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chapter 14 <strong>IUCN</strong> Photo Library © Jim Thorsell Communication as a means of building support for protected areas by Wendy Goldstein and Elisabeth Auchincloss Editor’s introduction People will support protected areas only if they receive information about these sites in a form that is meaningful to them. This requires excellent communication skills on the part of those who are seeking to expand support for protected areas. This paper draws on a series of workshops held under the auspices of <strong>IUCN</strong>’s Commission on Education and Communication to provide advice on how to apply modern approaches to communication to protected areas. It starts by addressing some of the external threats to protected areas, often in the form of competition for resources. Drawing on practical experience in many parts of the world, Wendy Goldstein and Elisabeth Auchincloss share positive experiences on how to communicate with different audiences, with a particular emphasis on the communities in and around protected areas, considering these stakeholders to have particular legitimacy in being involved in decisions that affect them. They discuss instruments for communicating, including information, publicity, stakeholder dialogue, public relations, social marketing, education, and capacity development. Using these tools to package messages that are relevant to the various interest groups affecting protected areas seems to be an essential part of the protected area enterprise. All of the approaches to building broader support for protected areas that are described in this book depend fundamentally on communication. This chapter describes how to use communication as a strategic tool for achieving the broader support that this book is advocating. Rather than relying on technical solutions, it argues for treating external pressures especially as a problem of communication, requiring skills in relation development, negotiation and learning. Such communication skills are the essential foundation upon which building the broader constituency for protected areas can be built. This also requires building understanding about the reasons for current behaviours that may be contrary to the protected area management objectives. Case studies from South Africa, Botswana, the Philippines, Senegal, Mexico, Peru, Nepal and Canada demonstrate the wide variety of communication tools that are available to protected area managers and advocates. Photo: Jasper National Park in the Canadian Rockies. 177
14 Friends for Life: New partners in support of protected areas Introduction Whether a protected area is managed by a small community-based organization, an international NGO, a local government, a national institution or intergovernmental agency, an integral component of protected area management is its interaction with people. For a successful interaction, communication must to be used strategically. Actions conflicting with protected area conservation, promoted by other sectors and developers, present a recurrent challenge. Though it is recognised that environmental concerns are central to development, protected area agencies still have difficulties relating to other sectors. Addressing external pressures requires more than technical responses, suggesting that many protected area organizations need to change the way they work. Another common issue is the inadequate participation of stakeholders in the planning and management of protected areas. Despite the almost universal recognition of the importance of stakeholder involvement, the inability to handle such processes successfully reflects a lack of capacity and at times will. Because sustainable development is ultimately about social change, it cannot be achieved without communication, education and learning unless it is imposed or coerced (Mefalopulos, 2003). Often communication is perceived as being the oneway transmission of information, the “push” approach to communication, whereby conservation values are promoted as a means of changing behaviour. Generally this is insufficient in bringing about changes on its own, unless the required actions do not present much difficulty to people. A two-way communication approach involving dialogue is more likely to be successful. Hamú (2003) refers to a “pull” strategy based on an understanding of the motivations, perceptions and interests of the stakeholder. In this approach people are “attracted” towards conservation action by working from their perceptions. Based on the premise that “perception is the only reality”, this requires a different approach by conservationists, and one that acknowledges that conservationists are not “always right” and the rest of the population is wrong. Communication is increasingly recognised as an important management and policy tool that must be used strategically to address objectives at each phase of the policy or management process. Strategic communication is based on research so that the communication problem is addressed, as distinct from the conservation problem. The communication problem relates to how people perceive the issue and the actions that they take. Strategic communication also plans who is to be addressed, what is to be said or negotiated and the appropriate means to do so. In accordance with trends towards a broader-based landscape approach to protected area management (Hesselink, 2003), communication as an instrument in protected area management needs to transform, as do protected area managers. After all, their ability to function with the cooperation of society depends on an enabling environment for strategic communication (Van Boven, 2003). Making communications more professional will enable communication to be used strategically to address external challenges. Communication challenges facing protected area managers External threats Protected areas are threatened by competition for natural resources. These threats are varied and may be intentional or inadvertent. The protected areas in Mexico, for example, face great pressure because they are not presented in any special way to development planners, so development activities often conflict with conservation objectives (Vidal, 2003). Likewise the Butrint National Park (World Heritage Site), Albania, faced challenges in overcoming resistance from the Ministry of Tourism as well as national and international developers. Weak planning controls, local greed and political interests related to tourism and construction development permitted small-scale constructions in the protected area (Santi, 2003). In the Philippines, local development preferences can counteract national biodiversity targets and affect protected areas. The loss of most of the forest cover during the 20 th century was due to logging and conversion of forest to agricultural areas, and “developers” – logging companies – continue to construct and use logging roads in protected areas without approval (Van Weerd, 2003). 178
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Chief Scientist’s Office Friends
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Friends for Life New partners in su
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Table of contents Foreword Kenton M
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the management of protected areas,
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Introduction IUCN Photo Library ©
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Building broader support for protec
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chapter 1 © Jeffrey A. McNeely A t
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A taxonomy of support: how and why
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chapter 2 © Patricio Robles Gil/Si
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Extractive industries as a new cons
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chapter 3 © Ted Trzyna Urban dwell
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Urban dwellers and protected areas:
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chapter 4 IUCN Photo Library © Jim
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The role of hunting in promoting pr
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chapter 5 © AHEAD Building support
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Building support for protected area
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chapter 6 © Charles Besançon Prot
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Protected areas and the security co
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chapter 7 © Thomas O. McShane Prot
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Protected areas and development ass
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chapter 8 © Corbis Protected areas
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Protected areas and local and indig
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chapter 9 IUCN Photo Library © Jim
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Protected areas and indigenous peop
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Page 142 and 143: Building cultural support for prote
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Page 182 and 183: Contribution of the World Heritage
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Page 208 and 209: x Acronyms ADB Asian Development Ba
Page 210: x Thomas O. McShane Senior Conserva
Page 213 and 214: x Baillie, Barry. 2002. New Gummut
Page 215 and 216: x Brown, K. 2004. Trade-off Analysi
Page 217 and 218: x Convention of Biological Diversit
Page 219 and 220: x Eagles, P., S. McCool and C. Hain
Page 221 and 222: x GEF. 2004. GEF and the Convention
Page 223 and 224: x Homsey, J. 1999. Ape Tourism and
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Page 227 and 228: x Leung, Y.F., J.L. Marion and T.A.
Page 229 and 230: x McCullough, D. 1996. Spatially st
Page 231 and 232: x Murphree, M.W. 2000. Community-ba
Page 233 and 234: x Pedersen, Arthur. 2002. Managing
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x Taber, A., G. Novarro and M.A. Ar
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x Von Droste, Berndt and N. Ishwara
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x World Parks Congress Outputs. 200
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Front Cover Photographs Olga group
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