Programme

Pre-conference (19 June 2027)

Possible outreach event (under discussion - to be confirmed)

Arrival day (20 June 2027)

  • Arrivals at PLZ airport, with shuttles to Cape St Francis Resort (check-in opens at 2pm)

  • Welcome cocktail party for dinner

Day 1 (21 June 2027)

  • Talks and posters (focussed on biodiversity patterns, ecological processes and ecosystem services)

Day 2 (22 June 2027)

  • Talks and posters (focussed on pressures and impacts, human dimensions, and social-ecological systems)

  • ‘Collaborative Hackathon’ (optional) - developing an open-source R package for core sandy beach indices and indicators [to be confirmed depending on interest indicated during registration]

Day 3 (23 June 2027)

  • Talks and posters (focused on policy, conservation, and management)

  • Short workshop on social-ecological systems

  • Conference dinner

Day 4 (24 June 2027)

  • Field trip day, with these options for the morning:

  1. Surf at Jeffreys Bay

  2. Gentle ~5 km beach walk from the resort, along Seal Bay, to the Cape St Francis Port. It will include a short section where we will walk through the last remnant of the famous headland bypass dune system in the Cape St Francis Nature Reserve. We will be collected by a bus or shuttles, and drive to points of interest relevant for coastal management between the port and Jeffreys Bay.

  3. Enjoy the resort and catch the bus/shuttle to collect the beach walkers, and drive to points of interest relevant for coastal management between the port and Jeffreys Bay.

  • All have lunch together in Jeffreys Bay, and take the shuttles back to the resort

  • Open afternoon for informal networking

  • Optional documentary screening before dinner

  • Dinner

Day 5 (25 June 2027)

  • Conservation impact workshop focusing on wrack management (linked to the TIDELINES project) and the impact we want to make as a scientific community – and how to achieve it

Planned output: possible publication and/or working document/workplan for our scientific community

Day 6 (26 June 2027)

  • Global patterns in sandy beach species (richness, endemism, gaps), species red listing (see Workshop preparation)

Planned output: Publication and dataset 

Day 7 (27 June 2027)

Beach ecosystem classification (linked to the Beaches for Life! project), red listing, and model of ecosystem collapse

Planned output: Publication

Shuttles back to PLZ airport in the afternoon.