In light of the continued development of the COVID-19 pandemic and in particular in the Mayotte island, we are constrained to postpone the symposium to 2021. We are hoping to postpone until October 2021 but will confirm dates later this year. We will get in touch with authors having already submitted an abstract and a new call for abstract will be organised later on. Thank you for your understanding and keep safe.

In the context of the current health crises, in order to give time to everyone to get organised, we are postponing the deadline for the submission of abstracts for the international symposium 'mangroves as socio-ecological systems: an interdisciplinary perspective' to 11th May 2020.

The dates of the symposium, from 7th to 9th of October 2020, remain the same for now. We are aware of the great uncertainty created by this time of pandemic. We will get back to you if the international context imposes to postpone the symposium itself. If this should happen, the selected abstracts will be retained.

Welcome to the international MangSES symposium

We are delighted to invite you to Mayotte Island, a French overseas department located in the Indien Ocean, from 7th to 9th of Octobre 2020. This three-day symposium on mangrove socio-ecological systems (MangSES) will give prominence to interdisciplinary presentations and discussions. The second day will be a field trip aimed at discovering issues at stakes on some of the mangroves of Mayotte.

The ARESMA project is a three-year project started in 2018. The project uses both a multi- and inter-disciplinary approach, involving ecology, geography, literature, modelling, and anthropology under the theoretical framework of the resilience of the socio-ecological systems of mangroves (SESM). The aims are 1) to identify the variables of the SESM and their interactions in order to build conceptual models and 2) to determine the variables having a positive or negative influence on the resilience of the SESM in order to contribute to a sustainable management of the mangroves of Mayotte.

The symposium will be the opportunity to confront results of the ARESMA project to similar or contrasting projects, comparing methodologies, challenges, theoretical frameworks and management issues.

Mayotte is a tropical island of 375 km² located in the Mozambique Channel and part of the Comoros Archipelago. The two inhabited islands are Grande Terre (363 km²) and Petite Terre (11 km²). These islands and several islets are surrounded by a lagoon of 1,100 km² separating them from the open ocean by an almost continuous barrier reef of 160 km long. Mayotte is structured by small mountains from volcanic origin, the highest peak culminating at 653 meters. The coast is indented by numerous peaks enclosing sandy coves and muddy bays where mangroves have settled. Mangroves cover 650 ha and over 30% of the coastline. Dispatched in 29 main areas, surfaces vary greatly from less than 1 ha to 200 ha for the biggest mangrove. 8 species of mangrove trees can be found in Mayotte: Sonneratia alba, Rhizophora mucronata, Ceriops tagal, Bruguiera gymnorhiza, Avicennia marina, Lumnitzera racemosa, Xylocarpus granatum and Xylocarpus moluccensis.

Mayotte is a French department since 2011. In 1976, Maore people chose by referendum to remain part of France, not as a colony but with the status of French overseas territory, whereas the three other islands of the Comoros archipelago accessed to independence. According to the 2017 census, the population was 256,000 inhabitants, out of which 55% is under the age of 20 years old. At the time, the population density was estimated to be 650 people per km². Almost half of the population is of foreign nationality, 95% of them being Comorians, out of which half with illegal status. Part of this population lives in slums, the 2012 census classifying 31% of dwellings as decrepit housing. Slums have developed over land with no previous buildings, some of them encroaching the back mangrove and sometimes advancing onto the mangrove itself.

• Call for abstracts / portal opens: 27 January 2020

• Abstract submission closes: 11 May 2020

• Abstract acceptance notification sent: early June 2020

• Registration opens: early June 2020

• Early-bird Registration closes: 10 July 2020

• Late Registration closes: 25 September 2020

• Conference commences: 7 October 2020