EuCoHN members gathered in Oldenburg in May 2025 for the second meeting of the network. This time felt very different to our first meeting in Munich in 2024 – there, the emphasis was on getting to know each other’s work and approaches, and facilitating the space for conversations that would allow us to build the kind of network we want to have. This time we met as an established network, with lots of news to share and the energy to work together on taking our projects forward.
Network member Cormac Walsh had arranged for us to spend our first day in the beautiful facilities of the Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity Oldenburg, and to kick us off Anna-Katharina Wöbse had organized a roundtable with external guests Peter Südbeck (Leiter der Nationalparkverwaltung, Niedersächsisches Wattenmeer) and marine biologist, activist, author, and “Wadden Seanior” Karsten Reise. This passionate and lively discussion set the tone for our whole meeting, ranging from the intricacies of bird migration routes and ecological change to the big questions: Can we even talk about conservation or restoration when ecosystems are already adapting to a new world? What does it mean to protect nature that is not the nature we know?
These are questions that underlie all of our work and our teaching, in different ways; and they are also questions that speak of and to the current moment of political uncertainty. Network member Astrid M. Eckert spoke movingly about the need to conserve also intellectual freedom and research in an academic climate that is also changing fast and unpredictably. We considered the need to find and preserve hidden voices and narratives in conservation, and the importance of forging alliances between Europe and the rest of the world in the current moment. We broke into smaller interdisciplinary groups to discuss particular conservation paradigms and learn more from each other’s disciplinary and geographical expertise, and reflected in plenum on the progress and future plans for our network.
On the second day of the workshop, following the model of our 2024 meeting, we left the Helmholtz Institute and continued our conversations in the field. Whereas last year our focus was urban ecology and rewilding, this year took us to the Wadden Sea itself to consider the history and future of coastal protection. Besides learning a lot about the particular concerns of Wadden Sea conservation past and present, our field trip involved wind, rain, sun, muscle power and (the badge of honour for conservationists) mud! In the spirit of embodied, down-to-earth conservation practice, we very much hope that it sticks.
CONSERVATION HUMANITIES 