Outreach: Nature is in crisis. Here are 10 easy ways you can make a difference

Australia’s rarest butterfly, the Australian fritillary. Garry Sankowsky, Author provided Last month, Sir David Attenborough called on United Kingdom residents to “go wild once per week”. By this, he meant taking actions which help rather than harm the natural world, such as planting wildflowers for bees and eating more plant-based foods. Australia should follow suit. We love our […]

ICON team members head across the Pacific

For a while it seemed as if travel was a thing of the past – workshops, conferences and meetings all pivoted online. Whilst this was great for our collective carbon footprint, it perhaps stymied creativity. Meeting virtually doesn’t fulfill the same functions as a face-to-face chat at a conference, where the informal gatherings are often […]

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 […]

Feral Cat Control in Australia – 5-year report

Read the full report here. Since 2015, members of ICON Science have been working with the Office of the Threatened Species Commissioner to assess the national management of feral cats across Australia. This work is part of the wider Threatened Species Strategy, and recognises the significant threat to Australia’s native species that is posed by […]

Wildlife gardening for conservation in cities

by Laura Mumaw In this article we explore how the Knox Gardens for Wildlife program, a collaboration between a municipality (Knox City Council) and community group (Knox Environment Society) in greater Melbourne involves residents in gardening to help conserve indigenous biodiversity. We used semi-structured interviews and Council survey data to identify key program features that […]

Why politics and context matter in conservation policy

By Florence Damiens Politics and context matter for conservation policy. That is why our research group, in collaboration with Brian Coffey and Lauren Rickards from RMIT University’s Centre for Urban Research, has just published a collective reply to Peter Kareiva and Emma Fuller’s article in Global Policy. In brief, we argue that Kareiva’s and Fuller’s […]