Here at Ecology for the Masses, we’re pretty happy with the blog we’ve built up over the last year and a half. But now many of us are heading into the final year of our PhDs, so we’re looking for science writers who would like to help out, and get their voices heard.
The ecofeminism movement gained steam in the mid-1970s, at least in the Global North. Naturally, it borrowed a great deal from the environmental movements and versions of feminism that were most prevalent at the time. Here I’ll look at how those origins may have initially constrained the inclusiveness of the philosophy, and how it has moved on since.
You might have come across the word “subspecies” when reading about biodiversity, but what does the term actually mean? And do we really a more precise classification beyond species? There is unfortunately no consensus about this. Ask 5 biologist and you’ll get at least 10 different answers. So let’s have a look at why it’s such a complicated issue.
One of the earliest difficulties that ecofeminism faced was that nobody seemed to understand exactly what is was. In the first piece of this series, I listed it as “a vaguely defined version of… a combination of ecology and feminism.” You can probably see this issue already – a combination of ecological and feminist thought sounds nice, but if it doesn’t have any clear message or meaning then what’s the point?
Rewilding is a tricky business. Bringing back species that once roamed a country as their native land may seem like a worthy cause, but it is often fraught with conflict. People don’t want predators threatening their safety, or herbivores destroying their crops. Rural vs. urban tensions come into play. With that in mind, I sat down with Associate Professor Fredrik Widemo, currently a Senior lecturer with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. We explored some of the complexities behind the rewilding of wolves and its effects on the hunting and forestry industries in Sweden.
At the beginning of last month, I attended the 2nd edition of the Conservation Optimism Summit. In times where bad news for biodiversity seem to come from everywhere, it was somehow refreshing. We need initiatives such as Conservation Optimism to help us not only keep a positive outlook on conservation in general, but also to open our eyes to new ecological solutions that are being found.
This week’s paper asks how echidna responses to seasonality change along a latitudinal gradient.
The Plankton and Policy Research Group at Plymouth University. PI: Dr Abigail McQuatters-Gollop
Research, teaching, and mentorship in the sciences
Science for the Environment
ice age ecology, early career academia, and diversity in STEM
Conservation, management and planning in contested landscapes
Multa novit vulpes
Behavioural ecologist and science communicator at Deakin University
Conservation research ... with bite
