At the International Marine Conservation Congress, we want to promote a safe, comfortable space for presentations, collaboration, innovation, and creativity. We welcome suggestions and questions. Please email SCB Marine Diversity Chair Sarah Ater and/or IMCC7 Co-Chairs  with comments or concerns.

Code of Conduct

It was important to IMCC4 organizers to research and develop a Code of Conduct for that conference and all IMCCs moving forward. The Society for Conservation Biology and the SCB Marine Section work to promote a welcoming environment at conferences that is safe, collaborative, supportive, and productive for all attendees, including delegates, volunteers, exhibitors, invited speakers/stakeholders, members of the media, and service providers. The SCB Marine Program and IMCC value the diversity of views, expertise, opinions, backgrounds, and experiences reflected among all attendees. A Code of Conduct is important to promoting diversity and creating a safe, productive environment. The IMCC4 organizers consulted with available materials and research on codes of conduct, other societies and conferences, the Society for Human Resource Management, and human resource psychologists and other experts.

IMCC7 will also follow the work set out by IMCC4 and will be using the code of conduct once again; IMCC7 will have a designated Safety Officer onsite to help with issues, answer questions, provide counseling, mediate, and advise on necessary actions. The Safety Officer is a human resources professional with experience in human resource management and psychology.

Location

One of the reasons Cape Town, South Africa was chosen as the venue for IMCC7 was the opportunity to enable participation from an international and diverse pool of attendees who are able to access an internationally well connected venue such as Cape Town. Further we expect Cape Town to be an exciting location to visit for delegates traveling with families and our conference venue is centrally located to a number of hotels, all within 15 minutes walk from the main venue.

Delegates

We want parents to be able to make the most of IMCC7, and we know traveling with kids can be a challenge. Please see the IMCC7 Visitor Info page for information on places to visit and services we may offer to parents and legal guardians. Additionally, we’ve strived to end sessions at a reasonable time each day for family time, time to decompress, and to promote an essential part of conferences—networking in a setting outside of session rooms.

Accessibility

We are working to help make IMCC7 as accessible as possible. Anyone who needs accessibility assistance—whether it’s getting materials and forms in a different format, onsite accessibility, or a volunteer to help navigate participation–can contact us to make requests. We want to help. IMCC7 will work to help make your participation at IMCC7 successful. Please email us with requests. The Accessibility page was formatted to be effective for people who may be using computer software or for those who are visually impaired. If you need information in another format, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Language

It will be possible to submit IMCC abstracts and proposals in languages other than English. Delegates can also request offline submission forms in languages other than English. If you would also like to present in a language other than English please contact us as soon as possible and will do our best to accommodate your request. We will also do our best to provide means so people who speak English can enjoy presentations in other languages. We are additionally working with a team of volunteers to give assistance upon request to delegates whose first language is not English but would like to give their presentations in English. If you need language assistance or need to present in a language other than English, please email IMCC7 Diversity Chair Sarah Ater.

Visa Requirements

South Africa may require visas for delegates from some countries and visas can be arranged for conference participants with advanced planning. The IMCC7 Organising Committee will strive to assist any delegates who require a visa by providing a formal invitation letter from IMCC7 and the SCB Marine Program. Please opt for early registration and indicate visa requirements on the registration portal.   Please email Sarah Ater or IMCC7 Meeting manager if you need further assistance. If you would be interested in attending IMCC7via telepresence please email Sarah Ater and indicate this on the registration portal. We will try our best to arrange virtual participation if there is sufficient interest.

Potential Attendance Concerns for Delegates

The SCB Marine Program endeavors to hold IMCCs in locations that are as accessible and welcoming to as many potential delegates as possible. To this end, we consider each hosting bid we receive, and consider which groups of potential delegates will find an IMCC difficult or easy to attend. We take into account cost of attendance, likelihood of visa application success, and implications of local legislation and culture for various groups. By hosting our first IMCC in Africa, we hope many individuals from this region will be able to attend IMCC7 for the first time. However, we realize that attending IMCC7 will be difficult for some delegates. We are hoping to provide options to attend IMCC7 by telepresence. Please email us if you would like to take up this option. As we seek to ensure that no group finds it difficult to attend two consecutive IMCCs, the SCB Marine Program has committed to hold IMCC7 in a country/locality that does not have laws that make travel to that country difficult for LGBTQI delegates. If you have any concerns over our decision-making processes, or if you have questions about your potential IMCC7 attendance, please do contact us confidentially and we will respond or put you in contact with informed individuals.

Interdisciplinary

At IMCC, we understand conservation is inherently interdisciplinary and conservation cannot be achieved by natural scientists alone. We welcome abstracts, proposals, and participation by any stakeholder, sector, or discipline related to aquatic science and marine conservation. The overall theme of IMCCs isMaking Marine Science Matter, but several themes for each particular congress are chosen to highlight various issues, local work, and the multiple disciplines needed for conservation success. We also always welcome proposals, abstracts, and other content that may not fit into one of the chosen themes. For IMCC7, we’ve increased our efforts to reach out to working groups, societies, NGOs, universities, etc. that specialize in fields other than natural science, including policy, communication, social science, management, diversity, culture, and more.

Global Outreach

The SCB Marine Program is a global program of the Society for Conservation Biology, and IMCC delegates come from around the world. We are making special efforts to increase our global reach with IMCC7;  we are contacting 100’s of universities, agencies, NGOs, and community groups in countries that have not been represented at past IMCCs to invite them to participate in the Congress. We began developing a database of contact information for organizations on every inhabited continent! Communications and materials will be provided in a variety of languages to help promote IMCC7 to as many potential delegates as possible. Want to add your group or organization to our database? Please contact IMCC7 Co-Chairs or meeting management. While the location of IMCC changes with every conference, we fully recognize they have primarily stayed within the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., and this needs to be improved to continue towards our aim for a truly global conference. The location of IMCC7 in Kuching, Malaysia and that of IMCC7 in Cape Town, South Africa —was chosen based on the need to bring the congress to a location that is more accessible to developing nations with conservation issues. Future IMCCs will regularly move around the world with hopes to increase international access and participation.

Diversity Travel Grants

Diversity Travel Grant applications will be open to delegates with approved abstracts from countries designated as developing countries by the World Bank, countries designated as small island developing states, and indigenous communities. Winners will receive either full travel assistance, partial travel assistance, or free IMCC7 registration. The competition will be open to students and non-students. The IMCC7 program will benefit immensely from the participation of these presenters, some of which are representing countries and communities that have not been well-represented at past IMCCs. As IMCC, the SCB Marine Section, and marine conservation issues are global, we want to try to ensure all regions are equally able to participate at IMCC7. IMCC4 and IMCC5 Winners included delegates from Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, the Philippines, Colombia, Nepal, Peru, South Africa, Fiji, Palau, Slovenia, Nigeria, Uganda, Mexico, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the North American indigenous communities of Iñpuiat and Yup’ik. The competition was open to students and non-students and again will be open to these groups at IMCC7.

IMCC7 Diversity Focus Groups

We are currently accepting ideas for focus groups to discuss issues of diversity in marine science, academic societies, marine conservation, and scientific conferences . Please look here in the future for a list of Focus Groups. The focus groups are open to the participation of any IMCC7 delegates. While we will not be able to cover every aspect of diversity at IMCC7, our goal is to bring in more expertise and more issues than previous IMCC’s. Suggestion for focus groups can be sent to SCB Marine Diversity Officer Sarah Ater and IMCC7 Co-Chairs.

A Note from IMCC7 Organizers

It is important to IMCC7 organizers—including IMCC7 Co-Chairs and SCB Marine Program President Shaili Johri —to strive for an “IMCC for All ” approach to organizing the conference. We are working very hard and have made large strides in making IMCC more accessible and open, while maintaining scientific integrity in our programming and keeping fees as low as possible for delegates. We understand improvements still need to be made and some approaches may need to be re-worked. We welcome input, assistance, and suggestions you may have to help make IMCC7 and future IMCCs as inclusive and better as possible!