Education and Advocacy in Conservation – What's the measure?

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Education and Advocacy in Conservation
– What’s the measure?
Dr Lorne Roberts, Senior Lecturer and Programme Leader,
Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland
If you scan the websites and
mission statements of many
conservation organisations,
you will find most, if not all,
will advertise education and/
or advocacy as an important
role or objective as one of
the means to achieve their
ultimate goal of sustainable
conservation. And indeed, many
will offer varied programmes
and strategies for delivering
information to visitors and the
general public. The question
that is rarely answered is “what
effect does the education or
advocacy programme actually
have?” It is easy to provide
statistics referring to how
many education sessions
are delivered, the number of
visitors/customers that are
present over a time period,
and even visitor/customer
satisfaction feedback. But what
is the measure of education?
I have been involved in
education in one form or
another most of my life and
there is one unerring factor that
determines how successful
I am in my pedagogical
pursuits – the extent to which
I institute positive change in
the behaviour of my students
or audience? Whilst students
and audiences may applaud
my delivery skills, returning
comments of enjoyment,
interest, engagement and even
heightened awareness of the
subject matter, this is no direct
measure of what I had initially
set out to do. Furthermore, it
is just as important for me to
ascertain the magnitude of the
changes in student behaviour
and their durability over time.
For a student to be able to
recount the times tables up to
twenty is no mean feat, but I
question its usefulness in the
greater scheme of things. How
will it help them get a job?
Will it better their performance
in a job? Will it provide some
6
Dr Lorne Roberts (Unitec, NZ) and
Tamsin Orr-Walker (KCT) talking to
Twizel locals during the 2010 Kea
Winter Advocacy Tour.
Photo: Kevin Moore
benefits to their lives in some
other way and how long will
those effects last? Further,
are these benefits clearly and
unequivocally attributable to
their learning of the times
table specifically, and is the
cost of teaching and learning
these mental arithmetic skills
balanced with the benefits?
And so it is with conservation
education. Imparting current
and interesting information
regarding the plight of species
and the environment, and even
providing clear action pathways
for audience members to take
in order to support conservation
initiatives, does not (and
rarely does) provide for lasting
beneficial behavioural changes.
Of course there is the further
awkward question, “even if
audiences’ behaviour changes
for the positive, what effect is it
having on the overall cause”?
Similarly, advocating for
particular causes faces similar