News Published: 18 October 2024

BGCI is excited to announce that we have a brand new podcast starting next week! This first series of The Understory Podcast will cover BGCI’s work at the CBD COP-16 happening in Colombia. This first series is hosted by Communications Officer, Rebecca Hansell, and co-hosted by Megan Barstow, BGCI’s Conservation Policy Manager.

We are delighted to have interviewed so many great guests to gain insight into the announcements taking place, hopes for outcomes, and importance of conversations happening at CBD COP-16. Interviewees include BGCI staff, along with representatives from organisations such as PlantLife and Reverse The Red.

We cannot wait to share this with you all! Subscribe now to be the first to listen to new episodes!

About the hosts:

Rebecca is BGCI’s Communications Officer, since starting with BGCI in 2022, she has made it her mission to make the science behind BGCI’s work more accessible to those who want to learn more. Prior to working at BGCI, Rebecca worked with animals and enjoyed using her scicomm skills to document beach cleans, native shark births, reindeer re-introductions, and the conservation value of zoos and aquariums. Since joining BGCI, her highlights have been working on the Wollemi Pine Metacollection and presenting a workshop at 8GBGC. Having recently graduated from her part-time Environmental Studies degree with The Open University, she is now expanding her horizons as to what Science Communications can look like, with particular interest in audio, visual, public speaking, and creative arts. You can find out more about her ongoing exploration into scicomm by visiting her website.

Megan is BGCI’s first Conservation Policy Manager and has worked at BGCI for eight years. First as an intern preparing GlobalTreeSearch, second as a Conservation Officer in the Global Tree Assessment team working on timber tree assessments for the IUCN Red List and with GTA partners in Southeast Asia to deliver assessments. Megan has worked in BGCI’s policy team since April 2024. She has a particular interest in dipterocarp tree species (see the two red list publications she co-authored for the group) and a particular career highlight is working on the release of the State of the World’s Trees report in 2021. Megan’s current work primarily focuses on improving data capture and availability to assist in conservation and sustainable management of CITES tree species. She is also the secretary to BGCI’s new campaign to tackle the illegal plant trade. Her first task in the new policy team was preparing BGCI’s technical review on this subject which came out earlier in 2024. 

Credits & Special Thanks:

Series 1 of BGCI: The Understory Podcast was written and researched by Rebecca Hansell and Megan Barstow, with assistance from Carly Cowell in the first stages of development. This trailer was edited by Rebecca Hansell using Audacity. The music is by elemontary-music and the sound effects are by Trading Nation, both were sourced from Pixabay.