The world doesn’t have to be in the mess it is in.

This week, the HL students will be working on G4 (Conservation of Biodversity) and G5 (Population Ecology). The videos below link to these topics, but the issues are of such current global importance right now, I encourage all students to watch them.

We all know that we need to make changes and take action, but the seeming hopelessness of the situation is a barrier to many.What possible difference could some individuals make?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

In this TED Talk, John Kasaona describes how activation of some the biggest stakeholders on the land in Namibia – the poachers – turned a huge problem into an effective in-situ conservation effort that acts as a role model for active management to the rest of the world. Inspiring and true, this is well worth 18minutes of your time:

In this TED Talk, Willie Smits tells the inspiring story of their project to revive some devastated Borneo rainforest made great use of local people in active management and has provided a habitat for the orang-utans to return. You can also read about it here.

Dan Barber: How I Fell In Love With A Fish (sustainable fisheries). Watching this, think about the following questions:

• In what ways is this an example of active management in conservation?
• What are the measures of ecological health being used here?

And if you’re up for some doom and gloom, swim on over to the population ecology page, where there are clips about how we wrecked the oceans, including some clips from the EndOftheLine. Head on over to their official webpage (with video excerpts). They have a very useful what-you-can-eat widget on their website, which can also be used in pdf format.

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BIS students – the TED talks are saved on the network, so you can put them on your iPods or laptops and watch them when you’re stuck in traffic on the way home.