Let’s be honest, most of us have at some point been involved in a conservation effort that did not go as planned or where the activities implemented simply didn’t lead to the outcomes we were expecting.

If you are interested in turning that experience into something positive, we are interested in hearing from you!

We often talk about the importance of learning from things that don’t go to plan, but finding well documented examples of this in conservation can be challenging. The Cambridge Conservation Initiative Embracing Failures Project is a collaborative effort to improve the way that conservation practitioners record, discuss and ultimately learn from failure.

Why should I participate?

While PANORAMA is focused on documenting and communicating success, it is increasingly recognised that learning from failure often plays a key role in achieving eventual success and that an inability to learn from failure can be one of the key barriers that prevent success from being achieved.

Many of you have submitted solutions on the PANORAMA web platform – perhaps the journey to these solutions involved failure and an adaptive approach? Or you have worked on other initiatives that would not qualify as solutions, but still hold valuable lessons?

By participating in this project, your input from these and other, similar experiences will help develop methods and tools to help conservation practitioners better record, discuss and learn from failure. Participating may also help your own thinking around how to maximise learning from conservation efforts that did not go entirely to plan.

How can I participate?

The project has developed a taxonomy of root causes of failure in conservation. This taxonomy is designed to be used as a tool for identifying, recording and discussing failure in a constructive way, where the primary focus is on learning, rather than apportioning blame.

To test this taxonomy we are looking for conservation practitioners who have been involved in a conservation effort that they consider to have “failed” in some way.

Relevant examples could include: cases of conservation work that did not meet some or all of their objectives, cases that met their short-term objectives but failed to provide the intended long-term impacts, cases where the intended long-term impacts were met but the intervention did not contribute significantly to achieving these or cases that failed initially but succeeded later on (in these cases we are interested in the reasons for the initial failure).

If you have a relevant example, please click on this link, review the root causes of failure in the taxonomy, check ALL the root causes of failure that apply to your example and let us know if anything is missing, unclear or obsolete.

The form is completely anonymous and should take around 5 minutes to complete. We would like to have all entries completed by March 31st 2020.

ANONYMITY DISCLAIMER

All information used in this project is subject to strict anonymity protocols and at no point will we ask for or share any information that could be used to identify specific individuals, locations, projects or organisations.

Additional links

Full draft taxonomy

More information on the projects anonymity protocols can be found here.

If you have any questions please contact Iain Dickson at Birdlife.

 “Communicating climate change: Field work experiences in communicating biodiversity and climate-related topics”

Initiators: Regine Schöneberg (FU Berlin), Dawud Ansari (DIW Berlin & EADP), Charlotte Schuhmann (FU Berlin), and you ☺….

Background:

Concepts like climate change or biodiversity were born and refined in global forums. The respective discourse is being negotiated among politicians, scientists, and the usually highly educated segments of civil society. The concepts are based on a post-enlightenment consensus that humans and nature follow different logics.

However, anyone who conducted transdisciplinary research or organized community-focused activities (including development assistance in the Global South) might have noticed the stark asymmetries while communicating topics related to climate or biodiversity on a local level. Dialogues will typically take place in national forums or global equivalents, which are – in practice – only visible to citizens transiting in the global communities and forums. On the national or even local level, talks on climate- or biodiversity-related concepts usually encounter a lack of awareness and comprehension, often regardless of the stakeholders involved. Even with all presumptions left aside, defining these terms in a standard fashion will usually fail. Hence, we often resort to instead explaining the underlying concepts when co-producing knowledge or implementing policies on the local level. Individual cultural backgrounds can however be expected have a pivotal influence on the eventual path how to communicate climate change and biodiversity.

Project:

We are seeking to compose a paper (planned for submission to Ecology and Society or a similar journal) that shall present case study experiences in the communication of climate-and/or biodiversity-related issues on the local level during field work in different countries and cultural settings. Our contribution shall compare the different experiences and provide a first step towards the establishment of an international understanding of the various ways how to communicate these concepts – and the challenges that arise with it. The study will assist policymakers, development professionals, and academics who perform and communicate related field work.

How did you deconstruct the term climate change or biodiversity? How did you link it up to the local concepts you encountered? Which questions struck you as worth considering?

Format:

800-1000 words attending to the following questions:

•- Context of communication

•- Communication with whom – representation of which interests?

•- Previous contact with the concepts climate change or biodiversity of the respective stakeholder?

•- Which were the biggest hurdles in communicating (about) the concept?

•- How were the challenges addressed? How did you deconstruct the terms climate change / biodiversity? How did you link it up to the local concepts you encountered?

- Which questions struck you as worth considering?

Please contact Regine Schoenenberg & Dawud Ansari if you wish to take part in our project or in case you have any questions. We will collect expressions of interest until March 15th and then come up with a final list of case studies / authors.

PANORAMA – Solutions for a Healthy Planet is a partnership initiative to document and promote examples of inspiring, replicable solutions across a range of conservation and sustainable development topics, enabling cross-sectoral learning and inspiration. PANORAMA allows practitioners to share and reflect on their experiences, increase recognition for successful work, and to learn with their peers how similar challenges have been addressed around the globe.

© 2019 International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources

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