Why Innovations in Art and Culture Matters in the Quest for Solutions to the Global Environmental and Biodiversity Crises: Introducing the Journal of Innovations in Art and Culture for Nature Conservation and Environmental Sustainability

Abstract

Global communities are facing serious environmental and biodiversity crises. The prevailing condition is threatening the existence of life on Earth. There is a need to proffer solutions from diverse academic disciplines to salvage this environmental threat that keeps escalating every day. This editorial paper is aimed at introducing the Journal of Innovations in Art and Culture for Nature Conservation and Environmental Sustainability (JINCES) with the overarching goal of promoting discourse between scholars working in the interdisciplinary, intradisciplinary, and multidisciplinary fields of art, culture, environmental sustainability, and nature conservation. The work relies on studies in innovation by demonstrating that art and culture are significant components in offering proactive solutions to the global environmental and biodiversity crises. We conducted a scoping review that largely relied on the published works of the authors, who are the editors of the journal, on the nexus between art, culture, and nature/environmental conservation while involving the loud voices in this field to join the discourse. The editorial discusses the need for artists and cultural experts to be innovative while transcending beyond their usual silo roles of awareness creation to collaborative practical projects with other scholars to forge more fortified weapons to ameliorate all forms of nature and environmental degradation. Our position is that it is only when scholars in art and culture become innovative would they be able to find a more robust approach to saving the environment and its rich biodiversity resources.