A practice-based research project: 

I am carrying out a qualitative research project to better understand the challenges and best practices when designing and implementing community conservation programs. I am particularly interested in case studies and field experience with programs involving communities in: sustainable agriculture/ agroforestry, sustainable fishing, biodiversity monitoring and wildlife protection. In this context,  I am searching for professionals who could share their experiences and reflections on community-driven conservation programs, through an online interview / conversation (30-45 min). 

Why participate:

Although I cannot compensate interview participants,  I hope to offer ideas, reflections and suggestions to the table - based on my experience leading design innovation in other contexts. 

I am privileged to have co-designed innovative farmer programs that went beyond established implementation models, leveraging intrinsic motivation and community bonds. My hypothesis is that similar approaches could potentially be applied to drive systemic change for conservation. So, these interviews are meant to be more of a conversation, an exchange of ideas and knowledge. The high level insights from this round of interviews would potentially be published as an online article, accessible to anyone working in conservation and interested in learning how to improve community programming. 

Why am I doing this?:

I believe that understanding the drivers and barriers of human behaviour in relation to environmental challenges is essential in order to design sustainable and transformative community programs. I am also a firm believer in design innovation, prototyping and exploration as a process for finding better, more impactful solutions to complex problems. 

If this sounds in any way interesting, please comment below or email me at yanna@designfollowsinsight.com with "Community conservation research" as the subject line. Please include in your email:

• Your name, role/ area of expertise
• Type of community program(s) that you would like to talk about
• Your timezone and any preferences you might have for our call (channel, dates or times etc)

Who am I:

I am a practitioner, an independent design researcher - helping social and environmental impact organisations to design innovative solutions that address complex challenges, focusing on human behaviour. If you are curious, here are some brief project examples.