The International Conference on Bear Research & Management is the largest thematic conference sponsored by the International Bear Association (IBA) and is focused on all 8 bear species of the world. These International Conferences are rotated between the Americas and Eurasia on an 18-month rotation. The 25^th conference was held in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador and it was the first one ever held in South America. The main theme of the conference was dedicated to the “New frontiers for bear research and conservation in the tropics”. The five day conference was organized in different sessions, including a special one in Spanish about the Andean Bear; with simultaneous translation. Participants presented their work in two ways – as oral presentations or posters. One day of the conference was dedicated to the field trip during which the participants had the opportunity to admire Ecuadorian highland’s exceptional biodiversity, including Andean bear signs of presence, cloud forest, Andean condor, several species of hummingbirds, etc.

Several LIFE DINALP BEAR project team members from Slovenia, Croatia and Italy attended the conference and presented their work on bear research and management, including some of the results from the LIFE DINALP BEAR project. We’ve had the privilege to announce the next, 26^th conference which will be hosted by our project and held in Ljubljana in September 2018. The main theme of the conference entitled “Life with bears” will be human-bear coexistence in human dominated and politically fragmented landscapes. All of the participants of the conference in Quito received our promotional leaflet which was developed in collaboration with Ljubljana Tourism. In addition, we’ve had the opportunity to extend our invitation also through a presentation given by our project team member at the conference closing ceremony.

See you in Ljubljana!