From 20 to 25 September 2026 Pescasseroli, in the heart of the Parco nazionale d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise, will host the 29th conference of the International Association for Bear Research and Management (Iba), the leading international event dedicated to bear research, conservation and management. The event will take place in Italy and will bring together researchers, protected area managers, institutions and experts from around the world to discuss conservation strategies and coexistence between humans and large carnivores.

The conference takes place shortly after the release of the most recent population estimate of the Marsican brown bear. The study, presented in July by the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security and the Parco nazionale d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise, estimates 81 individuals (43 females and 38 males), with an uncertainty range of between 73 and 88 individuals.

The estimate refers to a range of over 6,000 square kilometres of the central Apennines and confirms the Parco nazionale d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise and its surrounding buffer zone as the core of the population.

We are extremely proud to be organising this important and long-awaited international event in the central Apennines, shining a spotlight on a truly unique subspecies — not only from a biological standpoint, but also behaviourally and culturally — for the wide community of people around the world who work on the conservation of the eight bear species.

Mario Cipollone, team leader of Rewilding Apennines

Sharing the experience of coexistence with the Marsican brown bear

The choice of the central Apennines is linked to the work carried out over the years to protect the Marsican brown bear — an endemic subspecies found only in this area — and to manage coexistence with human activities. This territory has been the testing ground for the Bear-Smart Communities model, which involves local authorities, citizens, stakeholders and businesses to reduce conflicts with the species through concrete measures, from securing waste facilities to preventing damage to productive activities.

The Pescasseroli conference will highlight the important conservation and community engagement work carried out in the wild heart of Italy, allowing biologists from around the world to take home the knowledge gained and apply it in their own areas.

Jennapher Teunissen van Manen, Director of Operations and Programs at Iba

Developed over a decade and now extended to 16 communities thanks to the European project LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors, the model covers the area where approximately 80 per cent of the Marsican bear population lives. As part of the project, more than 1,300 bear-proof bins have been installed, over 180 electric fences distributed, and training and community engagement activities carried out. It is this experience that contributed to the selection of Pescasseroli as the venue for the 2026 world conference.

"To achieve this goal, the Life Bear-Smart Corridors project gave us the opportunity to plan an even more careful engagement with several local communities, to increase knowledge and awareness of what it truly means to share the same territory with the bear," said Giovanni Cannata, President of the Parco Nazionale d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise. "Global initiatives like this one, which will bring researchers from around the world to Pescasseroli, influence local conservation strategies, providing a broader frame of reference on the path to protection. The knowledge and expertise that other practitioners around the world — researchers, biologists, naturalists — are working on to make coexistence possible at different latitudes makes us feel less alone and more determined to embrace the challenges ahead."

The conference, which is held every two years, is this year organised by the Parco nazionale d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise together with Rewilding Europe, Rewilding Apennines and Salviamo l'Orso, with the support of the Ministry of the Environment and Energy Security. For six days, Pescasseroli will host scientific sessions, technical meetings and discussion forums dedicated to bear research and management.

LifeGate will be a media partner of the Iba conference and will cover the event from Pescasseroli with articles, interviews and in-depth features on the main topics emerging from the proceedings and on the coexistence and conservation of the Marsican brown bear.

The IBA conference will give us the opportunity to show how much work has been done — but above all, how much remains to be done.

Parco d'Abruzzo, Lazio e Molise on the Iba