The 9th Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) World Conference took place in Shenzhen, China on 11-15 December 2017. The theme this year was “Ecosystem Services for Eco-civilization: Restoring connections between people and landscapes through nature-based solutions”. The ESP9 program consisted of plenary subdivisions with keynote speakers, break-out sessions and a field trip. The sessions at the ESP9 Conference were clustered according to the ESP Working Groups, Regional Chapters, and General sessions.

Under the “Biome Working Group” and “B.9 Growing rural ecosystem services” session, Dr Ruy Anaya de la Rosa presented the B4SS project and the potential benefits of using biochar to the international ecosystem services community. Coincidentally, Dr Edmundo Barrios, the coordinator of the B4SS project in Kenya, participated in the same session and talked about “Agroecology and the sustained provision of ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes“.

Ruy’s presentation “Biochar to enhance rural ecosystem services: learning from the Biochar for Sustainable Soils (B4SS) Project” summarised current knowledge of biochar and shared achievements and lessons from the B4SS project. It was a bit surprising to see that very few participants of this international conference knew that the production and use of biochar can play a major role in enhancing ecosystem services. Therefore, the presentation was very well received.

The ESP9 conference proceedings can be found here.