Current Conservation carries the latest in research from the natural and social science facets of conservation, such as conservation biology, environmental history, anthropology, sociology, ecological economics and landscape ecology.
SUBMISSIONS GUIDE
Please submit your stories and pitches to editor.ccmagazine@gmail.com.
- Email subject: Submission_<Type of Article>
- Submission text should have: Name of the author, Title of the article, Date of submission
- File names should be in this format: Initials of Author_ Article Type _ Date of submission in DD.MM.YY format.
- For RITs, the submission must contain the main research paper referenced, as a citation; and the full paper.
We receive a high volume of submissions, so there might be some delays in our responses. But rest assured, we will write back to you.
At Current Conservation, we appreciate submissions that follow all or a majority of these attributes:
- Simple, sensible, and sensitive language
- Original, engaging, & imaginative in narrative
- Sharp observations, and critical perspectives
- Previously unpublished (or, if published before, carrying a Creative Commons license, and with necessary permissions from the original publication).
- Backed by solid research and data
What we don’t look for:
- Romantic rambles about nature and wildlife.
- Technical language, jargon. Our goal is to simplify the crucial work in conservation to cater to a wide range of audiences.
- Dry, scientific writing, or a series of factual statements.
- We publish stories/features/articles that carry elements and observations from research. Please go through our previous issues and our categories to get a sense of the style and content.
Categories to submit under for Current Conservation:
READ
Stories
Feature articles are topical pieces on current issues or research in conservation. These should be thoroughly researched and reflect what is currently known about the topic from published science. We recommend that your stories are drawn from key literature and conveyed through engaging narrative. ( 1200 to 2000 words).
Perspective or opinion pieces are short focused articles on a particular topic that present a particular point of view or argument (typically 750 to 1000 words). Perspectives are usually invited pieces, but you may contact us with a short proposal.
Submission of poetry and prosaic poetry. We welcome poems that are ekphrastic and descriptive in nature.
Articles about conservation and allied disciplines often only cover the results of research, the end product of months or years of data collection and analysis. But field researchers have the most amazing experiences (sometimes more so in retrospect) during their time away from the comforts of civilisation. Sometimes, these may be even more instructive (and often more entertaining) than the research itself. Current Conservation welcomes contributions about field visits and experiences that somehow informed the researcher’s work or their perspective of conservation. (1200 to 1500 words).
Want to review a book on the natural and/or social science facets of conservation? We look for reviews that handle critical takes on subjects covered in the book. We publish book reviews on both current books as well as old classics that have been forgotten or have current relevance. (between 1000 to 1500 words).
People
Current Conservation is proud to introduce a special section dedicated to all the field associates working on projects across the world. This section features stories from the field and memories of working with field associates at various sites. These could be specific incidents or an overall field experience with them. (1200 to 2000 words).
Have an interview with someone interesting in the field of conservation? Write to us with your pitch/submission. To understand the interview format, please look at our previous stories. ( 1500 to 2000 words)
Do you enjoy the challenge of communicating seemingly complex scientific ideas and conservation issues to the general public? This section features submissions of reader-friendly summaries of recently published research papers in conservation science.
The summary (500 to 600 words) should be written in a simple jargon-free way that conveys the nuances of the paper while being easy and fun to read.
SEE
Photo essays should convey an environmental or conservation issue. These visual essays could include 4-6 spectacular images on a particular theme, along with a narrative or captions that provide background and context to the images. Your submission should include lo-res images (under ~1MB each); we will request hi-res images if your piece is selected for publication. (500 to 1000 words)
A stand alone photo that is about the environment with a 2-3 line caption.
Illustration
We welcome illustrators to donate artworks to Current Conservation revolving around the theme of conservation and ecology.
CC Kids
Current Conservation – Kids! is an annual supplement of Current Conservation magazine carrying stories in ecology, conservation, climate change, and the natural world for children between 6 and 14 years old. At Current Conservation, we believe that bringing stories crucial to our times in an engaging and artistic form to children is as important, if not more than, speaking to adults.
CC Kids! is a huge part of the work we do at Current Conservation and welcomes intelligent, interactive, and imaginative stories from different walks of conservation and the natural world.
Categories under CC Kids:
A Day in the Life
Here we focus on stories that walk our young readers through what an average day looks like for a creature, tree, habitat, species, a conservationist, other interesting scientists working closely with conservation, etc. This piece engages the readers through the lens of their subject.
Fun Facts
Self-explanatory. This is a directory of fun facts about your chosen subject, writing in an engaging manner. Think: visually enticing narrative. Eg. Steel is strong. But you know what’s stronger? The thread released by Darwin’s Bark Spider! What not to think: Darwin’s Bark spider releases very tough fibre.
Storytelling
The only category where you could dip your feet into a little fiction. Tell stories about your subject. Draw from mythology, science, and your own imagination!
All stories in CC Kids! have a word count between 800 to 1500 words.
The Emerging Voices section was designed to give our readers a chance to share their love of biodiversity and conservation. Contributions can take a variety of formats, including poems, short stories, and non-fiction (for example, species profiles or descriptions of conservation projects our readers may be involved in). Authors are encouraged to write about what most inspires or excites them, whether this is something they are learning about in school, a local initiative or natural wonder, or something they have personally experienced. Teachers and parents are welcome to help prepare submissions and get in touch with the CC Kids team on behalf of young writers.
Submissions are typically 500-1000 words long.
Author rights and open access policy:
All stories in Current Conservation are licensed under creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This is an endeavour to keep our content free and accessible to all communities across the world. CC Kids! is distributed across schools in India, many of which teach underprivileged children. We believe that funding should not be the factor that deprives children (and all our readers) of the opportunity to learn and engage with the natural world. Considering the crucial nature of conservation work, accessibility is of great importance. Kindly send in your entries only if you consent to your work being open for access.
And while we are on the subject, kindly do consider donating to Current Conservation so that we can continue to bring stories of relevance, science, and imagination to our readers for free!
For more information on Current Conservation’s upcoming themes, keep checking our Facebook and Twitter pages.
Conflict of interest declaration: Be warned: this is a not-so-subtle attempt to recruit writers for Current Conservation!
Download Stylesheet
or Read Stylesheet and Submission rules here.