The PhD journey is multicoloured - incredibly fulfilling at times, gruelling and lonely at others. As young researchers who have traversed this road, we wanted to share our stories of hope and struggle. We share our personal battles with mental health, and the tips and strategies we have found to help.

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In early 2019, I travelled to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam to conduct research on the consumption of meat from wild animals in local restaurants. I had shortlisted a few restaurants where this consumption took place and had the opportunity to visit some of them.

The restaurant we walked into was…

The most obvious impacts of illegal wildlife trade are on the individual tigers, orchids and lizards that are caught and sold.  However, illegal trade  can cause a series of cascading impacts, including on species conservation, rural communities, culture, science, and public spending. 

These huge costs are…

General introduction

In many fieldwork-based conservation studies, things do not go according to plan. A great many research projects in conservation circles generate positive or negative results or both which make…

As 2021 begins, we are at a precarious time in both human and natural history. Human-made objects now outweigh all living things on planet earth, and over 8,000 species are threatened with extinction due to human actions(1). This is drastically undermining the capacity of nature to…

Most business models of the 21st century have a net negative impact on nature. They fundamentally rely on using natural resources – oil for fuel, land for infrastructure, cotton for textiles – with few incentives to replace or regenerate what is lost. As of 2020, human-made materials outweigh all living things on…