• The red-billed chough, subject on one of Jane's long term studies of effects of the environmental on the size and structure of populations

    Jane Reid: Playing the Ecological Long Game

    Our world is changing rapidly. Yet our perception of just how much it has changed is often dulled by our inability to compare what we see around us to what was around fifty years ago with enough clarity. This is one of the reasons that long-term scientific studies are so important. They give us a tangible assessment of just how much our world has changed, whether that be in the climate, how species have evolved, our how populations fluctuate. Jane Reid is the new International Chair Professor at the Department of Biology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Jane has spent years working with several long-term studies, some of them successful, others not so much. Sam Perrin and I spoke to Jane about the importance of long term studies in ecological science.

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  • A Review of Netflix’s Our Planet as a Conservation Tool

    The new Attenborough-narrated Netflix series Our Planet aimed to put threats to the environment at its forefront. So how well did it do?

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  • The Amazon is Still Burning: Why Did We Forget It?

    If you missed the furore about the fate of the Amazon rainforest earlier this year then you clearly do not have social media or a newspaper subscription. For a few weeks it became the call-to-arms for environmentalists everywhere (unless they were busy doing that whole “what about this other catastrophe” thing). And then the posts dried up, and public attention waned. But whilst the fires aren’t as bad now, they’re still burning, and still threatening both the vast numbers of different species and the indigenous groups that call the Amazon their home. So why has it disappeared from the public consciousness?

    Read more »

  • Outdoor Cats are a Problem

    I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but domestic cats are bad for the environment. Sure, we as a species have adopted and incorporated them into our society (I live with two, myself), but that doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible for them and their actions.

    Read more »

  • Whales Are Fish: Weird Perspectives on Classification

    You would think that after researching how a species will react to climate change, which individuals are more likely to avoid predators, and what its DNA says about its evolutionary history, simply classifying what species an animal is would be pretty simple. Unfortunately that’s not the case.

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  • Inspiring Optimism: Notes from the Conservation Optimism Summit

    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.

    Read more »

Current Issues

The Amazon is Still Burning: Why Did We Forget It?

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If you missed the furore about the fate of the Amazon rainforest earlier this year then you clearly do not have social media or a newspaper subscription. For a few weeks it became the call-to-arms for environmentalists everywhere (unless they were busy doing that whole “what about this other catastrophe” thing). And then the posts dried up, and public attention waned. But whilst the fires aren’t as bad now, they’re still burning, and still threatening both the vast numbers of different species and the indigenous groups that call the Amazon their home. So why has it disappeared from the public consciousness?

Outdoor Cats are a Problem

Leave a comment

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but domestic cats are bad for the environment. Sure, we as a species have adopted and incorporated them into our society (I live with two, myself), but that doesn’t mean we aren’t responsible for them and their actions.

From the Experts

The red-billed chough, subject on one of Jane's long term studies of effects of the environmental on the size and structure of populations

Jane Reid: Playing the Ecological Long Game

Leave a comment

Our world is changing rapidly. Yet our perception of just how much it has changed is often dulled by our inability to compare what we see around us to what was around fifty years ago with enough clarity. This is one of the reasons that long-term scientific studies are so important. They give us a tangible assessment of just how much our world has changed, whether that be in the climate, how species have evolved, our how populations fluctuate. Jane Reid is the new International Chair Professor at the Department of Biology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Jane has spent years working with several long-term studies, some of them successful, others not so much. Sam Perrin and I spoke to Jane about the importance of long term studies in ecological science.

Conference Reviews & Paper of the week

Inspiring Optimism: Notes from the Conservation Optimism Summit

Leave a comment

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.