Editor’s Note

This issue brings together old problems and new possibilities. First, the old. We interview Corey Bradshaw about that permanent elephant in the conservation room – human population growth. Corey argues, provocatively, that there are no “quick fixes” to population growth, and that therefore, conservation action will be better-served by focussing elsewhere in the near future. GBSNP Varma spotlights a Nature paper that examined threats faced by over 8000 species on the IUCN red list and found that agriculture and over-exploitation of species continue to remain the most important drivers of biodiversity loss.

Now, for the new: Anjali Vaidya writes about the work of anthropologists Piers Locke and Paul Keil, who are trying to build a bridge between ethnography and ethology to better understand human-elephant interactions. Caitlin Kight discusses a project that’s using cameras to remotely monitor nests of the critically-endangered Californian Condor.
And of course, like always, this issue also features exciting new content in our old (and not-so-old) regulars: the second volume of CC Kids, a Research in Translation piece by Vrushal Pendharkar on why sparrowhawks come in different colour morphs, and reviews of Paolo Bacigalupi’ s novels by Caitlin Kight.