Abstract: Economic globalization has led to the seemingly unstoppable spread of a culture of exploitation and consumption; and both people and planet are suffering as a result of its unintended consequences (Böhm et al. 2015). In light of increasingly startling statistics on climate change, resource depletion, land degradation, and biodiversity loss, we are starting to see a global shift towards conservation and restoration. As more research reveals the complexity of these ecological problems and demonstrates their inextricable connections to socioeconomic instability and poor public health (Cross et al., 2019), practitioners are beginning to employ community- and place-based approaches to restoration and conservation. With a growing consensus in the global conservation community that the participation of local communities is essential for the success of conservation initiatives (United Nations, 2021), there remains a large knowledge gap in how to integrate conservation and community well-being. I propose that a series of community characteristics and project design factors grounded in a biocultural approach can help guide this integration. I present ethnographic and ecological evidence from four communities engaged in community-based conservation in Costa Rica. My main finding was that while each community operates within its own unique social-ecological context, communities engaged in conservation share notable similarities in community characteristics and project design.
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Many species of bees are threatened. An accurate assessment of their distribution, abundance, and phenology drives conservation efforts. Citizen science invites the public to participate in large-scale data collection on bees, assisting professional researchers in making recommendations to remediate anthropogenic causes of species decline. Citizen scientists commonly collect data in public and private gardens and within managed bee populations, but rarely in educational settings. A handful of bee-focused citizen science projects have been administered in the K-12 sector, but such projects are lacking in higher education. With college campuses open during the summer months, correlating with bees’ most active period, college students are ideal citizen scientists. Citizen science research can be built into college curricula, allowing students to participate in co-creating projects and managing them online. College campuses, many of which are certified Bee Campuses, are also well equipped to implement meaningful conservation efforts based on the findings of citizen science student projects.
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This study investigated the current energy use perceptions and practices of staff and students within five buildings at the University of Sheffield, UK. A series of focus groups with staff and post-graduate representatives from these buildings explored occupant awareness of energy consumption, perceived level of control over energy use, priorities for reduction and the perceived facilitators and barriers to reduction. Overall, personal awareness and attitudes about the need to conserve energy, the perceived actions and opinions of other users (including University authorities) and perceptions of control over the ease and opportunity to reduce energy consumption were perceived by occupants to relate to whether they would intend to conserve energy in University buildings. Recommendations for encouraging energy conservation focus on engendering greater occupant responsibility for conservation by providing a clear conservation message, participating in energy reduction schemes and providing greater energy usage information. Few papers have investigated occupant understanding of energy use in UK University and Higher Education buildings, despite large reduction targets in the sector. This paper recognises the importance that staff and student engagement will have in the successful achievement of these targets and explores their insights and perceptions.
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Decent life depends on nature’s provision of stable resources. In this report I explore cultural efforts embedded within nature preservation and environmental education among the indigenous Baganda and how these can be emulated to inform modern environment conservation programmes. Accordingly, environmental conservation in Buganda was guided by clearly streamlined gender roles and cultural values through spirituality and the clan system which defined the ethical relationships between human culture and the environment. The key challenges towards this include gender inequality and the associated stereotypes, the political climate in the country, and modern religions. Successful mitigations should essentially hinge on integrating indigenous conservation methods in formal school curriculum as well as undertaking sensitization and empowerment campaigns geared towards nature preservation.
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