Ecological forecasting epitomizes this year’s theme of “A Change is Gonna Come”. Ecological forecasting supports new 21st century approaches to research, conservation, and management that are critical at a time of increasing variability and high uncertainty in many ecosystems. We live in a time dominated by transient dynamics and forecasts play an increasingly important role in anticipating change. Putting forecasts into practice, which involves both changes in approach and mindset, is a critical part of facing the “disciplinary reckoning” that requires ecology to become a more predictive science. Thankfully, because of recent advances in data availability, models, statistics, and policy, the time is ripe for rapid progress. Advances in sensor technologies, computational capacities, and statistical/data science techniques, when combined with reduced data latency, are making near real-time ecology a reality. Consequently, the practice of ecological forecasting, i.e., the process of predicting the future states of ecological systems and ecological services with fully specified uncertainties, is an area of high interest and rapid growth in ecology that was barely possible a generation ago. This session brings together ecologists from a diversity of study systems to highlight cutting-edge examples of near-term ecological forecasting that span ecosystem boundaries, time scales, and basic/applied applications. With the rapid growth of forecasting comes a need to share information about new approaches for model-data assimilation, quantification and analysis of uncertainties, best practices, and more. This session highlights a diverse set of speakers from across a range of career stages, races, nationalities, and institutions tackling ecological forecasting problems that directly provide data and models to inform environmental decision-makers. This session is organized by the Ecological Forecasting Initiative (EFI), an interdisciplinary, grassroots consortium that brings together scientists, managers, and policymakers developing near-term (daily to decadal) ecological forecasts. EFI’s overarching goal - to advance ecological forecasting within the ecology research community - is motivated by the goal to improve our ability to respond to complex environmental challenges by providing environmental decision-makers with the best available science in hand.