Digital Games and Biodiversity Conservation

Digital games play an important role in the lives of millions of people worldwide. The games industry is expanding rapidly, and games are developing in sophistication and complexity. Games (and gaming approaches to other activities) are increasingly being used for serious or social purposes in a wide range of fields, including biodiversity conservation. This paper evaluates the potential of “conservation games” (digital games that promote conservation). It explores ways in which conservation might make use of digital games in the areas of (1) education and behavior change, (2) fundraising, and (3) research, monitoring, and planning. It discusses the risk that games may distract gamers from the real world and its problems or provide misleadingly simple narratives about conservation issues. We conclude that there is great potential for conservation to take more advantage of digital games, provided that conservation games are developed in collaboration with game design specialists, have specific rather than general aims, target a specific and conservation-relevant audience, and (above all) are fun to play.This project was funded by the Cambridge Conservation Initiative Strategic Initiative Workshop Fund.This is the final published version. It first appeared at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/conl.12113/abstract

Provinciality and the Art World: The Midland Group 1961- 1977

This paper takes as its focus the Midland Group Gallery in order to first, make a case for the consideration of the geographies of art galleries. Second, highlight the importance of galleries in the context of cultural geographies of the sixties. Third, discuss the role of provinciality in the operation of art worlds. In so doing it explicates one set of geographies surrounding the gallery – those of the local, regional and international networks that connected to produce art works and art space. It reveals how the interactions between places and practices outside of metropolitan and regional hierarchies provides a more nuanced insight into how art worlds operated during the sixties, a period of growing internationalism of art, and how contested definitions of the provincial played an integral role in this. The paper charts the operations of the Midland Group Gallery and the spaces that it occupied to demonstrate how it was representative of a post-war discourse of provincialism and a corresponding re-evaluation of regional cultural activity

Conservation, evidence and policy

AbstractA growing literature argues for evidence-based conservation. This concept reflects a wider approach to policy-making and follows thinking in medicine, in which rigorous, objective analysis of evidence has contributed to widespread improvements in medical outcomes. Clearly, conservation decisions should be informed by the best information available. However, we identify issues relating to the type and sources of evidence commonly used and the way evidence-based conservation studies frame policy debate. In this paper we discuss two issues; firstly, we ask ‘what counts as evidence?’ (what is meant by evidence, and what kind of evidence is given credibility). We conclude that evidence-based conservation should adopt a broad definition of evidence to give meaningful space for qualitative data, and local and indigenous knowledge. Secondly, we ask ‘how does evidence count?’ (the relationship between evidence and the policy-making process). We conclude that there should be greater recognition that policy-making is a complex and messy process, and that the role of evidence in policy making can never be neutral. In the light of these issues we suggest some changes to build on developing practice under the title evidence-informed conservation. The change in terminology is subtle, yet it has profound implications in that it calls for a re-positioning and re-understanding of conservation science as one source of information among many for decision-makers.</jats:p

The changing patterns of group politics in Britain

Two interpretations of ways in which group politics in Britain have presented challenges to democracy are reviewed: neo-corporatism or pluralistic stagnation and the rise of single issue interest groups. The disappearance of the first paradigm created a political space for the second to emerge. A three-phase model of group activity is developed: a phase centred around production interests, followed by the development of broadly based 'other regarding' groups, succeeded by fragmented, inner directed groups focusing on particular interests. Explanations of the decay of corporatism are reviewed. Single issue group activity has increased as party membership has declined and is facilitated by changes in traditional media and the development of the internet. Such groups can overload the policy-making process and frustrate depoliticisation. Debates about the constitution and governance have largely ignored these issues and there is need for a debate

The Politics of Service Delivery Reform

This article identifies the leaders, the supporters and the resisters of public service reform. It adopts a principal–agent framework, comparing reality with an ‘ideal’ situation in which citizens are the principals over political policy-makers as their agents, and policy-makers are the principals over public service officials as their agents. Reform in most developing countries is complicated by an additional set of external actors — international financial institutions and donors. In practice, international agencies and core government officials usually act as the ‘principals’ in the determination of reforms. The analysis identifies the interests involved in reform, indicating how the balance between them is affected by institutional and sectoral factors. Organizational reforms, particularly in the social sectors, present greater difficulties than first generation economic policy reforms

Introduction : screen Londons

Our aim, in editing the ‘London Issue’ of this journal, is to contribute to a conversation between scholars of British cinema and television, London historians and scholars of the cinematic city. In 2007, introducing the themed issue on ‘Space and Place in British Cinema and Television’, Steve Chibnall and Julian Petley observed that it would have been possible to fill the whole journal with essays about the representation of London. This issue does just that, responding to the increased interest in cinematic and, to a lesser extent, televisual, Londons, while also demonstrating the continuing fertility of the paradigms of ‘space and place’ for scholars of the moving image1. It includes a wide range of approaches to the topic of London on screen, with varying attention to British institutions of the moving image – such as Channel Four or the British Board of Film Classification – as well as to concepts such as genre, narration and memory. As a whole, the issue, through its juxtapositions of method and approach, shows something of the complexity of encounters between the terms ‘London’, ‘cinema’ and ‘television’ within British film and television studies

Half-Earth or Whole Earth? Radical ideas for conservation, and their implications

AbstractWe question whether the increasingly popular, radical idea of turning half the Earth into a network of protected areas is either feasible or just. We argue that this Half-Earth plan would have widespread negative consequences for human populations and would not meet its conservation objectives. It offers no agenda for managing biodiversity within a human half of Earth. We call instead for alternative radical action that is both more effective and more equitable, focused directly on the main drivers of biodiversity loss by shifting the global economy from its current foundation in growth while simultaneously redressing inequality.</jats:p

Five ways to enhance the impact of climate science

Policy-making is rarely driven by evidence alone. Thus, climate scientists who adopt an ‘evidence-based’ mindset, expecting more science to lead automatically to better policy, are likely to be disappointed. Instead, embracing an ‘evidence-informed’ attitude to policy-making will be more productive, recognising that evidence must be deployed in such a way as to interact persuasively with other factors. Using the 5th Assessment Report of the IPCC as inspiration, this commentary argues that climate scientists would do well to consider five ideas and ultimately embrace an evidence-informed approach to presenting evidence.This work is taken from a larger PhD project currently being undertaken in the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge. This work is very kindly funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (grant number ES/I901957/1) and by the Homerton College Charter Scholarship scheme. I would like to thank S. E. Owens, A. Donovan and W. M. Adams for comments, and D. Watson for help with the figures.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available in Nature Climate Change 4, 522–524 (2014) doi:10.1038/nclimate2270 . http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n7/full/nclimate2270.htm

Pokémon Go: benefits, costs, and lessons for the conservation movement

Pokémon Go, an augmented reality (AR) smartphone game, replicates many aspects of real-world wildlife watching and natural history by allowing players to find, capture, and collect Pokémon, which are effectively virtual animals. In this paper, we consider how the unprecedented success of Pokémon Go as a smartphone game might create opportunities and challenges for the conservation movement. By encouraging players to go outside and consider various aspects of virtual species’ biology, the game could increase awareness and engagement with real-world nature. However, interacting with Pokémon could alternatively encourage exploitation of wildlife or replace players’ desire to interact with real-world nature. We suggest a number of ways in which Pokémon Go could be adapted to increase its conservation impact, and how new conservation-orientated AR games could be created. We conclude that Pokémon Go sets a precedent for well-implemented AR games from which the conservation movement could borrow a number of ideas

Trade-offs in linking adaptation and mitigation in the forests of the Congo Basin

Recent discussions on forests and climate change have highlighted the potential for conservation of tropical forests to contribute synergistically to both mitigation (reducing emissions of greenhouse gases) and adaptation (increasing capacity to cope with changing climate conditions). Key mechanisms through which adaptive advantages might be gained include the potential for forest resources to support livelihoods in the context of climatic strains on agriculture and the protection that intact forest ecosystems might provide against landslides, flash floods and other hazards related to extreme weather. This paper presents findings from field research with forest communities in three areas of the Congo Basin in Central Africa, in which the adaptive role and potential of forests in these respects is critically analysed. The investigation was carried out through a combination of structured and semi-structured qualitative techniques within six villages in Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Rwanda. The findings of the research highlight the need to understand both the limits of synergy, and the constraints and trade-offs for rural livelihoods that may be associated with a forest conservation agenda driven by the additional impetus of carbon sequestration. The search for synergy may be conceptually laudable, but if forest management actions do not take account of on-the-ground contexts of constraints and social trade-offs then the result of those actions risks undermining wider livelihood resilience