A new way to discover nature

Alumna Roz Evans (Conservation Biology and Ecology 2014) has realised her goal of starting a self-publishing magazine about nature and bioscience news.

With articles written by practicing academics and photography by award-winning artists, Roz hopes Biosphere will provide a fresh face to science journalism. “We're hoping to be the go-to resource for wildlife-science enthusiasts to stay up to date and indulge in the latest discoveries from the natural world,” She said.

Having recently graduated from the Cornwall campus with a First, Roz saw an opportunity in Biosphere - “it's a resource that I honestly feel like we need, and it isn't out there at the moment. There are brilliant natural history magazines and incredibly informative scientific journals, but there's nothing in between,” said Roz. “We want to bring all of the hard-science wildlife research and tell it in fun and exciting ways in one publication.”

She was inspired partly by her experience as a student, creating a small magazine with a similar theme. With the Kickstarter funding and more experience under her belt, she wants to make Biosphere bigger and better.
Kickstarter is a crowdsourcing platform that allows people to support projects they want to see come to life through pledging however much they want.

Biosphere went beyond its Kickstarter goal – raising a total of £6,672 from 272 backers to fund the start-up and production costs. “Kickstarter was a fantastic platform for us to launch on - it creates a great feeling of excitement and collaboration. It also creates this feeling of honesty where you can drop the act and stop pretending you're some big ready-made business. People love that you're a start-up and new - it's fresh and that's what they want to support,” Roz said.

Honorary graduate Steve Backshall is also supporting the program. He has helped with several other University projects, including a trip to Cambodia to study the biodiversity on the small island of Samloem 

The team behind Biosphere release their first issue in October.

Find out more on their website http://www.biosphereonline.com/, you can also read more on their Kickstarter page.