Coasts, Communities and Charismatic Species: Publicising Coastal Sustainability Projects in the Arts and Humanities – Part 2

In Part 1 of this post, we explored patterns in the use of language by a wide range of Arts and Humanities initiatives taking place along the South Coast that engage with coastal waste management and ocean literacy. While this post focussed particularly on textual messaging, recent scholarship has also emphasised the importance of visuals—including logos, maps, graphs and photographs—for communicating information about climate sustainability. [1]

In this post, we will apply some of these discussions to our local setting, looking particularly at the pros and cons of using ‘charismatic’ species (defined here as those which have an affective or aesthetic value) in environmental project messaging. Charismatic species or charismatic megafauna are usually understood to be large endangered species that are popularly used by media extinction campaigns, such as polar bears, rhinos and tigers. [2] However, some recent work has deployed the term effectively to refer to species closer to home, including native UK seahorses. [3]

The stretch of south coast along which Creative Writing Against Coastal Waste operates is home to two species of seahorse: the short snouted seahorse and the spiny seahorse. [4] As well as being visually striking, they form part of significant marine conservation efforts along the coastline. Following years of work by the Seahorse Trust, Studland Bay has finally been named a marine conservation zone. [5] This renewed attention suggests that the seahorse would be the ideal emblem for ocean literacy work in the south. It is certainly a form of charismatic species in its own right. However, would this instinctive alignment of an aesthetically pleasing species with conservation efforts translate to effective messaging? This is where a closer look at research on the subject can help us out.

As Sarah Belontz et al have recently argued in their article about interdisciplinary approaches to plastic pollution awareness and action, one of the key things to bear in mind before using charismatic species for raising awareness of an environmental problem or generating behaviour change is that the problems are not always as visually compelling as the animals that are used to represent them. Equally, the visually compelling environmental problems are not automatically the most urgent or important. Belontz argues that:

There is a two pronged problem here (1) the images advertised are often very narrow in scope, and (2) the conveyance of information does not necessarily equate to changes in plastics management. A collaborative arts and sciences approach can therefore help yield different results. [6]

Belontz suggests that an interdisciplinary approach to messaging can help to reach different kinds of audiences, and her warnings are also worth bearing in mind in relation to our more locally charismatic figure of the seahorse, since using the seahorse without some form of contextualisation potentially risks presenting a narrow view of our coastal biodiversity.

An additional consideration for any branding is that of ‘arts audience segmentation’. Belontz touches on one form of segmentation in her work by noting that different academic disciplines can have different responses to different issues. Similarly, R. L. Jefferson’s work to map the public’s response to UK charismatic species notes a gendered response to the different marine species they presented in their survey, with women showing the most interest in aesthetically engaging species such as seahorses and anemones, and men more engaged by edible species, such as oysters and cod. [7] How do we account for these various forms of segmentation in visual branding, and how might some images intrigue or alienate different demographics?

Finally, as Kate Manzo has suggested in her aptly-titled article ‘Beyond Polar Bears: Re-Envisioning Climate Change’, even a well-intentioned climate change mascot can imbue audiences with a feeling of powerlessness or futility. Indeed, ‘[p]revious research demonstrates that iconic representations of climate change are often distancing (i.e. making climate change seem far away in time and space) and paradoxical in the way they heighten people’s sense of the issue’s importance while simultaneously making them feel less able to do anything about it. The same image, in other words, may be alienating and disempowering’. [8]

This collection of articles reveals five key questions it is valuable to ask before using mascots that include charismatic species:

How do we combat the feeling of narrowness that focussing in on one species produces, especially in the face of local biodiversity?
What happens when the most attractive species are not representative of the most urgent problems?
Will the imagery we use contribute to instigating behaviour change? Should this even be its function?
How does the species we have chosen interact with different arts audiences? Are the responses positive or negative, and how might this impact project engagement?
Does this species have an alienating effect?

To apply these questions to the UK seahorse specifically, reveals its prime suitability as well as alerting us to potential messaging drawbacks. The first point to make is the interconnectedness between the seahorse and seagrass, which could easily be incorporated in visual branding to offset several problems before they arise. The benefits of seagrass to marine health and biodiversity, as well as the extreme urgency of its conservation, are well known. Crucially, seahorses also cling to the seagrass with their tails in order to avoid being swept away.

Blending these two species could effectively combat both the narrowness of focussing on a single species, while imbuing the seagrass—perhaps less aesthetically effective on its own—with a charisma by association. This combined strategy would also help to offset the difficulty of accommodating segments of arts audiences who are not interested in seahorses. As a local species with a series of established projects along the stretch of coastline in which we are interested, this combined use of seahorse and seagrass could also help avoid the sense of alienation about which Manzo warns, by emphasising locality.

That the seahorse, like any logo, comes with drawbacks is undoubtable. It would be difficult to argue, for example, that seahorse imagery will automatically instigate behaviour change along the south coast. These logos and mascots and the issues they represent need to be contextualised for their audiences, joined up with other pedagogical efforts such as our planned creative writing workshops, and form part of a wider attempt at collective action and knowledge exchange. It is this idea of exchange, or ‘collective’ that lay behind our recent Lightning Talks event with academics and creative practitioners along the South Coast. We’ll feature this event in separate posts in a few weeks time.

[1] Kate Manzo, ‘Beyond Polar Bears? Re-Envisioning Climate Change’, Meteorological Applications, 17 (2010) pp. 196–208

[2] Céline Albert, et al. “The twenty most charismatic species.” PloS One, 13.7 (2018) <10.1371/journal.pone.0199149> [Accessed: 21/06/2022].

[3] R. L. Jefferson, R.L., et al, ‘Public Perceptions of the UK Marine Environment’, Marine Policy 43 (2014) pp. 327–337

[4] ‘Short-Snouted Seahorses’, Dorset Wildlife Trust (2022) < https://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-explorer/marine/fish-sharks-skates-and-rays/short-snouted-seahorse> [Accessed: 21/06/2022]; ‘Long-Snouted Seahorses’, Dorset Wildlife Trust (2022) < https://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/wildlife-explorer/marine/fish-sharks-skates-and-rays/short-snouted-seahorse> [Accessed: 21/06/2022]

[5] ‘Studland Seahorse Project’, The Seahorse Trust (2022) [Accessed: 21/06/2022].

[6] Sara L. Belontz, et al, ‘Embracing an Interdisciplinary Approach to Plastics Pollution Awareness and Action’, Ambio; 48.8 (2019) pp. 855-866. <10.1007/s13280-018-1126-8> p. 859.

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Coasts, Communities and Charismatic Species: Publicising Coastal Sustainability Projects in the Arts and Humanities – Part 2