The next General Meeting of ESUG will be held during two days of meetings, including the Final Conference of Pro-Coast in the European Parliament. This will show our networks expanding to guide local community transitions to sustainability, using socio-ecological tools from Pro-Coast: the Deep Change process, the Conservation Human-Use Index and our Reciprocal Environmental Decision Support. Hold the dates!

On 4-5 June 2025, ESUG members from Estonia, Finland, France, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden and UK met with Pro-Coast in Tallinn, Estonia. This event was an opportunity to learn more about the exciting research that ESUG is coordinating within the PRO-COAST project and to connect with other researchers and experts involved. Participants were invited to a case study visit with group dinner on the coast on 4 June. On 5 June an ESUG meeting shared updates and discuss future plans (download documents here). As the meeting was not quorate, Chair and Committee had agreed to continue until elections could be held at a meeting in Brussels in 2026 to occur at the time of the Pro-Coast final conference. The following Pro-Coast Meetings were in Sligo, Ireland, in November 2025 and in Valetta, Malta, in May 2026.

During 19-21 November, 30 members of the Pro-Coast project met physically in Koper, close to the northwest corner of Slovenia, as guests of ESUG member Elena Bužan of Primorska University. Professor Bužan’s group are bringing hunters and residents together on Hunting Ground Strunjan, part of Strunjan National Park, partly using camera traps, to decrease human – wildlife conflicts and illegal waste sites. Julie Ewald, Ben Kenward, Nick Casey and Robert Kenward, from Team-ESUG which coordinates Pro-Coast, presented on the Community Sustainability Platform (CUSP) and a decision support tool (see ESUG year-1 briefing). Julian Mühle provided teaching for building CUSP’s nascent network.

Six members of ESUG, including Chair Julie Ewald, were among the participants at a second physical meeting of the Pro-Coast project in Bergen during 11-13 June 2024. Work is now starting in the nine Case Studies. This is under intensive guidance by social scientists, which reminds us how much this project differs from GEMCONBIO (2006-8), in which study of conservation projects showed that success depended mainly on adaptive management and knowledge leadership, and TESS (2008-11) in which the need for detailed local mapping and ease of collection by trained community volunteers was demonstrated. In Pro-Coast we seek to discover what individual motivations favour conservation behaviour, and to use this knowledge to engender massive roll-out of tools for sustainable use of wild resources. 

Very many congratulations to our member in Kazakhstan and Honourable Professor of Kostanai Pedagogical Institute, Doctor of Biological Sciences Tatyana M. Bragina, for whom an International Conference was dedicated on “Conservation of Biological Diversity and Development of a Network of Specially Protected Natural Areas”. Tatyana (centre with pink/white flowers) was instrumental in creating the Naurzum Nature Reserve and is a long-standing member of IUCN Commission on Ecosystem Management. Robert Kenward attended by Zoom and gave introductory words as well as providing a first publication for the Pro-Coast project. Many thanks to Tetiana Gardashuk for help with translation.