1/6 Is #Conservation ultimately effective?
Is our research and practice sufficient, in an emergency?

Building from work with @clairefrwordley in @NatureEcoEvo, I think the answers are a clear Noand No

#DICECON20 #ConEffect1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-0979-y

2/6 Cons actions can be effective – they save from extinction & slow deforestation

But we are still rapidly losing nature. We win battles, but we’re losing the war. Badly

Why? We address symptoms not causes, & our (unspoken) theory of change is faulty

#DICECON20

3/6 Is there another way to catalyse change?

Civil disobedience or non-violent direct action (NVDA) was instrumental in many great social & political changes of 20th Century

They were dangerous dissenters then, but they are history’s heroes now

#DICECON20 #ConEffect1

4/6 Since 2018 NVDA has changed the conversation on climate

- Climate emergency declarations (gov + local gov)
- First binding targets
-media attention
- Massive public concern
- Changing behav. norms

But nature is being left behind https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-13964-y

#DICECON20

5/6 Saving the biosphere means system change. Another paper won’t do that, but NVDA might

Conservationists have never been neutral, objective observers – ours is a value-driven science. So the question now is tactics

#DICECON20 #ConEffect1

6/6 Our conservation science and practice is essential, but it’s not sufficient. This is an emergency, let’s act like it

Please join @ScientistsX and @ExtinctionR, and support those taking the struggle for nature to the streets

Thank you have a baobab flower
#DICECON20