IV.II. Conference contribution
The project team is very active, presenting at several international conferences about ongoing project activities, with positive feedback by participants. The project team, including Socotri scientific coordinator (Salem Hamdiah) joined regularly the Friends of Socotra Annual General Meetings.
The project team communicated about progress and conservation approaches at several large international conferences, including EUROGARD the European Botanical Gardens Congresses in Budapest (Hungary, 2022), Madrid (Spain, 2024) and Roma (Italy, 2025), the IAVS (International Association for Vegetation Science) annual symposium in Funchal, Madeira Island (Portugal, 2024), the European Conference of Tropical Ecology in Amsterdam (Netherlands, 2025), IUFRO World Congress in Stockholm (Sweden, 2025), the Association of Tropical Biodiversity Conservation in Oaxaca (Mexico, 2025). These all included abstracts, presentations and posters in person by the project team.
Also in September 2023, a presentation by Attorre et al. (2023) was given at the 118th Congresso della Società Botanica Italiana/ INTERNATIONAL PLANT SCIENCE CONFERENCE (IPSC), PISA, 13 – 16 SEPTEMBER 2023. The presentation was titled “Conservation of the endangered endemic species of frankincense and myrrh tree species (Burseraceae) in Socotra Archipelago (Yemen)” and includes also Mr Salem Hamdiah as Socotran co-author. The abstract is available here : https://flore.unifi.it/retrieve/1edd44a8-940a-4ef9-9f50-65b08452ed24/Abstracts-book-118-SBI-Congress-2023.pdf
Presentation about the project and conservation efforts in Socotra (Keynote) at the EarthNA Summit (Qatar Foundation), March 2023 in Doha, Qatar, „Building new Sustainability Pathways for Hot and Arid Environments“, by K. Van Damme. https://www.earthna.qa/summit/summit-2023.
October 26th 2021, a keynote speech by Dr Kay Van Damme during the G-STIC conference in the Dubai Conference Hall at the World Expo. The presentation was shown during the session “The potential of biodiversity for achieving the SDGs” under the title “Supporting the SDGs in practice: Enhancing climate change resilience of biodiversity and local communities through improving culture-nature linkages in the Socotra Archipelago ecosystems (Yemen)” using the Franklinia project as a good practice example.
Students of Mendel University and of Ljubljana University were selected to enter the Inter College Environmental Public Speaking Competition organised by the EEG (Emirates Environmental Group) at the World Expo Dubai. The 21st cycle of the EEG Inter College Environmental Speech Competition took place in Dubai from 23rd – 24th November at Knowledge Village at the World Expo under the patronage of Ministry of Education of the UAE. The annual event is a chance for outstanding international undergraduate student participants in the GCC+Yemen and MENA region to showcase their public speaking skills and discuss sustainability and environment issues. Four PhD students, Jana Tulkova, Lucie Maderova, Salem Hamdiah (Socotra) and Lukas Karas presented the talk “Socotra Island, where every tree counts” focusing on the Franklinia Boswellia Project. Their talk was awarded the 4th place in the international competition among 29 teams.
Mr Salem Hamdiah presented in January 2022 (online) at the ICCROM Climate Culture Peace conference (conceived by FAR – First Aid and Resilience for Cultural Heritage in Times of Crisis Programme, a flagship capacity development programme of ICCROM). The presentation was about the conservation approaches in the Boswellia project and climate change challenges (https://www.iccrom.org/sites/default/files/2022-03/en_0_ccp_climate.culture.peace_report_web_iccrom_2022_.pdf)