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Why Good Ocean Science Still Doesn't Lead to Action · How To Protect The Ocean

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  We may already know how to protect large parts of the ocean, but that
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  knowledge often fails to reach the people making the decisions.
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  This is the How to Protect the Ocean podcast, your weekday ocean news update.
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  If you care about staying informed about the ocean every weekday, hit
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  that follow button right now so you don't miss tomorrow's story.
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  There's a common assumption in conservation.
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  If scientists discover something important, governments and the
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  public will eventually respond, right?
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  That's how it always works, isn't it?
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  But no, that's not always what happens.
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  In fact, that rarely happens.
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  There's growing evidence that one of the biggest platforms in
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  conservation is not a lack of science.
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  It's a communication gap, a gap between researchers, policymakers, industries,
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  media systems, and the public.
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  And that gap can slow down real action.
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  So today's question is this: Why does so much important ocean science struggle
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  to reach the people who need to hear it?
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  Now, this is one of the things that I love to talk about.
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  It's all about communication, so we are going to get into it.
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  Researchers often call this the science practice gap.
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  Scientists may publish strong evidence about ecosystem decline,
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  fisheries management, climate impacts, or even marine protection.
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  But translating that science into policy is much harder
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  because the problem is timing.
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  Science research moves very slowly.
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  Politics moves unpredictably, and social media moves instantly.
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  That creates a huge disconnect.
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  By the time important findings reach public discussion, the online conservation
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  may already be focused on something else.
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  Like, even just think as an analogy.
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  If some scandal happens on social media, say with an influencer.
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  Say, you know, somebody from Love Island cheated on the partner that they
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  won the Love Island with, and I don't know anything about Love Island, so
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  I don't know if this happened worse.
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  Just heard my daughters talking about earlier today.
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  If that happens, if there's a scandal in real life, like after the show has
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  been shot and aired, that becomes a scandal for like maybe twenty-four hours.
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  If they're lucky, forty-eight hours.
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  And then it just disappears, like nothing ever happened.
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  That's the same thing that happens on social media with even ocean research.
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  You see it pop up for maybe a day, maybe two, and then it just disappears.
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  But the research that's actually driving that took about three to four years.
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  So that study happened, like the field work happened as
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  early as like five years ago.
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  It it takes so long to write, and then you have like two days,
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  maybe maximum, of attention on it.
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  And that could go to a lot of just different media outlets.
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  It's going on social media, and people may or may not talk about it, and
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  sometimes they talk negatively about it, even though they did a lot to have this
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  wonderful campaign go out and then all of a sudden people just misinterpret
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  it and just don't believe in it.
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  Like, there's a lot of stuff going on, on social media.
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  There's also that.
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  So the timing really sucks.
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  And of course, another problem is accessibility.
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  Scientific papers are often written for specialists, and they're
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  only available for specialists.
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  They use technical language.
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  They're hidden behind paywalls.
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  Like, it costs $40 probably around that US to access if you
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  don't have a subscription, which are like tens of thousands of
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  dollars, to a science magazine.
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  It costs $40 per article just to get access to it.
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  Now, there are ways around it.
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  You can reach out to the researcher personally and be able to do that,
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  but not every researcher's gonna be able to handle hundreds of people
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  trying to get access to the data.
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  And then there's the technical language.
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  That it has to do it.
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  And they may not clearly explain what everyday people should care about.
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  Like when I went to school, I did a plant biology class right before I
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  did my master's, because I remember I had to redo a semester just to show
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  that I could get good marks, 'cause my undergrad marks weren't the best.
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  But regardless, I had to do this.
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  I did this class, and it was great.
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  There was only two people in the class.
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  It was a fourth-year class.
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  It was plant biology, which it wasn't my strong suit.
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  But the great part about that class is every class we
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  would have to read a paper.
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  And then during that class, the professor would go through and ask us
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  questions about the paper and then talk about how everything was set
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  up, the methodology, what we thought about it, the interpretation, the
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  introduction, all these different types of things, and you're just
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  like, "Wow, this is really cool.
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  I can actually do a lot with this." And I learned so much, and I was trained
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  so well in learning how to interpret and how to read this type of paper.
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  So for someone who hasn't done the training or spent the money to go to
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  university to train how to read these papers or even write these papers, it can
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  be a difficult thing to understand, right?
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  We're not used to this type of terminology.
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  Don't forget the acronyms that we use in science, which is like sometimes I
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  don't even understand what's going on.
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  And then of course, there's the fact that misinformation spreads
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  so quickly because it's simple, emotional, and easy to share.
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  And then that really puts a damper on things.
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  That puts conservation scientists in a difficult position.
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  Because as scientists, we need an accuracy.
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  We also need clarity, but we don't always get that.
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  We can't always display it because science is not easy, and sometimes
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  it's not gonna be good news.
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  Oftentimes, it's not gonna be good news, and nobody wants to hear bad news.
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  They wanna hear good news.
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  And so when you start to go out or you start to clarify something,
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  like, I remember when Seaspiracy came out as a documentary on Netflix,
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  horrible, horrible documentary.
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  But when scientists came out to speak out on it, we were the bad people.
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  We were the bad scientists who were ruining everybody's day.
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  It said, "Don't eat fish ever again." So all the people who didn't like to eat
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  fish or were all about environmentalism, they're like, "Don't eat fish, don't
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  eat fish, Seaspiracy." But Seaspiracy is just chock-full of misinformation.
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  It is horrible.
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  Like, I remember that was when Clubhouse, the app, was out.
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  I had rooms where I would be discussing this, and I was doing the discussion,
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  telling people all the misinformation that was in it, and nobody believed me because
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  it was so easy to believe the other part.
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  It was so easy to believe the movie.
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  So it's a very difficult position that we're put in when
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  we're trying to do this type of communication because it's complex.
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  But the thing is, is today's ocean issues compete with everything else online.
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  It competes with politics.
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  It competes with entertainment, celebrity news, and of course, there's
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  algorithms that change all the time because people don't wanna necessarily
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  see scientists all the time, and the attention spans are extremely short.
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  And that means communication style matters enormously.
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  A strong story about whale recovery may spread widely.
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  A detailed fisheries management update probably won't, even if the fishery
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  story has a larger long-term consequence.
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  This is one reason why podcasts, documentaries, and digital creators are
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  becoming more important in conservation.
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  They help translate complexity into stories people can understand.
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  And that translation matters because public understanding
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  affects policy pressure.
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  It affects funding.
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  It affects voting.
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  It affects consumer behavior.
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  And honestly, some of the biggest ocean debates today are
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  really communication battles.
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  Think about deep sea mining, plastic pollution, offshore drilling, marine
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  protected areas, seafood traceability.
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  The science matters, but the public narrative matters, too.
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  And I think that's what's really important when we're talking about communication.
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  It's important to not just start social media for the
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  sake of starting social media.
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  You don't just start a TikTok account and you start posting
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  and hopefully it goes the best.
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  That's not always what's gonna happen.
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  When you have to start communicating, which we're a position where
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  communication is key, as we just documented this entire week.
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  You have to come out with a plan.
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  You have to have a strategy.
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  And sometimes it's difficult to come out with that strategy.
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  And that's why the sponsor of this episode and this podcast, Pisces
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  Oceans, which I work for, by the way,
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  we're a consulting firm that works with nonprofit organizations,
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  for-profit organization, academic projects that are collaborative.
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  We work with these organizations and companies and projects to help amplify
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  their message, to help come up with a strategy that will build them towards
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  a better future, a stronger funding and long-term funding, but also getting
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  their message to the right target audience so that it makes a difference,
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  not just to the science community, not just to the policymakers, but to the
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  people that will help drive the policy.
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  So if you are interested and you have an organization or a company, whether
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  you're trying to do something good for the ocean, check us out, piscesoceans.ca.
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  That's piscesoceans.ca.
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  I'm gonna put the link in the show notes.
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  I want you to have a conversation with us.
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  We are always willing to help you and your organization do the good work of
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  protecting the ocean, so piscesoceans.ca.
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  If you wanna get a hold of me and talk to me directly, you can just
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  hit me up on LinkedIn or any of the socials that I have in the show notes.
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  Check that out.
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  I'd love to have that conversation.
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  Okay, so let's look at it.
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  What's gonna happen next when we're talking about this type of communication?
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  I think conservation organizations are starting to recognize the challenge
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  more clearly because I've seen job postings for communication specialists,
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  job posting for communication manager.
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  You now see more investment in science communication, storytelling,
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  public engagement, and digital outreach more than ever.
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  And some research projects are building communication strategies directly into
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  their planning 'cause when you plan for funding, there's usually a piece,
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  a percentage of that grant that is all dedicated to science communication.
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  That's where Pisces can come in and come and help you do that.
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  Others are partnering with journalists, educators, and creators, or they're
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  looking at consultants like myself.
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  And honestly, I think it's necessary because the ocean affects everybody.
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  Food systems, climate regulations, jobs, coastal economies, extreme weather, like
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  we just saw a super typhoon go through Saipan and just obliterate a lot of the
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  buildings and cause flooding everywhere, and that is seven years or six years
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  after their last super typhoon that took out schools where they never actually
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  rebuilt it even before this super typhoon.
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  So extreme weather is a huge aspect in this.
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  With all these other things I've talked about, ocean affects everybody.
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  But if people don't understand those connections, the public urgency
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  becomes much harder to build and conservation actually slows down.
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  The goal is not to oversimplify science.
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  The goal is to make it understandable enough that people
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  can engage with it because people protect what they understand.
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  And the challenge is no longer just discovering ocean problems
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  and the trends that come with it.
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  It's making sure the right people actually hear the science
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  to stop a number of these ocean issues from actually happening.
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  So if you find this interesting and you have any questions, you can hit me up
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  in the links in the show notes below.
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  But if you haven't followed this podcast, please follow How to Protect
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  the Ocean podcast for your next weekday ocean update, which will be tomorrow.
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  We're gonna be talking more about nonprofits.
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  And then on Friday, we're gonna be interviewing James Meissner.
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  He's a nonprofit consultant, talks about how ocean nonprofits can succeed in
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  today's world and what kind of strategies.
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  He has a lot of great tips in there.
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  We had a couple of problems with connection on my end with the interview,
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  but hopefully I can edit that part out and it'll come out smoothly.
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  You don't wanna miss that episode on Friday, so hit
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  that follow button right now.
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  And until tomorrow, this has been another exciting episode of the
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  How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrew Lewin.
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  Have a great day.
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  We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.