees on nature protection, nature restoration, biodiversity and land use in the Netherlands. He is chairing the European Bison Re-introduction Project, National Park Zuid Kennemerland and is member of the Advisory Committee National Parks for the minister of Agriculture, Nature and Food supply (NL) and is a member of the Dutch Ecological Authority. He was vice-president of the board of Vereniging Natuurmonumenten (2007-2015), an influential NGO for nature protection in the Netherlands with c. 900.000 members.

Mariusz Lamentowicz - Wetlands across time: exploring, understanding, and predicting their development and functions at the local and global scale

Mariusz Lamentowicz and his team at the Climate Change Ecology Research Unit (Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, Poland) use palaeoecological and experimental approaches to understand the impact of current and past climate changes and anthropogenic disturbances on peatlands. He conducted the research on the data from peatlands in, e.g., Siberia, Mongolia, Central America, Amazon, Switzerland, Falkland Islands, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Furthermore, Prof. Lamentowicz is an expert in palaeoecology and the ecology of testate amoebae (Protista). He cooperates with specialists studying the morphology and taxonomy of these organisms. His long-term aim is the implementation of interdisciplinary research on the impact of climate change on peatlands through the integration of monitoring, experiments, and paleoecology. Recently, Prof. Lamentowicz has worked on questions related to peatland restoration and scientific communication with stakeholders. Furthermore, he is involved in climate education, scientific communication and communication with non-scientific audiences through podcasts, movies, lectures and seminars.

Rudy van Diggelen - Time to restore. What can science do to bring power to the peatlands?

Professor Emeritus at the University of Antwerp, specializes in Restoration Ecology, particularly in wetlands. With extensive experience spanning academia and practical conservation, he focuses on biodiversity conservation and nature restoration, emphasizing water-soil-nutrient-vegetation relationships. Dr. van Diggelen holds influential roles, including chairing the European chapter of the Society for Ecological Restoration and leading the review commission on Restoration strategies Nitrogen for the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture. He advises on peatland and wetland management globally, shaping environmental policies. As a prolific author, his work bridges scientific research with practical applications, contributing significantly to ecosystem conservation and restoration.
https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/staff/ruurd-vandiggelen/

Viktar Fenchuk - Wetland restoration in the National park “Bielaviežskaja pušča” – the Belarusian part of the Bialowieza forest. Summary of the two decades of work.

A wetland conservationists and wildlife biologist from Belarus. He is a former director of APB-BirdLife Belarus, the country’s largest environmental NGO and the leader of the international wilderness conservation programme for APB and the Frankfurt Zoological Society. Viktar was one of the initiators and leaders of several large-scale peatland restoration projects and programmes in Belarus. He was active in establishing effective cooperation between different partners working in wetland conservation and restoration in Belarus and abroad, due to which about every second hectare of restored peatlands in Belarus was restored by or with input from APB. As part of APB and governmental cooperation, he was many times part of Belarus national delegations to UNFCCC and Ramsar Convention meetings and organizer of parallel events promoting peatland restoration and sharing Belarus’ experience in rewetting, GHG balance assessment and biodiversity monitoring. Following the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus, Viktar was arrested and sentenced to 2.5 years of imprisonment for participating in peaceful protests. He currently continues to work for the benefit of wetlands in Poland.