Editor’s Comments: Striving for Harmony

By Melinda Gammon, Guest Editor 

and Secretary of NESCB

"The problem, then, is how to bring about a striving for harmony with land among a people many of whom have forgotten there is any such thing as land, among whom education and culture have become almost synonymous with landlessness. This is the problem of conservation education."

Aldo Leopold

       In December of 2004, the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (IAFWA) held a summit on the status and future of conservation education in state and federal agencies. Afterwards, the North American Conservation Education Strategy (NACES) was drafted and approved, outlining their major goals in conservation education (details can be found at www.iafwa.org). The New England Chapter of the Wildlife Society (“TWS,” see http://www.wildlife.org/chapters/newengland /index.cfm) held a meeting on April 7 of this year, to present highlights from the summit.  

       Two of the articles in this issue of Conservation Perspectives (“The Perfect Storm”, by Jacob Faibisch and Sally Guynn and “Using Education to Reach Conservation Action Objectives” by Judith Silverburg) were presented at the TWS meeting. Faibisch and Guynn write candidly of the divisive “on-the-ground” agency conservation education issues underlying the NACES goals. Yet, they see hope and real management solutions to these problems, causing them to stand out from a partially doubtful and frustrated room of state agency employees. Judith Silverburg and Nicole Weber’s articles look at the education itself, examining how agencies and teachers can create citizens that both value and understand nature, the perfect harmony.  

           Many of the challenges behind the NACES goals are not unique to government agencies, but extend to schools as well as non-profit organizations. For example, Faibisch and Guynn acknowledge changing demographics as a factor behind a decrease in interest in fishing and hunting at state parks, while Weber gives examples where social, economic and cultural differences within a student body can impact the effectiveness of any environmental lesson plan. We encourage all educators to visit our extensive links webpage in this issue, for K-12 resources and beyond.     

 

NACES goal one: To elevate the value of conservation education within the agencies.

        Conservation education programs and personnel are often not treated equally. Why is this, when conservation education should lead to greater public awareness and appreciation of an agency’s parks and services? Perhaps this is because outreach to the public is a relatively new idea in the history of agencies that were originally created for management purposes, as Judy Stokes outlined in her historical presentation at the April 7^th meeting. It may also be that existing programs are not substantial or effective enough to gain respect.

 

Goal two: To develop and advance a unified IAFWA conservation education agenda.

          There is no national agency standard for conservation education, and 2004 summit participants themselves could not agree on a definition. One summit attendee mentioned in a response survey that the national summit never answered what was the purpose of conservation education. Rather, it was concluded that conservation education is the process by which agency conservation goals are reached, whatever they may be. This leaves state organizations with more freedom and less direction than they’d like. This is like teacher frameworks, where it is clear what students are expected to learn, but is left to the teacher to make this happen, based on training. State agencies are being called to transform themselves into more modern agencies without this training. One TWS member said he was “the first to admit that [he is] out of touch with who the new target audience is supposed to be.” The employee base is mainly older, white, rural, male, and is shrinking.  

 

Goal three: To achieve excellence in conservation education.

          Excellence in something that has not been defined is problematic. A bigger problem is the decline in angler and hunter licenses, the bread and butter of agencies, as other funds are limited due to budget cuts and unstable federal funding. Most conservation education money is currently focused on convincing more people to buy fishing and hunting licenses, “even if they never use them” (TWS member). Alarmingly, up to 60% of USFW agency revenue comes from the sale of fishing and hunting licenses, and these sources of income have been decreasing, although New England is less affected. Agency employees are deeply opinionated on why there are fewer licenses sold, and on how to solve problem. Are adults and children too busy for the outdoors? Is the mainstream so detached from farm life and sustenance hunting that they see gaming as unworthy or antiquated? Are gun laws and poor hunter’s safety education partly to blame? If a lack of safe and healthy habitat access the main reason for the decline, increased recruitment may be an uphill battle, never mind potentially irresponsible. As a vegetarian and pacifist outsider, hearing complaints at the meeting about the Brady Bill, and the rising number of children unfamiliar with gun use was surprising, but more shocking was the thought that license recruitment and gun safety courses could be classified as conservation education. I think everyone can agree, in any case, that it is not excellence.  

          Public education has its own, sometimes contradictory challenges when it comes to conservation education.  The No Child Left Behind Act solidifies a trend in education for standardized testing at all ages, allowing far less time for field trips involving outdoor education. It also creates more work for teachers to develop their own curricula, since many states do not require conservation education in their frameworks. As a result, awareness fades from the public, a serious obstacle that Nicole Weber addresses in her article concerning the development of an environmental education lesson or program. This general lack of interest or knowledge puts even greater pressure on agencies to develop an appreciation and understanding of wilderness in children and adults, when that has never been their primary role.

 

Goal four: To maximize partnerships.

          Reaching out to NGO’s and NPO’s is critical for both education and monetary support. Agencies need plans with specific goals that can be measured and monitored. For example, Judith Silverburg, in her talk “A New Vision to Meet New Challenges,” gives examples of local successes in public outreach. One NHFW project restored pine barrens around Concord, NH, through controlled burns and the planting of Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis), to provide food for the endangered Karner Blue Butterfly (Lycaeides melissa samuelis). They measure the success of this project through the monitoring of the butterfly populations. The key to the impact in the case of the Karner Blue, is involving all potential interested parties, from the land owners to the local students who grew the lupine seedlings. Her stories, conservation education expertise, and concrete suggestions helped to counter the confusion and frustration expressed by many agency employees in the Q&A at TWS meeting.

 

Goal five: To secure funding.

          Although it may be easier to talk someone into an angler’s license for one season, the end result of true conservation education may have farther reaching affects.  The hunting and fishing population is certainly still a valuable political and financial group, and it would serve common goals if they could unite with the conservation education experts to reach out to still more citizens.  

          Finding new, reliable sources of funding will require new skills at all employee levels: skills in finance, public relations, and, of course, real education and interpretation.