The Earth is home to millions of species, but you wouldn’t know it from the media’s obsession with only a few dozen animals like tigers and gorillas. This narrow focus makes the most of popular fascination with large and cute creatures. Conservationists take advantage of these nonhuman celebrities to raise awareness about important issues and … [Read more…]
Nature doesn’t make the news often these days. When it does, the story usually revolves around wildlife on the brink, record-setting climate extremes or ruined landscapes. However, that is not the whole story. There is also good news, but it often receives little attention. It is easy to see how bleak accounts of the state … [Read more…]
Talking about nature has frequently become talking about extinction, decline and loss. But it does not have to be. The “Lost and Found” project works to bring to life the inspirational stories of those that never stopped believing and whose passion led them to rewrite the history of the species they so deeply cared about. … [Read more…]
Today I bring you my latest blogpost on the National Geographic Voices blog! It talks about the work I have being doing with ATM, a Portuguese NGO dedicated to the conservation of marine turtles in Portuguese speaking countries. We have been working on a social marketing campaign to reduce the demand for sea turtle meat … [Read more…]
Back in 2014, I co-led a storytelling project that aimed to take the best stories of field biologists to a broader audience. After all, it’s those episodes that make work so unique and rewarding. The result was the book BIOgrafias: Vidas de Quem Estuda a Vida, which brings together 18 biologists and more than 35 stories. … [Read more…]
The only TV channel in São Tomé e Príncipe featured a workshop on timber management in the country on the main evening news! See it here. Great to see conservation getting some prime time! The workshop was part of a Conservation Leadership Programme sponsored project entitled “Towards sustainable logging in São Tomé, São Tomé and … [Read more…]
As a result of the IUCN Award I received last September, I was invited to talk at the Portuguese Radio Show “Cientifica Mente”, one of the few shows in Portuguese radio fully devoted to science and which has through the years featured some of the top Portuguese minds working around the science and the environment. … [Read more…]
Recently Emma Mckinley and I wrote a correspondence piece for the journal Oryx, celebrating the formation of the SCB Conservation Marketing Working Group and highlighting the potential of this new field to contribute to biodiversity conservation. We were no doubt excited when we were told that we had received a reply, where the case against … [Read more…]
The upcoming CITES COP has led to a lot of discussion around proposals to legalize the trade in rhino horn. I was interviewed by “El Español”, a large digital Spanish newspaper for an article entitled El futuro del rinoceronte, un asunto de cuernos . I was asked questions about the trade in synthetic rhino horn … [Read more…]
During the past few months many media outlets have reported that the movie blockbuster Zootopia is dirving the demand for pet Fennec Foxes in China. I had a look at the exiting evidence (with the key support of coauthor Anita Wan) and come to some surprising conclusions in a blogpost for National Geographic! Read it … [Read more…]