Now anyone can save Planet Earth

At the recent TEDx University of Edinburgh event Zac Baynham-Herd talked about his passion for wildlife and his ideas for utilising digital technology in conservation. His talk describes how we are both inspired, and motivated to act, by the personal connections that we make with natural world, and asks whether digital platforms could reconnect us to the natural world and provide those personal connections needed to inspire action. In particular, Zac outlined his ideas for a new, direct, peer-to-peer model of conservation, which he suggests might both encourage greater support for conservation projects, and empower more local people to gain support for smaller-scale grass-roots conservation projects. However, it’s clear that such a new model could present novel social and environmental challenges and so Zac is interested in exploring the viability of the idea more critically during his PhD.