Andy Ridley: Crowd Power

Most conservation organisations mirror corporations in structure, operation, and strategy. But has that been effective?

Andy Ridley, founder of Earth Hour and Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef, doesn't think so. He's asking how we build the 21st century conservation operation with the citizen at its heart. 

"The traditional way of doing conservation is 'pass us your money and we'll go and do it.' But we know that hasn't worked at the scale required." 

Andy is betting on harnessing the power of citizenship -- the rights AND responsibilities of belonging -- to create mass engagement in environmental initiatives. 

And he's been successful. Andy's Earth Hour concept — which asks everyone with electricity to simultaneously turn off their lights for sixty minutes  to acknowledge the impact of climate change and our ability to influence that change --  is recognised as one of the largest mass participation movements in history, with hundreds of millions of participants around the world.

Andy’s newest platform is Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef, which serves as a way to engage people all around the world in the future of the reef through citizen science.


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Listen with Lauren L. Hill & Dave Rastovich

Sound Engineer: Ben Alexander

Soundtrack By: Shannon Sol Carroll

Additional music by Wave Brain  - Dave, Neal Purchase Jr. and Christian Barker 

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