The Case for Conservation Podcast

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The Case for Conservation Podcast

www.case4conservation.com

60 episodes

1 month ago

The term "precision agriculture" has high-tech and “big ag.” connotations, and is usually not associated with biodiversity. But there is a strong argument to be made that it is one of the best things that has happened to conservation in recent decades. Agriculture remains the biggest driver of biodiversity loss in most parts of the world, so anything that reduces its impact might be worth taking note of. Mark McConnell, an assistant professor at Mississippi State University, joins us on this ...

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Natural Sciences,

Social Sciences

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The term "precision agriculture" has high-tech and “big ag.” connotations, and is usually not associated with biodiversity. But there is a strong argument to be made that it is one of the best things that has happened to conservation in recent decades. Agriculture remains the biggest driver of biodiversity loss in most parts of the world, so anything that reduces its impact might be worth taking note of. Mark McConnell, an assistant professor at Mississippi State University, joins us on this ...

Show more...

Natural Sciences,

Social Sciences

Episodes (20/60)

The Case for Conservation Podcast

58. Precision agriculture: farming on steroids, or boon to conservation? (Mark McConnell)

The term "precision agriculture" has high-tech and “big ag.” connotations, and is usually not associated with biodiversity. But there is a strong argument to be made that it is one of the best things that has happened to conservation in recent decades. Agriculture remains the biggest driver of biodiversity loss in most parts of the world, so anything that reduces its impact might be worth taking note of. Mark McConnell, an assistant professor at Mississippi State University, joins us on this ...

2 hours ago

56 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

57. What are we getting wrong about biodiversity loss? (Maria Dornelas)

The concept of biodiversity loss is absolutely integral to conservation, and I have never met anyone who has seriously challenged the idea that too many species are going extinct, nor that their extinction is a result of human pressures. So, what do we make of multiple studies telling us that we shouldn’t be focusing so much on biodiversity loss? These studies say that, on average in samples across the world, roughly equal numbers of sites are increasing in species richness and decreasing. Ma...

1 month ago

54 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

56. Conservation in Ukraine: How? And why? (Marine Elbakidze)

Although we all have our problems, war is usually not among them. But if you do live in a war-torn country like Ukraine, war is everyones’s problem. And yet, in Ukraine at least, somehow life goes on including activities like conservation of the environment. The question is how, and why, given the many, more urgent, priorities. Marine Elbakidze is an Associate Professor at Lviv University, who focuses on sustainable landscape management, forest governance, and the social-ecological systems ap...

2 months ago

39 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

55. What's the risk of fads in conservation? (Kent Redford)

Conservation competes with a variety of other societal priorities and interests for funding and for attention. As a result, conservation projects, programmes and even broader concepts are frequently “packaged” in ways that prioritize grabbing attention. But promoting or marketing conservation initiatives in this way carries certain risks. Among them is the risk of being short-lived and without a real basis in the substance of the actual initiative – in other words a fad. Another is the risk o...

3 months ago

35 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

54. What does Trump 2.0 mean for the environment? (Quill Robinson)

America’s reelection of Donald Trump has brought about all manner of changes in US and global politics. Some have a direct effect on environmental issues while many more may be indirectly consequential. The media, it seems, has reacted mostly with horror and predictions of disaster, and there are probably any number of commentators willing to echo those sentiments on a podcast. It might be more interesting though, and perhaps more informative, to hear the voice of a less critical environmenta...

4 months ago

41 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

53. Shouldn't we reframe environmental narratives? (Ragini Prasad)

Among most legacy media outlets and on social media, narratives about environmental issues, as well as social issues, are noticeably more extreme than they used to be. From activists to academics and from organizations to corporations, it has become common to hear phrases like “shattering Earth's natural limits”, “ecological meltdown”, and “boiling oceans”. Much of this rhetoric comes from a place of genuine concern and it usually contains important elements of truth. But it’s also often emot...

5 months ago

39 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

52. What’s all the fuss about the EU Nature Restoration Law? (Brian MacSharry)

It’s not often that biodiversity legislation grabs international headlines, but thats what happened repeatedly in 2024 with the European Union’s new Nature Restoration Law. It happened first because of the ambitious nature of the law; and then because of the political tussle around its rejection and eventual approval. Along the way it gathered a trail of detractors and supporters, and has raised hopes as well as concerns, depending on who you speak to. The law’s overarching target is for Memb...

6 months ago

43 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

51. What's all this talk about biodiversity credits? (Harrison Carter)

From time to time certain concepts rise to prominence in biodiversity conservation circles, and some of these follow in the footsteps of climate change analogs. One such concept is biodiversity credits. Biodiversity credits are a mechanism that allow for biodiversity conservation or restoration activities to derive a revenue stream through the production and sale of a quantifiable unit of improvement in biodiversity. Despite the technical and philosophical challenges involved in trading in bi...

7 months ago

45 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

50. How do we get to a more sustainable society? (Sharachchandra Lele)

Half a century ago a group of more than 2,000 scientists signed a warning of environmental crisis and nuclear war. Named after the French town where it was compiled, the “Menton Message” turned out to be somewhat hyperbolic in its environmental predictions, and did not account for some of humankind’s remarkable developmental progress over the following decades. However, some of its concerns certainly remain prescient today. And so another, smaller, group of scientists convened, on the 50-year...

8 months ago

58 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

49. Should we worry about zombie organizations? (Julia Gray)

International organizations, or “IOs” for short, are typically organizations to which multiple countries belong as members. They cover virtually every aspect of human endeavor and there are many that are related to environmental protection. International organizations may influence our lives quite profoundly and yet, outside our own field, we might struggle to name more than a few of them. Furthermore, it has been proposed that most of them are not functioning entities, but rather so-called“z...

9 months ago

42 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

48. What about free market environmentalism? (Ronald Bailey)

Protection of the environment is strongly associated with regulation of the human activities that threaten it, and regulation is usually administered by government. Although almost everyone would probably agree that some regulation is necessary, regulation has a patchy record when it comes to environmental protection. And there is another approach to achieving environmental goals. Free market environmentalism, instead of protecting nature from market forces, harnesses those forces to protect ...

10 months ago

45 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

47. Why is whaling still... a thing? (Joji Morishita)

There are few environmental issues more emotive than the hunting of whales. Although the focus of environmentalists has shifted to other topics in recent times, whaling remains contentious whenever it is brought up. This is understandable considering that, for the first half of the 20th century and into the 1970s, several whale species were hunted to near-extinction. But as crude oil took over from whale oil as the fuel of industry whale populations began making impressive recoveries. Neverth...

11 months ago

59 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

46. Can agriculture become nature-friendly at scale? (Philippe Birker)

Agriculture has been by far the biggest driver of land change and land degradation worldwide. And yet, it is also fundamental to the very existence of humankind. This mismatch often comes up in public discourse. Over the past year or two, for example, several European countries have seen extensive farmer protests - against rising costs and restrictive environmental regulations, among other things. Environmental groups have responded to the farmers’ appeals mostly with indignation… and yet far...

1 year ago

46 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

45. Are we really facing “insectageddon”? (Jane Hill)

Insects are among the most abundant organisms on Earth. About 350,000 beetle species, alone, have been described by science and this is considered to be only a fraction of their total number. In a variety of ways, insects are a fundamental part of natural and human-adapted systems. While some cause disease or ruin crops, others play a key role in ecosystem service provision, for example by pollinating certain crops or as food for other beneficial animals and people. Overall, the loss of insec...

1 year ago

40 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

44. What happened to the Anthropocene? (Erle Ellis)

Humankind’s transformation of the Earth is embodied in the idea that we are living in the “Anthropocene”. Most people who have heard of this concept were probably unaware that it describes a specific unit of geological measurement - an epoch. A debate has been ongoing for more than a decade about whether to make that designation official - for the Anthropocene to take over from the Holocene epoch. This debate concluded just a few weeks ago with a definitive “no”.In this episode of The Case fo...

1 year ago

41 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

43. What is stealth advocacy in conservation? (Françoise Cardou)

Conservation and sustainability scientists are often expected to advise policymakers and other decision-makers. But some of the issues that they are expected to advise on, have broader consensus than others. So, when is it appropriate to advise? When is it appropriate to advocate? When should they simply present all the options or interpretations, and leave it to the decision-makers?Françoise Cardou is a plant and a community ecologist and postdoctoral fellow at Carlton University in Ottawa, ...

1 year ago

38 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

42. Political polarization in sustainability science? (Örjan Bodin)

Sustainability science, which includes conservation biology and various other environmental studies, is not a “hard science” like physics or mathematics. Nevertheless, one might expect it to be reasonably independent of political affiliation. But is this the case? If not, what is the problem with leaning too far in one political direction, especially if that direction is left and generally considered to be “pro environment”? If it is a problem, what can we do about it?Örjan Bodin is a su...

1 year ago

44 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

41. Is capitalism bad for the environment? (Russell Galt)

Capitalism gets a lot of negative press these days, and one of the main arguments against it is the environmental degradation with which it’s associated. But how much is capitalism itself responsible, and how much are people conflating it with associated phenomena? Are the realistic alternatives any better, or should our efforts be focused on reforming this system, which has already done so much for human flourishing?Russell Galt has many thoughts about the problems with capitalism, but he is...

1 year ago

51 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

40. Should we resurrect extinct species? (Virginia Matzek)

As a result of our success as a species, we have been ushering other species toward extinction for thousands of years. The pace of those extinctions increased markedly with the growth of the world’s population since the Industrial Revolution. But we are now within reach of the “Jurassic Park” -type fantasy of being able to reverse extinctions - to bring back species from the dead. On the other hand, assuming we get beyond the remaining technological obstacles, de-extinction is still a very co...

1 year ago

52 minutes

The Case for Conservation Podcast

39. The global biodiversity targets (Alice Hughes)

Many conservation managers and scientists may not be aware that there is a single, common set of global biodiversity targets that inform national conservation strategy in almost every country in the world. These 23 targets are the main part of the “Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework”, or GBF. The GBF was agreed on by Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in late 2022, and the targets are meant to be achieved by 2030. This is a monumental task, considering that th...

1 year ago

48 minutes