If a Frond Falls in the Kelp Forest (does it make any sound?)
Science is at the core of ocean conservation. Protecting nature and restoring it to a healthy state requires that we understand how nature works, and that means science. As a result, conservation is likely to be dominated by the scientificmindset, which i
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If a Frond Falls in the Kelp Forest (does it make any sound?) The Pew Oceans Report as a Case Study of Communicating Ocean Conservation Randy Olson
Science is at the core of ocean conservation. Protecting nature and restoring it to a healthy state requires that we understand how nature works, and that means science. As a result, conservation is likely to be dominated by the scientific mindset, which is fine when it comes to the actual practice of science. But when that mindset begins spilling over into associated disciplines such as socioeconomics, policy, politics, and, most important, communication, the entire practice of conservation can become handicapped. That is what this chapter is about—understanding how “science think” can impede the effective communication of ocean conservation. I’m going to use the first person in this chapter. I’m going to talk about communication, and if we know one thing about effective communicators, from Dostoyevsky to Mark Twain, it’s that they generally speak in the first person. As in, “This is what happened to me.” It’s simply the most personal, and therefore the most powerful, voice.
Ideas vs. Events In 2002 I was told that the Pew Oceans Commission Report was going to change America. J.B.C. Jackson (eds.), Shifting Baselines: The Past and the Future of Ocean Fisheries, DOI 10.5822/978-1-61091-029-3_3, © Island Press 2011
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That’s what I heard as Dr. Jeremy Jackson and I were beginning to assemble the basic ideas for our Shifting Baselines Ocean Media Project. I heard this from the communication directors of several major ocean conservation groups, and I heard it from Andy Goodman, communications consultant to the Environmental Defense Fund with whom I met for advice. He and others advised us to not bother exploring new ways to communicate ocean conservation because, as he put it, the Pew Report was poised to dominate the American media landscape. Any other communication effort would just end up being distracting “noise.” The Pew Oceans Report was the result of a three-year, $3 million study funded by the Pew Foundation to assess the condition of America’s coastal oceans. It was billed as the most comprehensive assessment of U.S. oceans in thirty years—since the Stratton Commission Report of 1969. Other communications experts told me that the findings were so devastating that, once released, they would appear on the covers of Time and Newsweek, and would dominate the evening news for several days. From all directions I heard, “You better brace yourself, it’s going to have a big impact.” There was some justification for these great expectations. After all, the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill hit the mass media so hard it became a major catalyst in the birth of the modern American environmental movement. Furthermore, the decline of whales in the 1970s and syringes washing up on the beaches of Long Island in the 1980s put ocean issues on the covers of Time and Newsweek. So it’s not like it hadn’t happened before. But the Pew Report was some
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