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Tag: science advocacy

Writing an Effective Ocean Advocacy Letter

Posted on July 19, 2018April 18, 2025 By Angelo Villagomez
Policy

Earlier this year, Andrew issued his Summer Science Outreach Challenge: Write an Op-Ed.  Inspired, I thought I would straight up steal Andrew’s idea and give a few tips on writing an effective advocacy letter, the type of letter you’d send to a government official to ask them to help protect the ocean.

In my conservation career I’ve written hundreds of letters to all levels of government, from agency staff to presidents.  Advocacy letters are one of the more effective tools in the arsenal of conservation tactics.  They are a great way of communicating a message directly to a targeted person (assuming the letter gets read, of course!) and are a great way to kick off a discussion on protecting the ocean between concerned citizens and government officials.  Here are a few tips:

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Time to release the Kraken ! Addressing controversial questions in marine conservation

Posted on September 30, 2016October 2, 2016 By Chris Parsons
Conservation, Uncategorized

A few years ago, we organized a group of marine conservation scientists to meet to discuss, and list,  the most urgent issues that need to be studied. The resulting paper  came up with 71 questions which urgently needed to be addressed, because a lack of an answer was severely impeding marine conservation. However, during this exercise we also came up with a list of other questions – these were issues that were controversial, that everyone  knew were important, but were unwilling to raise as being an issue. These were the Voldemorts of marine conservation questions (they that shall not be named), the elephant (or elephant seal) in the room questions …. or as we more aquatically termed them: “the kraken in the aquarium” questions.

love-a-kraken

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Huge win for orca advocates as #SeaWorld announces an end to circus-style shows, orca breeding and pledges more conservation

Posted on March 17, 2016March 17, 2016 By Chris Parsons
Conservation

 

orca SeaWorld Orca-Shutterstock

Earlier today SeaWorld announced to the media that it was making major changes in its practices when it comes to marine wildlife. The announcement comes after years of bad publicity and failing stock prices as the result of the documentary Blackfish, criticism from marine mammal and marine conservation scientists and an unrelenting social media campaign by online activists. The changes announced are a major paradigm shift for the company and include:

Read More “Huge win for orca advocates as #SeaWorld announces an end to circus-style shows, orca breeding and pledges more conservation” »

WhySharksMatter interviews Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: Should scientists be advocates?

Posted on August 9, 2010 By David Shiffman 3 Comments on WhySharksMatter interviews Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: Should scientists be advocates?
Uncategorized

Earlier this year, Andrew, Amy and I wrote a series of posts called “get to know your fry-entist” which expressed our views on science and advocacy. I was happy to see that last week’s Ecological Society of America meeting had an entire symposium dedicated to this important topic. It was entitled “above the din but … Read More “WhySharksMatter interviews Senator Sheldon Whitehouse: Should scientists be advocates?” »

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