Biodiversity conservation cannot afford COVID-19 communication bungles

As COVID-19 continues to dominate our lives and media headlines, maintaining public engagement with biodiversity conservation can be a communication challenge. This media context can make it tempting for conservation professionals like us to draw links or parallels between the pandemic and the biodiversity crisis, with the intention to make stories about biodiversity more relevant […]

Time to focus on reducing beef consumption as US faces meat shortage

The US may soon start experiencing meat shortages as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 virus crisis impacting slaughterhouses, increasing the cost of meat and the likelihood of beef imports from Brazil. In Brazil beef production contributes to deforestation resulting in biodiversity loss and global greenhouse emissions. Now is an important time to reassess our […]

How to talk about COVID-19 for conservation professionals

We’re all currently living though a time of uncertainty and personal crisis, so – while I’m sure you’re growing very used to seeing these words at the top of every email – I hope you and your communities are going okay. Every day our communication and use of language matters, but during a crisis like […]

Beyond Advocacy – a new take on the advocacy debate

Georgia will be presenting this work at the North American Congress for Conservation Biology next week in Madison, Wisconsin (Tuesday, 19th July, 8AM, Hall of Ideas Room E), please come along if you’re going to the conference. Late last year, we published (in collaboration with colleagues from The University of Melbourne) an article in Conservation […]

Framing Conservation Messages

By Alex Kusmanoff Myself and a number of esteemed colleagues have recently published a paper, Framing the Private Land Conservation Conversation: Strategic framing of the benefits of conservation participation could increase landholder engagement in Environmental Science and Policy. In it we look at how the benefits of private land conservation are currently being framed.It can […]

A values-based approach to urban nature research

Chris Ives has just  essay posted on The Nature of Cities website: “Start with people. Adopting a values-based approach to understanding urban ecological systems will challenge how land use and environmental management decisions are typically made. Rather than fitting the importance of urban nature into current paradigms of decision-making (often based on economic values and balancing […]