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On 30 January 2025, the Royal Astronomical Society will hold a free one-day conference on Light Pollution and its Impacts at our offices in Burlington House, London.
The conference will have multiple sessions from invited speakers, with representation from organisations including the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Dark Skies, Buglife, CPRE, Dark Skies Cumbria, Dark Sky UK and Dark Sky International.
Sessions will cover topics such as policy and regulation, the environment and biodiversity, and human health. We will explore approaches to effectively tackling light pollution, looking at the current regulatory landscape in the UK, opportunities for improvement, local interventions, and best practices here and from elsewhere in the world.
We hope you can join us that day!
Marieta Valdivia Lefort, Policy and Diversity Officer, Royal Astronomical Society
Robert Massey, Deputy Executive Director, Royal Astronomical Society
Programme:
Welcome and introduction (9.00-9.30am) - RAS APPG
- Opening: Stephen Benn (Viscount Stansgate)
Political Landscape & regulation (9.30am-10.15am) - Chair: Marieta Valdivia Lefort
- Yana Yakushina (Space Court Foundation)
- David Smith (Buglife)
Coffee Break (30min)
Nature and environmental impact (10.45am-12.10pm) - Chair: Marieta Valdivia Lefort
- Tim Smyth (Plymouth Marine Laboratory)
- David Smith (Buglife)
- Kevin Gaston (DarkSky Int'l)
- Dani Robertson (Prosiect Nos Partnership)
Lunch break (12.10pm-1pm)
Human health (1.00pm-2.00pm) - Chair: Megan Eaves
- Robert A E Fosbury
- Christopher Barnes (University of Derby)
- Anna Levin (Author, Dark Skies; LightAware Charity)
Case Studies I (2.00pm-2.45pm) - Chair: Robert Massey
- Roy Alexander (Dark Skies UK)
- Emma Marrington and Yolande Watson (CPRE)
- Jack Ellerby (Cumbria Dark Skies Officer, Friends of the Lake District)
Coffee Break (30min)
Case Studies II (3.15pm-4.00pm) - Chair: Robert Massey
- Dan Oakley (Darkscape Consulting)
- Duncan Wise (Northumberland National Park)
Final plenary and closure - RAS APPG (4.00pm-4.30pm)
- Closure and chair: Andrew Griffith MP