The Hunt for a Lost Bat
Lost and Found Project was featured in the New Yorker! Following on from the rediscovered of the Hills’ horseshoe bat in Rwanda after many decades of no sightings.. A very cool story. Check out the full article here
Biodiversity
Enforcement: is more always better?
Malta is renowned as a “blackspot” for illegal bird hunting. This article describes Malta’s current enforcement efforts which, assisted by the Army, and surveillance technology such as drones, and have likely led to a reduction in crime. However, this article also describes how current conservation policies are being counterproductive. They are fostering a culture of … [Read more…]
The second extinction of forgotten species
We often think of extinction as happening out there, in far away wild places, but it also takes place right inside our minds, in our everyday conversations and on social media. Beyond biological extinction, which takes place when the last animal or plant of its kind dies, species can live on in our collective memory, … [Read more…]
Book Review for Con Bio
I recently wrote a book review for the journal Conservation Biology, focused on the two books below: The Wicked Problem of Forest Policy: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Sustainability in Forest Landscapes. Nikolakis W., and J. L. Innes, editors. 2020. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K. x + 400 pp. ISBN 978-1-108-47140-4. Sustainable Governance of Wildlife and Community Based … [Read more…]
Not a cookie-cutter approach: how the uses and trade of giraffe parts vary across Africa
The giraffe is an icon of the African subcontinent, and yet, there are many gaps in knowledge about giraffes in the wild and how to best protect them. In the 21 countries where giraffe populations are found, their conservation status differs depending on the species, geography, and threats they face. Coupled with the threats of … [Read more…]
What determines the success and failure of environmental crowdfunding?
Online crowdfunding can help address the perennial financial shortfalls in environmental conservation and management. Although many online crowdfunding campaigns fail to collect any funds due to not achieving their targets, little is known about what drives success. To address this knowledge gap, we applied a mixed-methods approach to data from 473 successful and failed campaigns … [Read more…]
Rising with the tide
Last week I was featured on the “Rising with the Tide” podcast. It was a lot of fun talking about how marketing can be used to help keep our planet biodiverse, discuss the impacts of Harry Potter on the trade in owls and why pangolins make great vloggers. Have a listen below:
Ethical considerations when conservation research involves people
I was lucky to be involved in a paper was published last week around the ethical challenges of doing social science in a biodiversity conservation context. It was great to have a space for early career researchers to reflect on this much neglected issue. Abstract below. Full text HERE! Social science is becoming increasingly important … [Read more…]
Marketing Bears in Bolivia
This week I was in Tarija, south of Bolivia, leading a social marketing workshop to design an intervention to promote human-bear co-existence in this landscape. I have not had a lot of opportunities to work around social marketing in Latin America, which together with the fact that this is one of the first projects to … [Read more…]
The effect of knowledge, species aesthetic appeal, familiarity and conservation need on willingness to donate
NEW PAPER! Out in Animal Conservation and led by Piia Lundberg, this research looks into the drivers of online donations for species and ecosystem conservation in Finland. See the abstract below and get the PDF here: https://goo.gl/tN5TtS Abstract Environmental non‐governmental organizations (ENGOs) largely select flagship species for conservation marketing based on their aesthetic appeal. However, … [Read more…]