ialeUK and IALE Europe invite you to Manchester for the IALE 2013 European Congress. This major international event will examine how and why European landscapes are changing and how landscape ecology can help us to plan for the future at local to global scales. The event will run from 9-12 September 2013 in Manchester.

In total, 9 PhD students from various parts of the UK (Warwick, Sheffield, London, and Reading), Ireland (Dublin), and even The Netherlands (Wageningen and Amsterdam) came to the University of Reading to explore how research can best inform policy and practice and some of the key issues relating to spatial data and GIS applications.

Two short surveys are being conducted by the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and AEA  for a project on developing UK indicators for the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020. The surveys take 10-15 minutes to complete and deadline for submission is 7 June 2012.

As we went to press for Winter 2012 Defra announced the 12 areas that were successful in the bidding to become Nature Improvement Areas. These will have a significant impact on many organisations over the next few years and with the funding arrangements now agreed projects are starting to evolve from ideas on paper through to on the ground actions.