I had the pleasure of visiting Cape Town recently for the second Diversitas Open Science Conference (OSC2). Diversitas is an organization that attempts to bridge that tricky divide between science policy and practice for Biodiversity science. To this end the conference brought together about 600 scientists and policy makers spanning various ends of  basic and applied biodiversity science. I was there to talk about the role infrastructures like the Scratchpad project can play in global biodiversity projects, as part of a session titled "global approaches to taxonomy and biodiversity research". The session was reasonably well attended, but with nine parallel sessions it was hard to make much of an impact.

I normally approach meetings like this with a high degree of skepticism, but with the current biodiversity challenges increasingly straining partnerships between government and academia, I’m increasingly appreciating the value of fora like Diversitas, in helping to develop a shared understanding between policy and science. The meeting was an impressive mix of scientists including some with an economic, sociological and political background. Highlights include some excellent plenary lecture: Pavan Sukhdev, a senior banker at Deutsche Bank on secondment to the United Nations, gave a fascinating talk about the work of TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). Andy Dobson of Princeton University talked on the hidden world of parasites and the fact that we ignore them at our peril when calculating the value of ecosystem services. Likewise, NHM Trustee Georgina Mace talked about the (missed) 2010 target to halt the decline in biodiversity, and options for a post 2010 target. However, beyond the plenaries the general talks were less impressive, not for any lack of science or technical quality, but rather because they fell outside my area of interest. I was keen to hear about the proposed Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (ipBes). This is an attempt to set up a science panel on biodiversity along the lines of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, overall I have mixed feelings about the conference and I’m not sure I’ll be rushing back to the next Diversitas meeting without a very compelling reason.