Stress Success

Photo by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hopetoun_falls.jpg">Diliff</a>, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

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Are prophecies of conservation doom self-fulfilling? That’s the intriguing argument put forward in a new paper in Trends in Ecology and Evolution by Australian researchers Stephen T. Garnett and David B. Lindenmayer.

In “Conservation science must engender hope to succeed,” the authors suggest that relentless communication of an impending mass extinction is failing to motivate politicians, policy makers, or the public, and is likely to be counterproductive:

Researchers need to provide the science not only for the campaigns lamenting environmental loss, but also, most importantly, for those celebrating the effectiveness of conservation. 

The authors acknowledge the immense challenges facing global biodiversity. Yet they remind us of enormous achievements of the past 50 years:

  • South Korea, almost denuded after the Korean War, now boasts forest cover across more than 63 percent of the country.
  • In Namibia, wildlife populations are increasing.
  • South Africa has completed a major expansion of Kruger National Park.
  • Iraqi engineers have reflooded the Tigris–Euphrates marshes.
  • Pioneering legislation has slowed species loss around the world, including the Bird Directive of the EU, the Habitats Directive of the EU, and the US Endangered Species Act of 1973.
  • In Australia, large-scale land clearing has been halted and most of the rainforest in the country is now contained within World Heritage sites.
  • The largest marine protected area in the world was recently enacted by one of the poorest nations on Earth, Kiribati.
  • The Antarctic Treaty has conserved more than 14 percent of our global land area—18 million square kilometers/6.5 million square miles—for longer than 50 years.

Garnett and Lindenmayer propose that scientists and communicators stress success via three actions:

  1. Hold a series of international conferences with published proceedings devoted entirely to describing successful conservation programs that have led to positive outcomes.
  2. Instigate journal editorial policies that promote the publication of papers highlighting successful conservation actions. Instigate special issues highlighting positive policy changes and achievements. Such journal policies are required because—the authors suspect—there’s a bias towards citations of doomsaying papers.
  3. Complete interdisciplinary scientific research on the factors underpinning effective, successful, and sustained conservation. Do this in multiple settings at multiple scales, and use this research to boost future conservation effectiveness.

The paper:

  • Stephen T. Garnett and David B. Lindenmayer. Conservation science must engender hope to succeed. Trends in Ecology and Evolution. December 2010. DOI:10.1016/j.tree.2010.11.009.

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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