TARA SAYURI WHITTY, PhD
I am a social-ecological conservation researcher and educator, project evaluator, curious traveler, ocean enthusiast, writer, dilettante-ish language learner, ally-collaborator & Communication Regulation Partner (CRP) to my amazing minimally-speaking autistic brother, and a generally-concerned-with-social-justice human. I also make really good seitan.
Enjoy!
CONSERVATION PERSPECTIVES
Why we need conservation realism
Welcome to the Conservation Realist publication!
In the conservation world, there are often starry-eyed calls for optimism. “Hope spots” and “bright spots.” A common rallying cry: “We have to show that it’s not all doom and gloom!”
What’s often ignored is that there is a vast and rich middle ground between optimism and doom. It’s realism. And we need more of it to be incorporated in mainstream conservation conversations and actions.
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Global Conservation & My Disregarded To-Do Lists
Global Conservation & My Disregarded To-Do Lists About a year ago, I had a mini-revelation about international conservation that madeContinue reading “Global Conservation & My Disregarded To-Do Lists”
Journey Mapping: A research tool for empathy
As a conservation researcher whose work focuses on the interactions between conservation efforts and communities, a critically important part of my job is to better understand people.
Design Thinking & Conservation
With thoughtful and responsible use, Design Thinking can substantially contribute to more effective, equitable, and ethical conservation practices.
TRAVEL
A Street in a Strange World
An old bit of musing that I wrote while leaving Jakarta after a whirlwind – yet tedious – visit to process…
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Not in my country: From across the Pacific. With timeless words from Freya Stark. And some links.
Travel, if done thoughtfully, makes us feel more like citizens of the world rather than being defined by the perimeter of…
Keep readingPERSONAL ESSAYS
Skies Revolve
It is oppressively sunny, blaring, glaring. I’m in the upstairs living room with heat streaming in the rows of windows, sitting compressed under the heavy air, bleary eyed, frantically hunched over the computer, disheveled.
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Minutes & lifetimes
Minutes & lifetimes Ten minutes. Ten minutes of sitting on the edge of a pool somewhere in a suburb of Jakarta, eyes closed, breathing steadily, legs dangling in the water as I tried to not let the occasional mosquito fly-by distract me. At the…
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Rounds of the Sun: Commemoration in a time of Pandemic
Rounds of the Sun: Commemoration in a time of Pandemic My father died in 2018, of pneumonia following a brutal flu infection. The experience of watching him wither away on a ventilator, and the profound, immense world of emotion and realization that I fell…
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