Looking afresh at Conservation Education.

Background and beginning.

We had organized a workshop at Baghmara (South Garo Hills, Meghalaya) during August 2009 to build up on our Conservation Education efforts. Participants hailed from Samrakshan’s Meghalaya and Mizoram field bases, colleagues from villages collating vital information in our elephant monitoring programme and members of non government organizations partnering us towards conserving wildlife in South Garo Hills. Most of them elemental to Meghalaya field base’s Conservation Education programme. Idea was to rekindle minds on conservation education. Towards this we

• Shared of learnings at Mizoram field base and endeavours by other organizations.
• Engaged in actions that could be put to use.
• Looked at our actions and put forth questions on our action and approach that would help team design a programme they would espouse.

Venue
We began with who we were and what we liked. This was pertinent since not only did the entire group not congregate frequently by also both of us from Mizoram, John and I, would benefit from knowing of our Meghalaya counterparts. Each of us shared his (all of us males!!) name and what he adored in his organizational role. Basabjit talked of his liking to “handle animals” while Rollingstone stated his being pleased to put efforts towards creation of Community Conserved Reserves.
We moved on to discuss the workshop schedule including lunch and breaks. When menu was described the discussion veered on to Values that we had agreed to. We focussed on Equity (All humans and animals have an inherent right to live with dignity). Opinions were sought on interpretation of this particular value from participants and I was a trifle surprised by a couple of them! We also put up documents depicting values, vision and mission statement at the workshop venue (Baghmara Circuit House).
Each of us then shared of an event he had been a part of since April 2009, training or a workshop; that was when some of us had last shared common physical space. Participants enthusiastically talked of their ventures. Bensen shared of his having attended training on Conservation Leadership at Rajasthan co-organized by Prakritik Society and Tiger Watch while Yaranjit mentioned his attending a workshop on Community Conserved Areas co-organized by Kalpavriksh and Winrock. Other participants too joined the fray and experiences of recent action undertaken for Conservation Education also merited space. Conservation education, as was brought out, was integral to the wide range of programmes we undertook towards wildlife conservation. Participants were asked to contemplate if

• Sharing of experiences, within office and beyond, would tantamount to conservation education and whether would it make sense?
• We needed to simplify our communications and share them in a piecemeal fashion?

Participants in action
After this when participants stated their expectations Gole talked of people people shouting at him in villages during his visits for wild species rescue (from captivity) and how he could avoid such situations, Kendish said he wanted to know how better he could talk (on wildlife protection issues) with brethren in villages while Ginseng said that though he was conscious of his efforts spawning limited success he was unable to identify the gaps; he wanted to identify and work on them.

Actions.

We began with a film screening. We saw Sekhar Dattatri’s Point Calimere – Little Kingdom by the coast. At Mizoram we had had few screenings in office and with partners; it was however fresh for Meghalaya colleagues. In course of the screening we built in halts at strategic points and put to appropriate use the field guides. Species like Jackal (Canis aureus) and Black Buck (Antilope cervicapra) were discussed (their local names and presence in Saiha and Garo Hills landscapes) while the carnivores plant was compared to Pitcher plant (Nepenthes khasiana) by virtue of both being carnivorous plants. We discussed analogies use in the film like “match-box size” for the beach crab (and their impact) as also terms like RAMSAR, Important Bird Areas and Wildlife Sanctuary mentioned in the film for describing the location.
When we had an open session to discuss the screening and all of us were vocal here. Ginseng said it was interesting to learn of different approaches to same programme while Yaranjit talked of intensity in action. Participants were asked to ponder on whether

• Augmenting awareness, on these and alike aspects, both for self and partners would be of help?
• Road kill depicted in the film could be taken as a point to deliberate on the problem in Garo Hills and whether mining (a threat to wildlife in Garo Hills) could be discussed bolstered by salt production, threat to Point Calimere!
• It made more sense to have limited number of screenings but in a fashion separate from what they had recently done. We applied ourselves on a couple of fun activities.

Forming a circle we stood outside the Circuit House and each of us imitated sound of a wild species that he was familiar to and rest of participants had to identify the same. Initially the participants were slow but as one by one we started making sounds we all had more than few laughs. The list Fernando collated was invigorating! 14 species we had around and the list included Hill Myna (Gragula religiosa), Flying Squirrel (Petaurista petaurista), Asian Elephant (Elephas maximus) and Hoolock Gibbon (Hoolock hoolock). We discussed how lucky we were to be in such a location and that we had to discontinue cutting trees and hunting wildlife to be able to hear these around us.

We then saw a presentation on birds, having bird pictures accompanied by their calls. The slides advanced and so did interest levels of participants. When the slides started repeating we shut the volume off and heard the participants! They talked of Garo names of birds, where in and around Baghmara they occurred and whether they were kept as pets! We discussed how different birds stayed in different kinds of habitats (in forests, around human beings, near water bodies) and how some of them were seen more as individuals and others in larger groups (like some of us!) and that some of them were not resident but migratory i.e. they did not stay with us across the year but came during specific periods.
During this participants were handed over field guides and Bensen shared points they could keep in mind while putting them to appropriate use.
Conservation education at Meghalaya field base has adults as partners specially when discussing potential threats to wildlife rich Garo Hills. We had 2 activities for this; debate and discussion. Topics we chose were such that would help clarify participants’ views on other activities under conservation education domain.
Debate was on whether Posters are useful in conservation education and after participants had taken 3 separate stands initially; yes – no – don’t know; they clarified their understanding of the topic and reason behind adopting the stance. Participants then attempted convincing those in other sub-groups to agree to their points of view and move over to their sub-group! It was interesting to see participants, otherwise silent, animatedly put across their point of views! They talked of

• Posters being ineffective in isolation.
• Posters being effective when focus was on a specific issue.
• Posters requiring lot of planning.
• It being difficult to understand if posters made a difference.

We saw stands being changed and participants arguing aggressively in this activity that rather than just put across a message helps elucidate dissimilar points of view. Participants are taken to be aware of the issue and the idea is to make them think and explore possibilities. This had a time limit to it and we discussed the process at the end as also issues that we could deliberate on with partners. Since interest and energy levels were high, Kamal began another round of debate. This time focus was on mining in Garo Hills.


Debate
When we discussed the action it was invigorating to see how a debate had been generated between those contending that large topics were suitable for the activity and others. While Kamal was of the view that debates would have to be on larger topics for partners would find them simpler to converse on while Vikash mentioned that since we talked of sensitive issues we should have topics that bring out the larger or core issues from their end i.e. partners themselves. To enrich the session to clarify this we put together 3 possible points for debate on a single issue.

• Should we have wild species as pets?
• Do wild species kept as pets survive for long?
• Do wild species kept as pets get adequate nutrition?

Most of us agreed however that debate would hinge on comprehending level of our partners and interest level of the facilitator and that it need not necessarily be in isolation, it could even be organized on a topic like hunting arising from a film.
Discussion was on whether we should organize events like environment day and wildlife week. Participants expressed their views in the language they were familiar with, made comments on views of co participants, sequencing was absent so was a stipulation on contributing more than once. One of the participants, Basabjit made and shared a synopsis at the end. It went thus

• Events help us work with partners other than those with whom we work on a regular basis.
• Events have little impact.
• Events are essential in order to involve people other than those at Samrakshan.
• Events are more of a celebration and not a regular programme, meaning they should be looked as such.
• During events participants listen but do not understand.
• Events are not good for common people.

It was also agreed to by most that discussions need to be designed thoroughly and can help us get a sense on a particular issue.
This session underscored a crucial issue pertinent to planning and implementation of these efforts. Our approach in conservation education with partners. Are we discussing issues, giving partner’s space to voice their opinions while sharing our position thus enabling an environment for them to comprehend a position separate from theirs and accept it? Or are we simply putting across our points of views and asking them to accept them?


The debate had majority of us believing in posters and we got on to working in sub-groups on posters. Two sub-groups each worked on land use planning and wild species in captivity, two issues work in Meghalaya field base focussed on and came up with compelling posters. After these were presented we considered issues we had to bear in mind for posters
Posters

• For whom?
• From what distance will they be seen?
• What language will they be in?
• What will be the size?
• What material will be used to make them?
• Where will these be put up?
• Will we use pictures or maps or diagrams?
• How will we decide the content?
• Who will be our collaborators?

Sharing.
We had a session where we shared of our learnings at Mizoram field base. We talked of how the programme at Mizoram had progressed i.e. the manner in which we have reached the current stage in Mizoram. We also shared a power point presentation focussing on “Mizoram Wildlife”, drawing parallels with Meghalaya, and described the experience of putting it across with groups, specially personnel from non government organisations and forest department.


Activities undertaken by other organizations like NCF and ATREE, that I had got aware to during the meeting on Conservation Education previous year were also shared. We deliberated on our sharing information collected by way of surveys and also trips to forested patches in form of nature walks and nature camps. During the discussion Bensen said we could share species sightings list with colleagues while Basabjit said we could use power point presentations effectively with select groups.


An essential point that emerged from the conversation was usage of words and participants were asked to consider if

• Language made a difference!
• Would it help if we used “activity” in lieu of “tools” and “partner” instead of “target audience”? Would we perceive the very issues in a different fashion if we were sensitive to these communication issues?

We screened the BVIEER film that depicted their efforts under the ICEF (Indo Canadian Environment Facility) project at 3 sites in northern part of our country. Post the screening we got into 3 sub groups and each of us was to talk on separate aspects of the film.

• What was depicted in the film?
• Which species were seen in the film?
• What we learnt from film in context of our efforts?

Open discussion on the film had participants talking of involving more segments of society as partners and also more involvement with other local non government organizations in organizing conservation education programmes. Participants saw the manner in which organizations other than Samrakshan too undertook conservation education programmes in separate parts of our country with varying partners. Participants suggested generating synergies with GSU (Garo Students Union) for the purpose and they were asked if it would help to have them involved from the planning stage itself.
As the workshop approached culmination Kamal and I looked at the Baghmara Reserve Forest in silence and wondered if we were doing enough ....we then brought it to an end asking participants if we could take some time out in our day to day lives for see, feel and love nature around us .....