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CONTRIBUTED PAPER
Educating and empowering Australians through a digital
approach to biodiversity conservation
Gareth S. Kindler
1,2
| Nick Kelly
3
| Tim Carden
3
| James E. M. Watson
1,2
1
Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation
Science, The University of Queensland, St
Lucia, Australia
2
School of Earth and Environmental
Sciences, The University of Queensland,
St Lucia, Australia
3
School of Design, Queensland University
of Technology, Brisbane, Australia
Correspondence
Gareth S. Kindler, Centre for Biodiversity
and Conservation Science, The University
of Queensland, St Lucia 4072, Australia.
Email: g.kindler@uq.edu.au
Funding information
Green Fire Science Laboratory; University
of Queensland Centre for Biodiversity and
Conservation Science; Queensland
University of Technology School of Media
Abstract
Despite public support for conservation, Australian government policy
responses have been insufficient for addressing the biodiversity crisis. This sit-
uation represents a disconnect between political decision-makers and the pub-
lic. Digital interventions offer a promising tool for bridging this connection
through education and political engagement at the constituency level. We pre-
sent the conceptual foundations, design, and impact of Threatened
Australians, a web-based application aimed at constituency-based awareness
raising and facilitating political actions. Using a transdisciplinary approach,
we curated nine data sets including species threats and the voting history of
elected representatives to communicate the plight of 1717 species across
151 electoral districts. The app received 17,235 users across all electoral dis-
tricts over a six-week period around the 2022 Australian federal election. We
discuss the design intentions, impact, and lessons learned such as trade-offs in
navigating data limitations and the benefits of following scientific frameworks.
The app demonstrates a case study in augmenting conservation efforts with
digital approaches to bridge the gap between public conservation sentiment
and government policy.
KEYWORDS
conservation, constituency-based action, democracy, digital intervention, education,
interaction design, political engagement
1|INTRODUCTION
Biodiversity loss is among the most pressing environmen-
tal crises of our time (Steffen et al., 2015). Characterized
by a rapid decline in species and the degradation of eco-
systems, it has dire implications for the wellbeing of
human and more-than-human communities (Celermajer
et al., 2023). Despite some conservation victories (Bolam
et al., 2021), the fight to preserve planetary biodiversity is
being lost (Ritchie et al., 2022; Tittensor et al., 2014). The
crisis is being driven by human activities and
the resources they consume, and demand for these
resources is increasing (Leclère et al., 2020; Tilman
et al., 2017). Individual actions such as consuming less
energy are helpful, but system-level changes are required
to have the scale of impact required (IPBES, 2019). As a
consequence, national governments and the policy they
institute are crucial actors in achieving this scale of
change (IPBES, 2019; Watson et al., 2021). A core objec-
tive of conservation is to convince governments to
Received: 13 January 2024 Revised: 19 December 2024 Accepted: 12 March 2025
DOI: 10.1111/csp2.70039
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided
the original work is properly cited.
© 2025 The Author(s). Conservation Science and Practice published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology.
Conservation Science and Practice. 2025;7:e70039. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/csp2 1of13
https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.70039
implement ambitious integrated strategies as laid out in
global conventions (CBD, 2022; Mace et al., 2018; United
Nations, 2015).
Australia's governments can orchestrate significant
progress towards saving the continent's biodiversity
(Bolam et al., 2021). The country is megadiverse and
affluent while also being a leader in historical extinctions
and declines (Creswell et al., 2021). Public opinion within
Australia shows many feel connected to nature with 97%
of the population wanting more action to conserve biodi-
versity (Borg et al., 2023; JWS Research, 2021). Yet, the
policy responses from Australian governments have been
insufficient to curb losses and improve biodiversity's out-
look (Australian National Audit Office, 2022; Creswell
et al., 2021; Samuel et al., 2020). While the Australian
public wants more action, they are generally unaware of
the extent of the problem with 60% reporting that the
natural environment is in a ‘good’or ‘very good’state
(Borg et al., 2023). Consequently, the public who are
responsible for influencing these decision-makers are a
combination of nature-lovers and mostly unaware.
A foundation of democratic systems like Australia's is
that constituents can affect the political process. A con-
stituency is the primary collective context and social sys-
tem for influencing elected representatives of a
government through information exchange and electoral
accountability (Han & Barnett-Loro, 2018; Kindler
et al., 2023; Pande, 2011). The challenge in Australian
constituencies is awareness of the extent of the problem
(e.g., biodiversity erosion) and engagement of individuals
in politically relevant actions such as communication
with existing elected representatives. Key determinants of
the political power that constituents wield is the number
and timing of people engaged, their intensity of commit-
ment, and their geographic distribution (Han
et al., 2022). The conservation movement can expand the
policy agendas of Australian representatives and govern-
ment by educating constituents and facilitating the
expression of their desires for more action.
Digital conservation interventions (DCIs) are a tool
that can help address these challenges of education and
political expression (Wienert et al., 2022). The computer
services, devices, and programs that digital interventions
depend upon are ubiquitous, with usage increasing
(Vromen et al., 2021). The popularity of existing DCIs
(e.g., iNaturalist, BBC Natural History Unit documen-
taries) suggests that shifting the design in ways that raise
awareness on a broad scale and convert it to politically
relevant action has potential (Joly et al., 2018;
Whitelaw & Smaill, 2021). As such, DCIs can develop the
capacity of Australians to express their support for saving
biodiversity through individual actions that encourage
improved representation.
We created the web-app Threatened Australians
(TA) to raise constituency-based awareness and political
engagement to influence the choices of political decision-
makers. In Section 2, we describe the design of TA,
including the conceptual foundations, development, and
deployment. The results focus on the pilot impact of TA
by examining the number of users, how they interacted
with the app, their geographic distribution, and the senti-
ments they shared through the feedback form. We
believe this is the first attempt by a transdisciplinary
team to provide an accessible and engaging web applica-
tion aimed at fostering and converting public awareness
into energy for policy change in Australia. As such, we
conclude with a discussion on the lessons learned.
2|METHODS
2.1 |Design and technical
implementation
The design of TA took on a transdisciplinary approach
with regular evaluations. The design was managed by a
conservation science doctorate student alongside a con-
servation science professor, an interaction design expert,
and a web developer. The team held an initial workshop
with Australian conservation scientists and campaigners,
organizers, and directors from Australian environmental
non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) (World Wide
Fund for Nature (WWF), The Nature Conservancy, Inva-
sives Species Council, BirdLife Australia (BLA), Bush
Heritage, Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF),
Queensland Conservation Council) to receive feedback
on the idea and process. This initial workshop and subse-
quent discussions confirmed the decision on the core
functions of the app (Kelly et al., 2022). During the
design and development phase, the team held meetings
to describe the vision and reassess design decisions. Once
developed to a functional stage, the team held content
and functionality testing workshops with three ENGOs
(WWF, BLA, ACF) and a design workshop with experts
from interaction design as a part of beta testing. Based on
the feedback received, the app was re-designed to accom-
modate requests and advice that were possible within the
resource constraints faced by the team.
We collated data from nine sources for the TA app.
The primary data contained the threatened species from
the Species of National Environmental Significance data-
base, part of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity
Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act) (Commonwealth of
Australia, 2021) (retrieved 1st July 2021). This data
enabled the presentation of 361 threatened animals and
1356 threatened plants across 151 electoral divisions.
2of13 KINDLER ET AL.
Specific seabirds, cetaceans, and other marine species
were excluded as they either did not overlap with elec-
toral boundaries or their range maps were out of date as
determined by the project team (see Navigating data limi-
tations in Section 4). We used “species or species habitat
is likely to occur within area”distributions as this is the
more definitive (than “may occur”) (Lloyd et al., 2020).
We used the 2019 federal electoral boundaries along with
their demographic classification (Parliament of
Australia, 2018). We extracted each of the 151 elected
representative's (referred to as a Member of Parliament
in Australia) voting history from the They Vote For You
API (They Vote For You, 2022) and biographical data
from the Australian Parliament House API. We also
rebuilt the Threatened Species Index (TSX) for each state,
combining NSW and ACT due to data limitations and
geographical considerations. We collected animal images
from the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA) API and manual
searches. We scraped description and habitat data on
each threatened species from the Species Profile and
Threats (SPRAT) Database, and incorporated threat
information from Ward et al. (2021).
2.2 |User experience
The TA theory of change aims to educate and empower
action among Australian constituents and elected repre-
sentatives. Upon first accessing the app, users encounter
a home page with a layperson description of the crisis
and a request for their postcode (Figure 1). The app maps
the provided postcode to a corresponding electoral dis-
trict and displays the Species page. In circumstances
where a postcode is found across multiple electoral dis-
tricts, the user is taken to an intermediary page to select
their district with complementary information. The Spe-
cies page displays a photograph of a singular animal
alongside a description (About me), threatening pro-
cesses (Why am I facing extinction?), and geographic
range (Where I live in your area), and a hyperlinked list
of the plants found in that district (Figures 1and 2). The
user would cycle through the animals in the chosen elec-
toral district, with the animal centerpiece changing and
the plant list remaining the same. The design decisions to
present a carousel and hierarchy of animal over plant
information were because of the absence of plant photo-
graphs and resource limitations. The local Species page
information serves to decrease psychological distance
and help make the crisis more relevant to the user. Other
pages of the TA app include Resources, Browse
(by electoral districts and species counts), About, and
Feedback. The information found across the Species
and other pages aims to achieve two goals: (1) Educate
constituents about the extent and localism of the prob-
lem; (2) Provide further external resources for dialogue
and information sharing. On the Species page, users can
choose to navigate through the list of species found in
that district or go to the How to Help page, which com-
prises four actions or examples of what users can do to
help (Figure 1).
We identified emailing local representatives as the pri-
mary target behavior for the action-focused How to Help
page. The COM-B system posits that behavior change
results from an interaction between three components
(Michie et al., 2014), which we considered in our design.
We supported our primary action by enhancing user Capa-
bility by explaining the state of threatened species and the
importance of government elected representatives to their
recovery. We boosted Opportunity by providing necessary
materials on representatives such as their name, photo,
and email addresses, along with a pre-generated email
template and supporting materials on how to effectively
FIGURE 1 High-level navigation within the Threatened
Australians application. Each panel represents a page starting with
the Home page (1), followed by the Species page (2) and How to
Help page (3).
KINDLER ET AL.3of13
communicate with representatives. We aimed to heighten
Motivation by showing users information about threat-
ened species and their threats through the shared context
of electoral divisions. We incorporated anthropomorphic
design elements by presenting each featured species in the
first-person perspective (‘I') to enhance user engagement
and create a more personal, relatable experience. Second-
ary behaviors included connecting with organizations ded-
icated to the cause, voting for aligned representatives, and
sharing the issue within social networks. These secondary
actions were similarly mapped to how they support and
influence the primary target behavior.
2.3 |Deployment and promotion
Threatened Australians (TA) was made available as a
web app at a domain (threatened.org.au) through browser
FIGURE 2 Other features and pages of the Threatened Australians app. The top row is found on the Species pages, while the bottom
row is found on the How to Help page.
4of13 KINDLER ET AL.
applications on mobile, desktop, and tablet (Figure 1). We
named the project “Threatened Australians”as a gentle
provocation to capture interest and recontextualize the
term “Australians”to include non-human species, thereby
underlining the urgency of socio-political change to pre-
serve the country's biodiversity heritage. The web app was
released on May 2, 2022, prior to the Australian federal
election (May 21, 2022) to increase the salience of the issue
for the election, which was viewed as lacking from the plat-
forms of the major parties (Cox, 2022). We viewed the elec-
tion as a critical time for deployment as it is an infrequent
and high-payoff opportunity for changing political agendas
(McAlexander & Urpelainen, 2020;Wynesetal.,2021).
Accompanyingtheliveversionoftheappwasamedia
release, which was sent out to Australian local and interna-
tional media outlets. Accompanying the release was an
article on the online media site The Conversation along
with efforts being made via social media to promote TA
(Kindler et al., 2022). The app creators personally messaged
organizations and networks of interest asking for airtime
on their platforms. The TA team appeared on 11 radio
showssuchasABCRadioHobartandNorthernTasmania
and 4ZZZ Know Idea. Behind the News, a news program
aimed at primary and secondary students, featured a
broadcast dedicated to TA (Australian Broadcasting
Corporation, 2022).
2.4 |User data collection and analysis
We collected user data across a six-week period from
May 2, 2022, to June 14, 2022. The timeframe was limited
to focus the paper on the election period and due to data
storage limitations. Data was collected from two sources:
passive analytics and an opt-in survey. Google Analytics
4, embedded in the app, captured usage data such as
average engagement time and page views. The analytics
system did not capture information associated with clicks
on the “About me”or other accordions (Figure 2). Usage
data such as the number of users is filtered for known
bots and web crawlers by Google Analytics 4. We
extracted custom and standard reports such as page views
and user acquisition. Usage data was collected from
17,235 users. The usage data underwent preprocessing to
remove incomplete entries and irrelevant anomalies. The
opt-in survey was positioned in the app's header
(Figure 1) and included four free-text and two Likert
scale questions. The survey data was manually filtered
free-text responses to retain only genuine entries. There
were 35 genuine responses from a total of 57. All statisti-
cal analyses were performed using R (v4.3.1; R Core
Team, 2021) and the tidyverse (Wickham et al., 2019), sf
(Pebesma, 2018), and tmap packages (Tennekes, 2018).
We used the Dorling equation (Dorling, 1996) to redefine
the spatial shape of each electoral district to the weighted
variable of event counts. This enables static mapping of
Australia's electoral districts, as due to the large size dif-
ferences, they are not conducive to a choropleth map
(Jeworutzki, 2020; Tennekes, 2018).
2.5 |Ethics approval
This project has been reviewed by the Research Ethics
and Integrity and is deemed to be exempt from
ethics review under the National Statement on Ethical
Conduct in Human Research and relevant University of
Queensland policy (PPL 4.20.07).
3|RESULTS
3.1 |User activity
During the six-week period from May 3, 2022, to June
14, 2022, the app received a total of 17,235 users. An event
is defined as a distinct user interaction with the Threat-
ened Australians (TA) app, such as viewing a page, scrol-
ling, and clicking. Most events occurred across the Species
pages, 474,590 (96%) compared to 21,762 (4%) events on
the How to Help pages. User engagement is the amount of
time someone spends on the app in focus, which allows us
to measure which Species pages received the most atten-
tion. The median average engagement time across the
361 Species pages was 13.1 s. Of those 361, the most
engaged Species pages were the Helmeted Honeyeater
(Lichenostomus melanops cassidix), White-throated
Grasswren (Amytornis woodwardi), and a short-tongued
bee (Leioproctus douglasiellus)(Tables1,S1). Species pages
also encouraged users to explore links external to TA, such
as the Atlas of Living Australia (220 link clicks) (Table S1).
The most clicked domain link was to the Species Profile
and Threats database (3638 link clicks) which encom-
passed multiple link referrals across the app. The second
most clicked domain link explained why plants are just as
important as animals, using the 2016 State of the Environ-
ment Report (1324 link clicks) (Jackson et al., 2016).
The primary target behavior was to increase email
communications between users and elected representa-
tives. The total number of “Email your MP”link clicks
was 838 (Figure 1, Table S1). If we assume that users
(N=17,235) only clicked the email MP link once, then
the conversion rate of users to email MP link clicks was
6.24%. The median number of email MP link clicks per
electoral district was five. The top four electoral districts
which received the most “Email your MP”link clicks
KINDLER ET AL.5of13
were Berowra (NSW, n=41), Ryan (QLD, n=28), and
Grayndler (NSW, n=24). Secondary target behaviors
included connecting with organizations dedicated to the
cause, voting for aligned representatives, and sharing
the issue within social networks (Figures 1and 2). To
support the first, the app provided links to organizations
(Australian Conservation Foundation, BirdLife Australia,
and the Places You Love Alliance) for users to connect
with (Figure 2, Table S1). The cumulative total of clicks
on these links was 209. Communicating with an elected
representative requires understanding how they repre-
sent their constituents. The app displayed They Vote For
You's conclusion on how that representative had “voted
on federal government action on animal & plant extinc-
tions”(Figure 2). Engagement with this information did
not require the user to click on a link unless they wanted
to explore more about representative voting behavior. We
found there were 307 clicks on links to They Vote For
You. The app encouraged people the share the issue and
displayed a reconstructed visualization of the TSX along-
side explanatory text and links to share information on
leading social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and
LinkedIn) (Figure 2, Table S1). The cumulative total of
‘Share this page on’a platform link clicks was 599.
3.2 |User origin and timing
The app was launched on May 3, 2022, ahead of the
Australian federal election held on May 21, 2022. Prior to
election day, 13,415 (78%) users visited the app (Figure 3,
Table S1). The largest acquisition source of users was
from direct input of the TA URL into a web browser
application (7040, 41%). The Australian Broadcasting
Corporation accounted for 3374 (20%) users, followed by
The Conversation with 2245 (13%), Google with 1522
(9%), and Facebook with 1473 (9%).
Every Australian federal electoral district received
user activity. The combined Species and How to Help
pages with the most events aggregated by electoral dis-
trict were Page (NSW, n=9138), followed by Eden-
Monaro (NSW, n=9094), and Ryan (QLD, n=8686)
(Figure 4, Table S1). In comparison, the least number of
combined Species and How to Help pages events was
from the district of Calwell (VIC, n=397) (Figure 4).
Rural districts accounted for most event counts with
194,485 (39%), followed by Inner metropolitan
(n=115,167, 23%), outer metropolitan (n=101,017,
21%), and provincial (n=85,683, 17%) (Figure 4).
3.2.1 | Survey responses
We received 35 genuine responses on the survey found at
the feedback link on the header of the app (Table S1). Of
these responses, 54% of users said they were going to or
probably going to take actions as a result of using the app
(Table 2). While 29% said they were unsure or that they
would not take action. Importantly, 60% of users either
agreed or strongly agreed that the information found on
the app was easy to understand. Each of the questions cap-
tured proportions of empty responses (“NA”)(Table2).
These sentiments are echoed in the free text sections:
“I was really illuminated by this web app-
had no idea there were so many vulnerable
species around me. You often think of
endangered species as being out in the bush
–I'm urban and this was surprising to me.”
“Brilliant electorate based platform to con-
nect people to biodiversity in their area, and
more activate them into electorate level
mobilisations”
“Keeping an eye out for the species, and pos-
sibly contacting my MP”and “Inform our
community group, write to the federal, state
and local members”
At least three users expressed desire for a list of all
threatened species in each electoral division that would
TABLE 1 Top 10 threatened animals ranked by average
engagement time in the Threatened Australians app.
Vernacular and scientific name
Average
engagement
time (s)
Helmeted Honeyeater (Lichenostomus
melanops cassidix)
52.6
White-throated Grasswren (Amytornis
woodwardi)
44.2
A short-tongued bee (Leioproctus douglasiellus) 38.6
Olive Python (Liasis olivaceus barroni) 35.1
Northern Bettong (Bettongia tropica) 29.9
Quokka (Setonix brachyurus) 28.8
Swamp Antechinus (Antechinus minimus
maritimus)
28.8
Yellow-snouted Gecko (Lucasium occultum) 27.6
A native bee (Neopasiphae simplicior) 27.3
Broad-toothed rat (Mastacomys fuscus
mordicus)
27.0
6of13 KINDLER ET AL.
allow them to search or quickly scan as opposed to
click to cycle through species one at a time. For exam-
ple, “It would be good to have a list of the animals/
plants first with links rather than have to click through”.
A few users expressed confusion or dislike by finding
offshore islands being part of their electoral division
despite this being the case in reality, “by going by my
electorate you have included Norfolk Island (which has
been lumped into Bean) threatened species which have
no relevance to me in Canberra 2607”. Multiple users
expressed a discrepancy between their knowledge of
which threatened species are local to them and what
was presented to them. This observation from users
highlights the obsolescence of the Environment Protec-
tion and Biodiversity Conservation Act data as seen in
the user response “it included many species that disap-
peared from the area long ago.”When users were asked
if they have any suggestions for ways that we might
improve the project, a user suggested “I think it would
be extremely useful to add actions for kids to take in the
“what you can do”part”.
4|DISCUSSION
A primary aim of this article has been to elucidate the
design of Threatened Australians (TA) web app including
the conceptual foundations, development, and deploy-
ment. We conceived of the app as targeting the dual prob-
lem of educating and facilitating action among the
Australian public. As such, the two principal objectives
of the app centered on constituency-based awareness
raising and encouraging of political engagement by
leveraging conservation science data near an election.
Following conceptualization of these objectives, the
development, testing, redesign, and deployment all
occurred within a 15-week period. Here, we discuss the
design decisions and themes and how they impacted the
app and users.
Although Australians are mostly unaware of the
extent of biodiversity loss, there is a strong public
demand for increased conservation effort (Borg
et al., 2023). In 2021, nearly a million Australians volun-
teered with environmental charities (ACNC, 2021), and
FIGURE 3 Time series of Threatened Australians app usage including key media events and election day. Acquisition of users from the
corresponding websites (color) and proportion in relation to the total number of users (shaded area).
KINDLER ET AL.7of13
philanthropic giving has increased (MacGibbon, 2022).
TA aimed to raise awareness across the public while
simultaneously empowering the existing community of
Australian environmentalists. Raising awareness was
achieved by providing accessible information about the
decline of threatened species (Figure 2). The app sought
FIGURE 4 Combined event count
from Species and How to Help pages of
the 151 electoral districts organized by
their demographic class and the state
or territory they are encompassed
by. Demographic class is a
classification system used by the
Australian Electoral Commission to
indicate population and land
characteristics (Australian Electoral
Commission, 2022). (a) Non-
overlapping circles (Dorling) cartogram
of the event count (bubble size) of the
electoral districts with a choropleth
map showing the geographical
boundaries (background). Bubble size
corresponds to the number of events
that occurred in each district. Bubbles
represent the geographic region of the
districts and are arranged as close as
possible to the original location of the
district. Heavy clustering of bubbles
occurs in metropolitan areas (Brisbane,
Sydney, Melbourne) where electoral
districts are too small to be represented
alongside their rural counterparts on
an untransformed scale. (b) Vertical
stacked bar chart displaying the event
count (y-axis) grouped by state or
territory (x-axis) and demographic
classification (color).
8of13 KINDLER ET AL.
to empower the existing issue public of environmentalists
by elucidating political information and facilitating indi-
vidual action (Figure 2). The overarching goal was to
influence Australian representatives and drive environ-
mental policy changes. Nonetheless, we acknowledge
that achieving policy victories requires more than indi-
vidual action at the constituency level (Baumgartner
et al., 2009). Despite this, our approach to education and
political engagement fosters problem recognition
and solution-seeking behavior, which are crucial for
motivating individuals to participate in more collective
actions (Goldberg et al., 2021; Raile et al., 2014, p. 204).
Emphasizing the local occurrence of species may
decrease the tendency of individuals to discount species
or declines that are spatially distant (van der Linden
et al., 2015). Mittermeier et al. (2021) showed that when
users could encounter birds native to their own country,
these species garnered more online interest. Building on
these findings, TA aimed to enhance messaging effective-
ness by showcasing species local to the user's electoral
district. This approach sought to make the biodiversity
crisis feel immediate and relevant, rather than something
abstract and distant (Anton & Lawrence, 2014; Kindler
et al., 2023; Kusmanoff et al., 2020). However, this design
choice proved ineffective in the case of large rural dis-
tricts (Figure 4) or those with offshore islands (Table 2),
where some species and users may be greater than
1000 km distant. Despite these large distances, rural dis-
tricts accounted for the most events suggesting either
rural users were more active or metropolitan users were
exploring species beyond their localities. However,
limitations in determining user origin prevent further
analysis of this trend. Examining how users engage with
species attributes such as proximity and charisma offers
an opportunity to detect preferences and optimize future
versions of the app. Collecting generalizable information
about user preferences will require future development,
as the current data collection and analysis structures do
not support these questions. The current data has been
made publicly available to assist in these efforts.
Recognizing calls for more creativity and public
engagement in conservation science (Aslan et al., 2014;
Bennett et al., 2017; Reed et al., 2018), this project dem-
onstrates the application of interaction design in addres-
sing these needs. The development of TA was a
transdisciplinary effort, integrating conservation science,
data science, web, and interaction design (Cooper
et al., 2014). Interaction design played a pivotal role in
helping set clear objectives, employing wireframing,
expert workshops, and functional prototyping (Figures 1
and 2). The result was that user responses to the survey
supported the idea that it was a user-friendly app
(Table 2).
Over the six-week period surrounding the Australian
federal election, the app had 17,235 users, with the
majority (96%) of events occurring on the educational
Species pages. The primary target behavior was to
increase email communication between constituents and
their elected representatives, a goal we realized with
838, or 6.24% of users clicking the “Email your MP”link.
Limitations on the measurement of our impact emerge
from three key factors. First, while our target behavior
metric may seem relatively low compared to the number
of users, comparing it to other digital interventions is
challenging due to substantial variations in platform-
specific attributes and engagement contexts. Second, we
gauged our success in our broader education and political
engagement goals through numbers of users and events
(Figures 3and 4). In the example of our primary target
behavior, we cannot verify an email was sent, the effec-
tiveness of such an email, or whether it was a one off or
resulted in further interaction. Sending an email is also
an individual action which does not account for the
importance of collective action in influencing political
change (Han et al., 2022; Post et al., 2010; Raile
et al., 2014). Third, the optional and opt-in nature of the
user feedback survey delivered a limited sample size.
Users must both notice the feedback option and be moti-
vated to participate (Table 2).
The TA project provides an example of an academic
project operating in an agile, resource-efficient way. This
runs counter to common views that the private or not-
profit sectors need to manage these kinds of projects to
avoid bureaucratic overhead. This was possible in the TA
TABLE 2 Likert scale questions and responses from the
Feedback form on Threatened Australians app (N=35).
Survey question Users, n(%)
Are you going to take any actions as a result of using the web
app?
Yes 14 (40)
No 7 (20)
Probably 5 (14)
Unsure 3 (9)
NA 6 (17)
The information on this website was easy to understand:
Strongly disagree 3 (9)
Disagree 2 (6)
Neither agree or disagree 2 (6)
Agree 13 (37)
Strongly agree 8 (23)
NA 7 (20)
KINDLER ET AL.9of13
project due to its inter-disciplinary nature, drawing on
the expertise of an interaction design expert and a web
developer, who could negotiate design quality and effi-
ciency, as well as a conservation science research depart-
ment that made resources available in a timely fashion.
Such outcomes should encourage more collaboration
between the arms of conservation (White et al., 2023).
The World Wide Fund for Nature Australia, whose team
was involved in TA design feedback cycles, went on to
create a constituency-based project tailored to their audi-
ence called “My Backyard”My Backyard received
103,130 landing page views, with more than 15,416 peo-
ple contacting their local elected representative in
12 months. The scale of action difference may be due to
the ENGO having established advertising channels and
an engaged membership. This membership, which com-
prises a portion of the environmentalist issue public in
Australia, is a powerful component for political engage-
ment (Raile et al., 2014). In comparison, TA had no such
basis of existing engagement and relied solely on a media
release, appearances, and publications (Figure 3).
During the design cycles, the project team was
required to navigate input data limitations that led to a
trade-off. Prior to deployment, the team recognized the
inaccuracy of the data used for the species area of occu-
pancy. We decided in favor of using this data as it
remains the flagship resource provided by the Australian
government to decision-makers, proponents, and the
community. This decision also brought attention to a
2019 independent review, which concluded the database
is not the best available (Samuel et al., 2020). However,
the text that explained this was likely not seen by most
users, as it was on the About page (Figure 2). Among
users who were familiar with their region's biodiversity,
which we perceive to be a minority, this decision led to
skepticism about the app's reliability (Table 2).
The use of theory in the development of digital con-
servation interventions can assist in navigating these
trade-offs and improving their effectiveness (Webb
et al., 2010). The TA project, however, did not integrate a
comprehensive scientific framework due to existing team
expertise and the need for agility amidst resource con-
straints. This exclusion likely affected the opportunities
to systematically evaluate the impact of the project.
Frameworks such as Integrate, Design, Assess, and Share
(IDEAS) (Michie et al., 2014; Mummah et al., 2016;
West & Michie, 2016) provide a structured process, begin-
ning with an understanding of the target audience.
Employing such a framework could have assisted in
designing a robust evaluation system from the outset,
potentially capturing more nuanced data on user engage-
ment and persuasion (West & Michie, 2016). These
insights would have been valuable in refining the
intervention and answering critical questions about the
efficacy of digital conservation interventions in achieving
political engagement outcomes (Han et al., 2022).
The Threatened Australians app demonstrates the
potential and limitations of digital interventions in raising
constituency-based awareness and action to influence the
choices of political decision-makers. While the app
reached over 17,000 users and facilitated communications
between the biodiversity-concerned Australian public and
elected representatives, its development highlighted
important trade-offs between efficiency and systematic
evaluation. Future projects may benefit from using struc-
tured theoretical frameworks like IDEAS to better assess
impact and user engagement. The project also showed that
academic institutions can execute agile, resource-efficient
digital interventions. The app was realized on a fraction of
the budget that was required to produce the complex data-
sets used as the backbone of the app. The subsequent crea-
tion of WWF's “My Backyard”supports the value of
constituency-based approaches, especially when they
engage existing issue publics. These insights can inform
the development of more effective digital conservation
interventions for education and political engagement.
AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONS
G.S.K., N.K., and J.E.M.W. conceived of and designed the
research. G.S.K. drafted the work. G.S.K., N.K., T.C., and
J.E.M.W. worked on the development of discussed topics.
All authors contributed to the article with substantial
revisions and approved the submitted version.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to acknowledge Daniel Dunn,
Skye Doherty, Geoff Heard, Basha Stasak, and Elisa
Bayraktarov.
We acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of coun-
try throughout Australia and their connections to land,
sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders
past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander peoples today, and note that
sovereignty was never ceded. Open access publishing
facilitated by The University of Queensland, as part of
the Wiley - The University of Queensland agreement via
the Council of Australian University Librarians.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
FUNDING INFORMATION
This work was funded by the University of Queensland
Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, Green
Fire Science laboratory, and the Queensland University
of Technology School of Media.
10 of 13 KINDLER ET AL.
DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
The code that was used to process the raw data from the
app is openly available on the OSF at https://osf.io/
2pkrq/, DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/2PKRQ. The cleaned and
analysed data that supports the findings of this study are
openly available as supplementary or on the above OSF
repository.
ORCID
Gareth S. Kindler https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6333-
3473
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SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Additional supporting information can be found online
in the Supporting Information section at the end of this
article.
How to cite this article: Kindler, G. S., Kelly, N.,
Carden, T., & Watson, J. E. M. (2025). Educating
and empowering Australians through a digital
approach to biodiversity conservation.
Conservation Science and Practice,7(4), e70039.
https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.70039
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