On February 3-5, 2022, CICR hosted the third biennial Integrative Conservation Conference (ICC), which brought together over 250 participants from 10 countries and 5 continents. This year’s ICC was held virtually to ensure attendee health and safety, and we were pleased to see that the virtual format increased global accessibility to the conference. Students, faculty, and practitioners from more than 50 academic institutions and representatives of tribal agencies, government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and the private sector came together to around the theme of Decolonizing Conservation Research and Practice. Dr. Sherry Pictou delivered the keynote address, “Decolonizing Conservation – An Indigenous Feminist Perspective.” In selecting this theme, we hoped to engage with the historical and contemporary role of conservation in the disruption and erasure of Indigenous histories, livelihoods, and well-being. Looking forward, we sought to use this year’s ICC as an opportunity for conservation researchers and practitioners of all backgrounds to move towards creating more transformative, adaptive, and just approaches to socioenvironmental problem-solving.
Throughout ICC and in the days following the conference we were overwhelmed with the energy, graciousness, and openness attendees brought to these discussions. We are immensely grateful to our speakers for sharing their time and insights with us all to facilitate these conversations. There is a clear need to continue these discussions beyond the bounds of ICC, and CICR looks forward to supporting efforts to further these important processes of reckoning and reflexivity. CICR extends their gratitude to the ICON student co-chairs of this year’s conference, Kristen Morrow and Bryan Bozeman, and to the many faculty and students who volunteered their time and energy to support the event. We are very grateful this year’s ICC sponsors for making the conference possible: the Owens Institute for Behavioral Research; the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts; the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources; the Department of Marine Sciences; the Odum School of Ecology; the Office of Sustainability; Chemonics International; Ideas for Creative Exploration; the Nature Conservancy; and the Upper Oconee Watershed Network.