A hair-raising fund-raising story This story begins with a post I read on LinkedIn. The article in question is trying to raise money for a conservation organization. Among several dubious claims, one stuck out. According to the author, for “approximately $12M a single donor could have protected, in perpetuity… trillions of microbial species.” Well, I’m […]
Sustainability Debate: Where are the marketers?
Sustainability, what is it good for? We may well ask the question, since the word seems to have lost its impact with consumers. “So where are the marketers?” asks guest author Barbara de Waard. The marketing profession has been absent from the sustainability debate Many biodiversity professionals have undoubtedly followed events at the recent COP21 […]
Conservationists must engage local communities
Let’s face it, top-down approaches haven’t worked. While the big NGOs have some merits, the model of going into a conservation area and it fencing off has not made much difference to the overall trend of biodiversity loss and wildlife population declines. One answer is to engage communities more frequently and more effectively. According to […]
Does it help conservation to put a price on nature?
Assigning an economic value to the benefits which nature provides might not always promote the conservation of biodiversity, and in some cases may lead to species loss and conflict, argues a University of Cambridge researcher. There is a risk that traditional conservation strategies oriented toward biodiversity may not be effective at protecting the economic benefits […]