Games in and of themselves are great; but games that also do good are awesome. Good World Games had the crazy idea that maybe games are more than about having fun and entertaining your brain for a few minutes here a few hours there, although that is important stuff. What if games can change the way people behave in their real world lives? What if games can get people reflexively helping out noble causes as naturally as they do laundry, brush their teeth, or drive to work? What if giving just became apart of what we do everyday?

The game is also educational, teaching children the importance of environmental and animal conservation and their own responsibility in caring for the Earth.

MyConservation Heroes: Interview with Danielle Brigida | Good World Games

Danielle Brigida is a self-proclaimed wildlife geek and works as the Digital Marketing Manager for the National Wildlife Federation. She actively engages a wide range of constituents using a mixture of online tools and social networking sites. An early adopter of social media with creative, engaging campaigns, Danielle has been recognized as one of the 75 Environmentalists to follow by Mashable and a featured Changemaker by Change.org; A Measurement Maven of the Month by Katie Paine. She’s a sought after speaker with more than 20 appearances over the past year. She’s spoken at conferences such as South by Southwest (SXSW), PR News Digital Media Summit, Blog World, Nonprofit Technology Conference, Netroots Nation, as well as several webinars.

In the second episode of MyConservation Heroes, I speak with Jon Hoekstra, a senior scientist on the Nature Conservancy’s Central Science team and the director of conservation science for The Nature Conservancy’s Washington State program.

Jon is a global science leader who collaborates with experts from around the world to develop innovative, practical solutions to conservation problems based on top-notch science and real-world experience. Previously Jonathan served as the science lead for the organization’s efforts to restore the Gulf of Mexico in the aftermath of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and also has at various times directed the Conservancy’s Global Climate Change Program, Emerging Strategies Unit, and Global Habitat Assessment Team. He is the lead author of The Atlas of Global Conservation and more than 30 other scientific publications. You can follow him on Twitter @JonHoekstraTNC.

Jon was kind enough to take time out of his schedule to discuss his responsibilities, the necessity of conservation and his passion for salmon, among other topics. Listen to the interview with the streaming audio player above or read the transcribed interview here.

We at Good World Games are thrilled to announce the launch of our podcast, tentatively called MyConservation Heroes, where we interview active conservationists and environmental activists. We’ll be using Soundcloud to share and broadcast these conversations. Our first interviewee is Stephanie Wear, marine biologist and director of coral reef conservation for the Nature Conservancy.

Stephanie Wear is a marine scientist and the director of coral reef conservation for the Nature Conservancy. She began working with the Conservancy in 2001 with the Caribbean Program, where she managed all conservation projects for the US and British Virgin Islands.
Stephanie’s work focused on developing a network of marine and terrestrial protected areas and she was instrumental in establishing the USVI’s first territorial marine park. While in the Virgin Islands, she worked with local fishermen, NGOs, government agencies, community leaders, and stakeholder groups to get them involved in solving their local conservation problems. She currently supervises Reef Resilience, a global coral reef conservation program with TNC that operates in over 70 countries.

I spoke with Stephanie about the most important species to conserve, her motivation and her advice for aspiring conservationists. This interview hops right into our conversation, but future interviews will have nicer production value, I promise. Listen to the interview with the streaming audio player above, or read the transcribed interview here.