Conversations About Conservation in Academia with Chris Parsons

Last week in episode #21, I talked about the importance of voting for the conservation of wildlife. This is the perfect follow-episode!

I interview marine scientist and science communicator Dr. Chris Parsons of the Speak Up for Blue Network. Chris has decades of experience working in conservation and knows that you cannot separate politics from wildlife. 

In this episode, we talk about Chris’ vast experience working in conservation, but also about two recent papers he authored (links in resources section) on how conservation is perceived in academia. It’s really changed a lot within the past few decades.

As scientists must go through degree programs, how does this new relationship between research and conservation affect conservation as a whole?

Even if you are not an academic, you will enjoy this far-ranging conversation. You’ll learn what conservation really looks like in practice and how frequently it has little to the science of the animals we’re studying.

Specifically, we talked about:

• Why conservation isn’t being favored by academia
• How conservation differs from scientific research
• The consequences of academia moving away from conservation
• What is advocacy and activism
• Why scientists tend to veer away from these words to describe themselves
• Why scientists should not be afraid of advocacy and activism (and many are already practicing it)

Full show notes here: https://stephanieschuttler.com/chris-parsons/

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