Rachel Carson Prize shortlist: People and Nature award for Early Career Researchers 2024

The Rachel Carson Prize is awarded by the British Ecological Society each year for the best paper in People and Nature written by an early career author at the start of their research career. Today, we are pleased to present the shortlisted papers for this year’s award, based on the previous (6th) volume of the journal.

In alphabetical order by surname, this year’s shortlisted candidates are:

Abebayehu Aticho	Birds as sacred ‘children of god’, beholders of spirit and symbols of twinhood: Human–bird interaction among the Nuer in western Ethiopia
Elizabeth Carlen	A framework for contextualizing social-ecological biases in contributory science data
Monica Fahey	Araucaria bidwillii genomics suggest Indigenous Peoples broadened translocation practices in response to settler colonialism
Mireille Gonzalez	Characterizing social conflict over wolf reintroduction in Colorado: A theoretical model of intergroup conflict
Rocio López de la Lama	Not in it for the money: Meaningful relationships sustain voluntary land conservation initiatives in Peru
Valentino Marini Govigli	Exploring spatial and temporal resilience in socio-ecological systems: Evidence from sacred forests in Epirus, Greece
Allyson Menzies	Sharing Indigenous values, practices and priorities as guidance for transforming human–environment relationships
Holly Nesbitt	Social networks and transformative behaviours in a grassland social-ecological system
Aurelio Padovezi	Native seed collector networks in Brazil: Sowing social innovations for transformative change
Kevin Rozario	The more the merrier? Perceived forest biodiversity promotes short-term mental health and well-being—A multicentre study
Kaisa Vainio	Do you have a tree friend?—Human–tree relationships in Finland

The winner will be selected in the coming weeks, so please monitor the BES social media and website for future announcements.