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Society for Conservation Biology 16th
Annual Meeting July 14-July 19 2002
co-hosted by DICE and the British Ecological Society
Abstracts for Education and Outreach
Tuesday 16th July, 15.30 - 17.30, Eliot
Lecture Theatre 2
Chair: Sue Dale Tunnicliffe
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timetable
(BLOCK CAPITALS indicate the presenting author)
15.30 - 15.45
ZULKA-SCHALLER, GERTRUDE, Klaus Peter Zulka, Barbara-Amina Gereben-Krenn and
Peter Sziemer. Natural History Museum Vienna, Education Service, Burgring 7, A-1014
Vienna, Austria, <gertrude.schaller@nhm-wien.ac.at> (GZS, PS) and Institute
of Zoology, University of Vienna, Althanstraße 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria (KPZ,
BAGK).
HABITAT FRAGMENTATION ON THE TABLETOP — HOW TO COMMUNICATE CURRENT CONSERVATION PROBLEMS
Metapopulation biology, habitat fragmentation and the small population paradigm are
cornerstone concepts of modern conservation biology, but the public is largely unfamiliar
with them. We devised a project to communicate the essentials of fragmentation to
students aged 13+. The project is introduced by a slide show illustrating the island
metaphor by contrasting habitat islands with islands in the sea and the ambiguity
of islands as emergency rescue and prison. The core of the project is a board game
simulating the hazards of dispersal and reproduction in a fragmented landscape. Students
adopt the roles of lizards, butterflies, grasshoppers and steppe plants. In the course
of the game, motorways and corridors change the tabletop landscape. In the subsequent
discussion, students are asked to describe fragmentation problems and conservation
solutions observed during the game in their own words. Indoor parts of the project
are complemented by a field excursion for 'ground-truthing' the insights gained by
game simulation. In the field, students perceive habitat properties, collect organisms
within and outside the habitat island, search for traces of human influence and explore
movement corridors in the landscape. Evaluation showed that the project was largely
successful in raising awareness in fragmentation problems.
15.45 - 16.00
TUNNICLIFFE, SUE DALE. Homerton College, Cambridge, CB2 2PH, UK
and Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H OAL,
UK, <Ioe@sdtunnicliffe.demon.co.uk>, <s.tunnicliffe@ioe.ac.uk>, <sdt20@cam.ac.uk>.
IS THE CONSERVATION MESSAGE ‘READ’ BY PRIMARY SCHOOL GROUPS AND FAMILIES VISITING
ZOOS?
One of the missions of zoos is conservation education and it is crucial to know the
topics spontaneously talked about by zoo visitors. This paper reviews the results
of a project that analysed the conversational content of primary school and family
groups in a zoo. The project set out to discover the focus of conversations and whether
conservation was a topic about which these visitors spontaneously commented. Conversations
of primary school groups and families were recorded and the transcripts analysed
according to a systemic network. The resulting data reveal that conservation is not
a topic talked about by these visitors. The focus of conversations is on the animals;
locating, naming, interpreting, comparing and commenting upon their salient characteristics.
Furthermore, the conversations contain manifestations of personal and social aspects
inherent within such visits, revealing attitudes and emphasising the important social
role which such visits can play for both school and leisure groups. Data suggest
that school and family visitors are still establishing their fundamental constituent
concepts related to conservation and are around the baseline of the ‘Triangle of
hierarchy of conservation concepts’. These visitors are not at the level of conservation
understanding and fluency anticipated by the zoo.
16.00 - 16.15
GEORGE, SHALENE and Kevin Crooks. Department of Wildlife Ecology, University
of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706-1598, USA <slgeorge@students.wisc.edu>.
ATTITUDES, KNOWLEDGE, AND EDUCATION OF RESIDENTS LIVING ON THE URBAN-WILDLAND INTERFACE
Education of residents living on the urban-wildland interface may promote conservation
of surrounding natural areas. An educational brochure, "Living Close to Nature",
was specifically designed for and issued to 5000 residents across five cities on
the borders of the Nature Reserve of Orange County (NROC), California. A questionnaire
was then developed and issued to 3903 residents in the same five cities to test the
effectiveness of the brochure and produce baseline data on the attitudes, knowledge,
and perceptions of these residents. We tested if questionnaire responses differed
between: 1) residents previously issued a brochure (50% of questionnaire recipients)
versus those not issued a brochure (50%); and 2) houses located on a street directly
adjacent to reserve boundaries (44% of questionnaire recipients) versus houses away
from reserve boundaries in the "interior urban matrix" (56%). Response
rate was 16.9%. Contrary to expectations, results reveal few differences in responses
from residents having received the brochure and those who had not. Further, proximity
to NROC borders did not affect questionnaire responses. Results suggest that education
efforts need to be tailored to suit the knowledge and attitudes of the target audience.
16.15 - 16.30
KOEHLER, GARY and Evelyn Nelson. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife,
Olympia, WA 98501, USA, <gkoehler@olynet.com> (GK), Superintendent, Cle Elum-Roslyn
School District, 2690 SR 903, Cle Elum, WA 98922, USA (EN).
PROJECT CAT (COUGARS AND TEACHING): INTEGRATING SCIENCE, SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITY IN
DEVELOPMENT PLANNING
Complaint reports of cougars, Puma concolor, venturing into urban areas, killing
livestock and pets, and threatening humans have increased to more than 600 reports
filed annually in Washington, whereas, in the past, five years cougars have mauled
two children. Increased reports are coupled with human population increases of over
1 million in the past decade and an annual loss to development of over 28,000 hectares
of land. The rural Cle Elum-Roslyn community is experiencing similar growth and development
with over 1,400 new homes planned, but presently with few complaints of cougars.
In 2001 we began capturing and marking cougars with GPS transmitter collars to plot
precise locations of cougars and predation events in relation to human residence
and activity. Junior-Senior students of the Cle Elum-Roslyn School District correlate
location data with GIS habitat, topographic, and human residence parameters. Elementary
students learn animal track identification and report locations of carnivores and
ungulate prey species. Information on ungulate habitat and cougar travel corridors
is shared with community planners and incorporated into planning processes to minimise
human-cougar interactions. Central Washington University trains teachers to incorporate
Project CAT education objectives into other communities during this 8-year project.
16.30 - 16.45
SAVANICK, SUZANNE , Conservation Biology Program, University of Minnesota, 186
McNeal Hall, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, St. Paul, MN, 55108 <sava0054@tc.umn.edu>.
CAMPUS ECOLOGY: BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN CAMPUS SUSTAINABILITY EFFORTS AND URBAN
ECOLOGY
Given the substantial impact of humans on the global environment there is a pressing
need for information on the ecology of urban areas. "Urban ecology" is
a term that has been used to describe the effect of urbanization on species and to
plan urban areas with an eye for ecological design. Recently, researchers at new
long-term ecological research sites (LTER) have developed conceptual models to examine
the ecosystem drivers of urban areas. At the same time, another phenomenon is occurring
worldwide in higher education as universities analyze their own environmental impacts.
These "greening the campus" projects include campus audits, sustainable
development plans, and environmental policies. By using current theories in urban
ecology, I provide a new conceptual model for the urban ecology of the campus setting,
and use it to evaluate the environmental impacts of the University of Minnesota’s
Twin Cities campus. This research bridges the gap between the urban ecology and the
campus sustainability literature and contributes to the understanding of the drivers
of ecosystem dynamics on campuses.
16.45 - 17.00
TIN NWE, DAW and John B. Sale. Zoology Department, Yangon University, Yangon,
Myanmar, <goldenpearl@mptmail.net.mm> (DTN) and Biodiversity Conservation Consultant,
Fach Gynan, Moelfre, Oswestry, SY10 7QP, UK (JBS).
DEVELOPING CONSERVATION BIOLOGY IN MYANMAR’S UNIVERSITIES
In the light of an urgent need for better conservation of Myanmar’s biodiversity,
the paper reviews the developing contribution of the universities to research and
training relevant to this national effort. While an older B.Sc in Zoology provided
some awareness of conservation issues, a recently revised curriculum includes courses
of direct relevance to biodiversity conservation. At masters level, the M.Sc Zoology
format up until 1999 produced, at Yangon alone, over 1,700 substantial theses, around
10 percent of which were on ecological or behavioural subjects, although vertebrate
ecology was not strongly represented. A new taught M.Sc, followed by a 1-year M.Research
degree, is designed to prepare more able candidates for research at Ph.D level and
includes topics related to conservation biology. Recently commenced
Ph.D studies at Yangon and Mandalay Universities, incorporate a 3-year research project,
providing excellent opportunities for serious conservation-oriented fieldwork. Funding
permitting, steady expansion of this initiative is planned. Proposals for an interdisciplinary
masters programme, offering professional training for conservation practitioners
from a variety of biological backgrounds, including forestry, zoology and botany,
are under active consideration. International assistance in furthering these programmes
aimed at strengthening biodiversity conservation in Myanmar will be a key factor
to their success.
17.00 - 17.15
RIVERS, ERIKA R.L. , Conservation Biology Program, University of Minnesota, 100
Ecology, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, St. Paul, MN, 55108 <lind0003@tc.umn.edu>.
MEDIA ANALYSES OF ENVIRONMENTAL NEWS STORIES: BROADENING THE RESEARCH EFFORT
Conventional wisdom suggests that one reason the general public hasn’t jumped on
the conservation bandwagon is because the mass media is so poor at covering environmental
issues. Attempts by conservation biology and natural resource practitioners to study
mass media coverage of environmental events have largely fallen under the realm of
content analysis methodologies. While these media analysis methods of have provided
some insight about the amount and quality of coverage that environmental issues receive
in newspapers, it fails to analyze the broader context in which media messages are
created, disseminated, received, and interpreted. This failure is particularly significant
in the present context of media conglomeration, declining newspaper readership, and
the advent of electronic media. In an attempt to address the deficiencies in content
analysis as a research methodology, over the past two decades mass communications
researchers have developed a suite of newer methodologies in which to study the media
and its messages. This paper outlines four dominant paradigms in mass communication
research, reviews how each paradigm has been used to study media coverage of environmental
events, and makes recommendations about how conservation biologists might use these
newer methodologies to broaden and enrich research on media messages concerning biodiversity
conservation.
17.15 - 17.30
BRIDE, IAN G. Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent,
Canterbury, Kent, CT2, UK, <I.G.Bride@ukc.ac.uk>.
PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING OF BIODIVERSITY: THE NEED FOR LITERACY
The Convention on Biological Diversity and its derivative literature call
for increases in public understanding and support as a condition for successful strategies
to conserve biodiversity. Yet practically no relevant data exist concerning the levels
of this public understanding and support. This paper reports research designed to
redress this situation. It describes a structured in-depth interview survey applied
to 126 individuals selected according to their relationships to nature and wildlife,
their positions in relation to local and regional government decision-making, and
their representation of different occupationally-based social classes. The findings,
if representative of the wider population, suggest that the public’s understanding
of biodiversity is poor, levels of participation in efforts to conserve it are low,
and attitudes towards biodiversity per se are largely non-existent. It does
however point to a considerable amount of public interest in wildlife and nature.
The principle obstacle to an effective biodiversity education is identified as the
science/public divide, but the characteristics of biodiversity as a subject are recognised
as enabling it to form a bridge between the two. The ramifications of the research
for the ongoing implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity are
considered, and recommendations made for further research and biodiversity education
activities.
The SCB2002 pages are maintained by Christine Eagle
email: C.M.Eagle@ukc.ac.uk
Conference email: scb2002@ukc.ac.uk
Last updated: 30.06.02