News organizations and journalists are important and influential actors in environmental politics. Their reporting on social and environmental issues often follows issue-attention cycles (IACs) that emphasize drama and problematization to maintain public interest. This study examined nearly 13 years of news coverage to understand the media discourse about the Critically Endangered North Atlantic right whale (NARW) and its conservation. Content analysis and critical discourse analysis were used to analyze 356 texts published in six large US newspapers between January 1, 2010 and March 15, 2023. NARW conservation and management received increased public attention and an IAC began in 2017 after an Unusual Mortality Event began, with 75 percent of the sampled articles (n = 267) published from 2017 on. The Boston Globe published a majority of the sampled texts (n = 209) and Globe reporter David Abel was the most prolific journalist with 50 bylines. The coverage featured six themes representing threats to the species, science and technological development, and tourism, local lifestyle, and culture. The most common topic was that of American lobster fishing gear and whale entanglements (n = 162, 45.5%). In that discourse journalists emphasized the political ecology of NARW conservation, focusing on disagreements between whale experts and advocates and commercial lobster fishermen and their allies as they sought to influence decision making by the National Marine Fisheries Service. Journalists presented the issue through a conflict frame and each group used distinct discursive strategies in an attempt to shape the discourse and public opinion related to new or stricter regulations for the commercial lobster fishery designed to reduce the risk of entanglement for NARWs. Findings suggest that this IAC related to NARW science and conservation has already moved through at least three of five key stages and will inevitably lose public interest, which has important implications for future communication and advocacy related to NARW conservation. This case study demonstrates the continued importance of media to conservation – as public forums for discussion, essential parts of organizational strategies for change, and as an externality that can influence conservation outcomes. Support for communication research and practice are vital to successful conservation.

We reflect on the use of photovoice methods in a hybrid classroom environment for an interdisciplinary course titled Climate and Society at the University of Miami. The activities, based on our team's hyperlocal method of community-based climate adaptation engagement, create opportunities to engage with the complexities of climate science and policy solutions in unique and powerful ways. Our principal contribution is a series of exercises that can be done by educators anywhere in the world, providing a foundation for reflection and rich conversations. We conclude with recommendations and tools to aid educators in recreating the exercise in many settings.

In the modern workforce, environmental scholars and professionals need a working technical knowledge of complex social-environmental issues and a mastery of interpersonal skills like leadership, communication, and collaboration. This article reflects on a special topics course offered to undergraduate students in Fall 2021, titled "Survey of Environmental Organizations." Pre- and post-course surveys were given to assess student experiences and outcomes. Results of paired t-tests and open-ended responses show that students gained confidence in their career prospects, developed and practiced professional skills, and benefitted from opportunities to network with professionals in their desired field(s). The principal contribution is a framework for educators who may want to integrate professional skills and career readiness into courses or programs in environmental science.

Digital media, particularly websites, have become a critical component of wildlife tourism experiences, especially during the pretour information-seeking stage. With a focus on whale watching, this study used a grounded theory approach to identify, categorize, and investigate the common themes, text, and images used on 178 whale-watching operator websites across six geographic regions in the US. The results of a content analysis suggest that operators who are predominantly small business owners focus their marketing strategies on elements of their tour offerings and operator characteristics to distinguish themselves from competitors rather than emphasizing the whales themselves, conservation actions, or educational opportunities, catering to a segment of entertainment-oriented rather than sustainability-oriented guests. Ecolabel-certified operators in the sample mentioned conservation and educational topics more, though the information provided could still use improvement. We discuss implications and opportunities for the continued study of media related to whale watching and other marine wildlife tourism activities.

Wildlife documentaries are a form of environmental media widely used in public engagement around sustainability and conservation issues, including biodiversity loss. Two recently released wildlife documentaries, Entangled (2020) and Last of the Right Whales (2021), are the first to tell stories focused on the critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (NARW) through film, despite the species having been imperiled for more than a century and experts sounding the alarm about the population’s decline for decades. While whales are highly regarded worldwide and their conservation has strong public support, the NARW case study is a complicated one due not only to biological and ecological challenges, but also to sociopolitical ones. Without drastic policy actions and changes to industry practices throughout its migratory range, the NARW may disappear within decades, becoming the first great whale species to reach extinction since the industrial whaling era. In this article we address a gap in current environmental media and documentary studies by engaging critically with Entangled and Last of the Right Whales and considering them within the socioecological contexts they showcase and aim to influence. Our findings indicate that these two films share an important environmental problem with their viewers but fail to overcome some important pitfalls that limit the ability of environmental films to achieve collective action and policy change. We use this case study to highlight opportunities and challenges associated with wildlife documentaries more broadly, specifically, their role in biodiversity conservation in the Anthropocene. We conclude with opportunities for future interdisciplinary research and collaborative practice that can help wildlife films to achieve more than accolades for filmmakers and mere general awareness of conservation challenges.

With increasing urgency of local and regional climate adaptation, there is a growing need for governments to identify and respond effectively to the concerns of communities they serve and to align investments. We designed and piloted a novel hyperlocal method for urban adaptation planning combining two social science tools that have been widely but separately used to foster community engagement and strategize solutions. Our not-for-profit community partners facilitated multi-session online workshops with participants from two communities in South Florida with whom they have well-established relationships and in which socio-economic conditions and climate risks represent notable vulnerabilities. The workshops first employed photovoice to elicit individual narratives about climate change impacts; participants then followed a design thinking protocol to critically evaluate the leading concerns they identified and propose adaptation solutions. Geospatial mapping and data tools were provided for participants to gain additional tools and further knowledge. Local planning and resilience officials attended some or all of the workshops as observers and interlocutors, dialoguing with participants. Comparative analysis revealed differences in risk awareness and primary concerns between communities, and further demonstrated that concerns and solutions proposed by members of at-risk neighborhoods do not always align with geospatial data that often drives infrastructure adaptation planning in the region, suggesting that more widespread use of community engaged methods could enhance government climate adaptation responses for local communities.

In 1994, the United States government removed the Eastern North Pacific gray whale from the Endangered Species List due to its recovery rather than extinction. This notable action also marked the first removal of a marine mammal from the List due to population recovery since its enactment in 1973. The gray whale case study is well documented, in large part due to the charismatic nature of whales, a deep regard for marine mammal species, multiple federal laws and international treaties involved in their management and recovery, and a series of legal cases involving the Makah tribe in its pursuit to resume cultural subsistence whaling. The events leading up to the gray whale’s listing as endangered, the actions taken by both the US and the international community, and some of the events since the species’ delisting creates a unique and comprehensive case study that provides space for reflection on the future use of environmental laws to protect and preserve species, including, but certainly not limited to, large cetaceans in the Anthropocene.

The emergence of ocean and human health (OHH) science as a distinct scholarly discipline has led to increased research outputs from experts in both the natural and social sciences. Formal research on communication strategies, messaging, and campaigns related to OHH science remains limited despite its importance as part of the social processes that can make knowledge actionable. When utilized to communicate visible, local issues for targeting audiences, OHH themes hold the potential to motivate action in pursuit of solutions to environmental challenges, supplementing efforts to address large-scale, abstract, or politicized issues such as ocean acidification or climate change. Probing peer-reviewed literature from relevant areas of study, this review article outlines and reveals associations between society and the quality of coastal and marine ecosystems, as well as key themes, concepts, and findings in OHH science and environmental communication. Recommendations for future work concerning effective ocean and human health science communication are provided, creating a platform for innovative scholarship, evidence-based practice, and novel collaboration across disciplines.

We examined editorial board composition for aquatic science (AS, n = 217) and communication (CM, n = 308) journals indexed in Scimago's database in 2017 to explore geographic diversity, relationship between location of editors and their board members, and geographical relationship between editors and scientific output. We found that most journals in both fields are published in Europe (AS 50%, CM 62.3%) yet editors in AS (n = 6,194) are based mostly in Europe (35.7%) whereas editors in CM (n = 13,687) are based mostly in Northern America (47.8%). Chief editors are inclined to choose board members from their own geographical region, and this is commonplace regardless of geographic region. Scientific output is greatest in Europe (28.6% AS, 30.4% CM) followed by Northern America. In general, the number of editors per region aligns with each region's scientific output, although we found editorial underrepresentation for East Asia (AS) and South Asia and Europe (CM). Per country, relationships are idiosyncratic for each field and nation with notable editorial surpluses (when paired to scientific output) in the United States and the United Kingdom (both fields) and editorial deficits in China and India (both fields).