At the beginning of June the International Green Week conference took place in Brussels under this year’s theme of nature and biodiversity. As an EU funded project on ecosystem services OPERAs was invited to attend and talk to delegates about its aims to bridge the gap between science, policy and practice.

Our OPERAs colleagues Prof. Mark Rounsevell and Rachel Chisholm spent time talking to a range of delegates about the work of OPERAs and its recent work with partners at OPENness of OPPLA; an online platform designed to provide guidance in all things natural capital and ecosystem services for Europe wide users.

The conference saw good representation from the Scottish ecosystem services community and OPERAS stand had a number of high profile visitors including Dr Aileen McLeod, Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform and Richard Lochhead, Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs in the Scottish Government