Hopeful Globe: The Ateneo Wild: Citizen Science for Urban Biodiversity Conservation

Urban green spaces, wildlife and biodiversity provide critical ecological as well as significant psycho-social services. However, rapid urban development has made these more fragmented, limited and even endangered. In this episode, Pilvi Posio from the University of Turku discusses the importance of urban biodiversity conservation and its promotion through citizen science with assistant professor Abigail Favis from The Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. Ateneo de Manila University is located beside a busy thoroughfare and surrounded by commercial and residential areas. It is part of one of the last remaining green corridors in Quezon City, Metro Manila. Its sprawling campus, with around 16 hectares of forested areas and around 27 hectares of open fields and green spaces, is a safe refuge for urban wildlife. Abigail introduces the project Ateneo Wild, which aims to engage community members in biodiversity conservation in this campus area through awareness-building and joint activities. Pilvi Posio is a senior researcher at the university of Turku in a project Finnish-ASEAN Academic Platform for Sustainable Development, run by the Finnish University Network for Asian Studies https://www.asianet.fi/projects/ Abigail Favis is an assistant professor at the Department of Environmental Science and currently the Program Manager for Campus Sustainability at the Ateneo Institute of Sustainability. Transcript of the episode can be found here: www.utu.fi/fi/ajankohtaista/podcast/hopeful-globe Learn more about The Ateneo Wild: The Ateneo Wild: Urban Biodiversity Conservation at the Ateneo de Manila University https://www.ateneo.edu/features/2019/07/23/ateneo-wild-urban-biodiversity-conservation-ateneo-de-manila-university Arete Quick Think: The Ateneo Wild https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvSCe2NYJlQ Joint The Ateneo Wild social media community: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theateneowild/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/theateneowild/