Inclusive biodiversity science

Biodiversity research plays a crucial role in addressing today’s global biodiversity crisis. But, our field faces significant inclusivity challenges, often overlooking or insufficiently recognizing local expertise from economically disadvantaged, biodiversity-rich regions. This oversight hinders comprehensive progress and diminishes the value of diverse perspectives.

To drive real advancement, we must broaden our understanding across diverse contexts and foster meaningful collaborations that amplify the diverse voices of local researchers from such biodiverse regions. Collaboration is a cornerstone in biodiversity research, necessitating improved equitable practices. This means that we need to cultivate environments of open communication and mutual respect, as well as address our own unconscious biases and disadvantageous cultural and historical legacies.

My biodiversity research colleagues and I are preparing a publication addressing the inclusivity issues and we propose strategies to address them.

You can check the preprint here:

Valdez J., Damasceno G., Oh R., Quintero Uribe L.C., Barajas Barbosa M.P., Ferreira Amado T., Schmidt C., Fernandez M. & Sharma S. Advancing Inclusive Biodiversity Research: Strategies for Equitable Practices and Collective Impact. In press in Conservation Biology. Preprint.