Bertarelli Summer2024 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 30
of brilliant conservationists, but trying to get
them resources and the know-how so that they
can take on these challenges themselves. And
then, the other big challenge is that throughout the Caribbean, many people are feeling the
effects of climate change. The hurricanes are
getting worse. The droughts are getting worse.
But after these events happen, memories can
be short and we slip into old habits and forget
what we learned. Ultimately, we need longerterm plans to restore and develop these islands
to the benefit of the people and biodiversity.
that means a lot of the data that are being collected and gathered to monitor these projects’
success isn’t going into the literature or be
made readily available to other groups doing
similar work in other parts of the world. We
need help from the academic community to
come and help us investigate more closely
and get the work written up. But on the other
hand, when we’re talking to the decision makers—whether the landowners or the government—sometimes showing a scientific paper
or data isn’t actually what inspires them to
act so much as simply showing a before and
after photo, or taking them to an island and
showing them one with seabirds and one that
looks dead. So we also need help to capture it
visually in ways to show non-scientists what
we are doing and have these more informal
ways of communicating.
Can you explain a little bit more about how we
can best monitor success objectively, and not
just anecdotally?
Daltry: The trouble for conservation practitioners is that doing the work doesn’t leave a
lot of time for writing scientific papers, and
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J O N S L AYER
THE WILD PLACES The Chagos Archipelago includes some of the most biodiverse coral reefs in
the world, but it’s under threat.
