Deependra Joshi
Wednesday, October 15, 2008 - 3:30-4:00
Conservation community in Nepal has competed to highlight conservation successes alone, and given much less attention to mobilize public support for conservation education and awareness. This is quite understandable, but end result is that policy makers have been only modestly affected by the views of conservation communicators. In order to have necessary policy impact on biodiversity conservation, policy makers need to better understand the critical role of communication, education and awareness in improving people's capacity to address environmental and development issues that are of greatest concerns to the people and institutions which determine how budgets are allocated, where resources are put to action, and what impacts they have made in generating education and awareness for conservation. In addition, policy makers need to recognize that conservation is largely about people management and capacity—not technical issues—and depends, therefore, on effective communication and education. They need to recognize the need for education and awareness to secure active involvement of all sectors and levels of society that have a stake in conservation. Important factors of success include communication, education, awareness, choice of media and tone where conservation communicators can make greater contributions than they have to date. This paper draws on the niche between mainstreaming all inclusive education and communications into existing conservation policies that provide practical guidance to policy makers to help build a degree of sustainability into the lives of people who are dependent on natural resources for livelihood.
Keywords: COMMUNICATION, EDUCATION, BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION, POLICY MAKERS, PEOPLE'S PARTICIPATION