Our approach to trainings, workshops, and outreach centers the participants – what do they want to learn or practice, how do they want to engage, and how can we design (and evaluate and adapt) programs and activities to be truly inclusive and effective?

TRAININGS

We generally take a multi-layer approach to developing trainings:

  1. Core mindsets and skills: Critical thinking, systems thinking, and mindfulness
  2. Knowledge: Broad background information (as needed) for the topic at hand, then efficiently moving to specific information needed
  3. Specific technical skills: The skills needed to carry out work in the given topic/area of interest, ranging from cross-cutting skills (e.g., Microsoft Office, presentation skills, data entry and management, writing) to research methodologies (e.g., interview techniques, field surveys) to basic project management (e.g., preparing a research budget).

Trainings include: Foundational skills (e.g. proposal and report writing, research design and processes, interview methods, data management, academic reading for ESL students, presentation skills; critical thinking, systems thinking, mindfulness); Specific topics (e.g. rapid assessment of marine megafauna bycatch in fisheries, gender issues in natural resource management, marine conservation topics, presenting research to stakeholders); Research team training

FACILITATION
Facilitation experience in: stakeholder consultations; research and planning workshops; discussion-based research symposium for stakeholders

OUTREACH
Outreach examples: Village awareness campaigns on marine mammal conservation; public presentations; guiding outreach strategy for Myanmar Coastal Conservation Lab

Moment

I told Papa all about what you’ve been doing, all of your great progress. I saw him, fleetingly, this morning. He was thrilled, of course. Profoundly. In awe, with that gentle, groundswell of a “Wow!” and raised eyebrows and wide, beaming eyes. That’s it. That’s all I got, before my rational mind kicked in. ItContinue reading “Moment”

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.

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.

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 end of yet another harried day of passively commuting through Jakarta’sContinue reading “Minutes & lifetimes”

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.

Design Thinking & Conservation

With thoughtful and responsible use, Design Thinking can substantially contribute to more effective, equitable, and ethical conservation practices.