The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University will host one of the world’s most prestigious conferences on nature conservation in 2007, giving the city and the province an important opportunity to grab global attention.

To be staged at the university’s Summerstrand South campus, the 21st annual conference of the Society for Conservation Biology will likely attract about 2 000 delegates - making it one of the biggest conferences yet to have been staged in the metro.

The right to host the conference was pursued and won by NMMU's Terrestrial Ecology Research Unit, (Teru) headed by its director, Prof Graham Kerley, the university said yesterday.

The bid was made on behalf of Teru and the African contingent as a whole at this year's conference, which was staged last month in the Brazilian capital, Brasilia.

Teru triumphed in a final showdown with New Zealand, bringing the conference to Africa for the first time since its inception 20 years ago.

Kerley said yesterday the hot issue of conservation planning or "bringing nature reserves into the real world", spearheaded at the Brazil event by the South African delegation, was likely to be big again in 2007.

The Eastern Cape is leading the way in South Africa on this issue with the implementation of the Addo and Baviaanskloof mega-reserves, and their focus on land rehabilitation and integration of communities.

The growth in private nature reserves in the province, and particularly the Port Elizabeth region, is supporting this pioneer movement.

Kerley said the contribution of Africa to conservation science - the application of science to prevent extinction of species - will also likely be an important topic.

The metro's spectacular plant and animal diversity and the easy access to big five nature reserves for delegates were two of the points that probably caught the judges' attention in the Teru bid, he said.

The challenges here of land ownership patterns and environmental threats, plus the attraction of a marine and land environment also probably played a part.