Implementing a social-ecological systems framework for conservation monitoring: lessons from a multi-country coral reef program

Recently Georgina's work on integrated social-ecological systems monitoring and evaluation for coral reef management with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) was published in Biological Conservation. Featured previously in the Conservation Planning Blog, the work has been ongoing since 2016. To learn more, see the following media release from WCS (the original version can be found … Continue reading Implementing a social-ecological systems framework for conservation monitoring: lessons from a multi-country coral reef program

New paper: Who trusts whom in the Great Barrier Reef? Exploring trust and communication in natural resource management

Trust is an important element of social capital that is increasingly recognized as integral to effective natural resource management, yet the concept remains relatively unexplored in the environmental social sciences. In a new paper led by Tracy MacKeracher and co-authored by myself, Amy Diedrich and Nadine Marshall, we examined trust in the context of management of … Continue reading New paper: Who trusts whom in the Great Barrier Reef? Exploring trust and communication in natural resource management

Perceptions of Cyclone Preparedness: Assessing the Role of Individual Adaptive Capacity and Social Capital in the Wet Tropics, Australia

Given projections of future climate-related disasters, understanding the conditions that facilitate disaster preparedness is critical to achieving sustainable development. In a new paper led by Anushka Sandanam and co-authored by myself and Amy Diedrich, we examined whether people’s perceived preparedness for a future cyclone relates to their: (1) perceived individual adaptive capacity (in terms of flexibility … Continue reading Perceptions of Cyclone Preparedness: Assessing the Role of Individual Adaptive Capacity and Social Capital in the Wet Tropics, Australia

Conversation piece – Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef: going beyond our backyard to protect the reef

This article was originally published in The Conversation here. From place-based to problem-based campaigns, we are seeing a rise in initiatives aiming to foster collective environmental stewardship among concerned citizens across the globe. These international communities have arisen to meet new environmental challenges and seize the opportunities presented by our increasingly connected world. Traditional approaches to … Continue reading Conversation piece – Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef: going beyond our backyard to protect the reef

Disaggregating ecosystem service values and priorities by wealth, age, and education

Ecosystem service research has made much progress toward conceptualizing and valuing nature’s benefits to people. People need nature’s benefits to live healthy, fulfilling lives with fresh water, clean air, and nutritious food. Yet until the 1990s, these benefits were often undervalued or completely missing from policy. Natural capital and ecosystem services thinking emerged to remedy … Continue reading Disaggregating ecosystem service values and priorities by wealth, age, and education

Bali workshop on social-ecological monitoring and evaluation

Georgina recently participated in a workshop on social-ecological monitoring and evaluation hosted by the Indonesian branch of Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The workshop was held in a beautiful villa in Bali; work-travel can have its benefits! Georgina is working with WCS, primarily Emily Darling who is leading the project, to develop a global social-ecological monitoring … Continue reading Bali workshop on social-ecological monitoring and evaluation

New paper: Integrated conservation and development: Evaluating a community-based marine protected area project for equality of socioeconomic impacts

Georgina, Bob and others recently published a paper examining the equality of socioeconomic impacts of a marine protected area project in Indonesia. The paper was published in a special issue of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B - "Measuring the difference made by protected areas: methods, applications and implications for policy and practice”. The … Continue reading New paper: Integrated conservation and development: Evaluating a community-based marine protected area project for equality of socioeconomic impacts

NEW PAPER: Efficient and equitable design of marine protected areas in Fiji through inclusion of stakeholder-specific objectives in conservation planning

A new paper on integrating socioeconomic considerations into spatial prioritization, led by Georgina Gurney and other members of the Conservation Planning Group, is now online in Conservation Biology . In this study we evaluated two key aspects of incorporating socioeconomic factors into spatial prioritization: treatment of socioeconomic factors as costs or objectives and treatment of … Continue reading NEW PAPER: Efficient and equitable design of marine protected areas in Fiji through inclusion of stakeholder-specific objectives in conservation planning