Consistently over several years, one of the most frequent enquiries from UKOTs and CDs to UKOTCF has been “when is the next UKOTCF conference?” This is because, as reported by UKOT participants, the conferences have proved invaluable in enabling successful conservation initiatives which would not otherwise have occurred.

For those new to the topic, UKOTCF organised conferences for conservation practitioners in the UKOTs, CDs and a few territories of other states or small independent states in 2000 (Gibraltar), 2003 (Bermuda), 2006 (Jersey), 2009 (Cayman), 2015 (Gibraltar) and online (2021). UKOTCF also helped FCO in organising and running a conference arranged at short notice in London in 1999. The conferences until 2009 received major financial support from UK Government, as well as from the host territory (with major in-kind work contributions from UKOTCF). It took UK Government over 2 years from 2009 to decide that it would not fund a conference in 2012, and in fact has not provided majority funding since. HM Government of Gibraltar funded the 2015 conference, with a small contribution from UK Government (and a very large donation of work-time by UKOTCF). We were to have had conferences in 2018 and/or 2020 but the host territories were struck by the severe 2017 hurricanes just as these were about to be confirmed, and the resulting financial, structural and social damage made these impossible. We had been investigating other possibilities but then Covid-19 intervened.

Whilst not abandoning the idea of physical conferences in the future (because they clearly add elements still not possible remotely), UKOTCF opened a Zoom account and switched to that, from the failing Skype, for our regional working groups, Council meetings and other working meetings. UKOTCF held an online conference using Zoom in 2021, and several webinars since.

In 2022-4, UKOTCF undertook a wide consultation with our member and associate organisations, members of our regional working groups and others in our network to seek their views on both logistics and topics for a new conference. Amongst respondents, there was unanimous support for a conference. Whilst many would have like a physical conference, resources for this proved unavailable. So we will hold an online conference, aiming to repeat the success of 2021. Bearing in mind the wide geographical spread of UKOTs across several time zones and previous experience, we will run the conference each day from about noon to evening in UK. (At that time of year the time-zones of most territories range from 2 hours ahead of UK time to 6 hours behind – with apologies to Pitcairn: we cannot really cope with a 9-hour time-difference, but hope for participation somehow). The conference will run from Monday 13 to Thursday 16 October 2025. On the basis of the wide consultation on preferred topics, we plan to have sessions on the following topics:

• Sharing Experiences, including both practical conservation and building capacity (two sessions planned due to high interest)
• Financing/resourcing
• Using technology and data to inform and monitor conservation process and novel approaches to address threats to biodiversity
• Achieving Biodiversity & Sustainability targets
• Identifying and preparing for future challenges and opportunities

In addition, there will be scope for poster presentations (on a wider range of topics). We will also hold the 3^rd Sir Richard and Lady Dace Ground Lecture.

We plan that the conference will produce proceedings, as did previous UKOTCF conferences (see www.ukotcf.org.uk/our-conferences/). Speakers and poster-presenters can give fuller accounts in the proceedings than may be possible in the conference itself. We propose to model our approach on that used successfully in the 2021 and 2015 conferences, themselves evolved from that used in our previous conferences. That is that topic sessions are structured to reach useful conclusions or recommendations to take forward to policy-makers or others, as appropriate, rather than just present interesting and potentially useful studies (as occurs in conferences of scientific and some conservation organisations). These proceedings will form important documents for the territories and others. Hence, speakers will be selected in relation to relevance to themes (and will include contributions from the territories themselves – so that all territories will be represented across the conference although, for practical reasons, not within every topic session).