Nature Creative Commons and Forest Carbon Futures

Nature Creative Commons is an initiative to foster critical data literacies surrounding biodiversity loss and climate change as a way of addressing these entangled crises. This initiative is convened by the Hummingbird Collective, an interdisciplinary group made up of communicators, scientists, artists and designers based in the diverse territories colonially known as British Columbia. Our key project aims to address the increasingly dire impacts of industrial forestry on biodiversity, the climate, community wellbeing and more, and to counter the prevalent misinformation that justifies these practices as carbon neutral. Through this project, we are leveraging creative practices for data representation to co-design open-access, educational and visually engaging materials – from data comics to videos, curricula and more – that dispel misleading discourse surrounding forest carbon and related topics. In this way, we aim to equip communities with the tools needed to navigate misinformation and advocate for evidence-based forest practices and policies.

This initiative is linked with a doctoral research project, Forest Carbon Futures which explores creative avenues for data representation at the confluence of the ecological and climate crises. Forest Carbon Futures is supported in part through funding by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).