Conservation Education : An exercise in planning
A year since the fun time at Manas with friends and rains share of the planning workshop.
The text here talks of the same event albeit using a different tone and lens. Thanks are due to all the participants and Aaranyak.
Should we, should we
not, we discussed, and then suddenly, one by one, in a file, most of the
participants walked out. Out towards the gushing river, amidst the deafening
rains, with water all around us, including in the paddy fields. Later during
the evening they would return to the paddy fields to listen to the symphony
played by frogs. Earlier during the day the participants had gone spotting
birds and the list included the Bengal Florican! They had come together to
deliberate on a plausible and realistic plan for conservation education (CE) in
the Manas Landscape, Assam. A long-term plan that was sensitive to the
complexities the landscape offered and also brought multiple stakeholders on
board.
This six day event was organized by Aaranyak under the project ‘Securing Source
Population of Tiger, Prey and Habitats in Indo-Bhutan Manas Landscape’ at
Bansbari. Aaraynak, headquartered at Guwahati, has undertaken long-term
research in the landscape. E P GEE in his seminal work ‘The Wildlife of India’,
1964, writes of Manas thus, ‘where both
plentiful wildlife and magnificent scenery are found together – a rare occurrence
anywhere in the world’. Design was not only to come up with a plan for
landscape but also to deliberate on CE; engage on the topic, agree and
disagree. On the one hand planning for the workshop had us (the organizing team) discuss issues like
requesting experts to join in the process, enabling them to get a feel of the
landscape and creating space for them to share their experiences and to lead
sessions. On the other hand we were keen that the ambience was warm and
informal, and free flowing and animated conversations were to be preferred over PowerPoint presentations.
We
had been discussing shortcomings in CE, including in our actions, and these we
were eager to overcome; to move beyond actions like generating stand-alone material
and delivering lectures on select days. A series of emails and phone calls had
ensured that the plan would not restrict itself to tigers or elephants (Manas wears both hats, that of a Tiger
Reserve as well as of an Elephant Reserve) and would be open to learn from
other emerging and developed disciplines and pedagogies. Materials would be
discussed to the extent that the plan warranted. Emphasis would be on using
existing CE materials including those developed by others (should they meet the needs);
rather than starting de-novo. We thus
had a broad structure in place and were keen that the detailed agenda be
developed together with the experts.
The initial session
consisted of a talk and a panel discussion. The Manas landscape is a part of
the Bodoland Territorial Council and the talk, on cultural values and mores, focused
on the Bodos’ changing relationship with forests. We also invited
representatives from the education department, for a panel discussion, to help
understand how the subject is dealt with at different echelons of the state machinery
and to explore avenues to generate synergies. Interactions during the session surpassed
our expectations and elucidated nuances which helped augment our understanding
of the situation. A lively debate had ensued over presence of a detailed
curriculum, and it being accessible, vis-a-vis it being read and put to use.
The initial session had
more participants than the rest of the workshop on account of the topic
discussed. It set the tone for the rest of the workshop. Participants during
the sessions which followed consisted of the Aaranyak team and invited experts.
These participants also undertook safaris in the Manas National Park and held
interactions with people at multiple locations in the landscape. While we had
shared documents with the experts these trips helped present a clear picture of
the landscape.
During the sessions participants identified and discussed-
a. issues touching upon CE in the landscape,
b. stake-holders in the landscape and influence they would have vis-a-vis the ease of dealing with them,
c. objectives of the CE program and
d. strategy for each identified objective.
They also worked on prioritization
where required and overlaps warranted multiple re-visits to select aspects. Most
of these points were arrived at as a single large group, debating on the merits
and demerits at length, other than for the discussions on objectives. For this
they had split into five groups, each group focusing on a particular objective.
The experts shared their experiences and participants were glad
to learn of-
a. interpretation centres,
b. experiential education,
c. material development and
d. communication
in
the context of CE. These turned out to be crucial capacity building sessions
since each of these topics would have a bearing on the plan. The experts shared
success stories and discussed how these could be put to use in the Manas
landscape; learning from Bangladesh were of particular interest given that those
were ones participants were least aware of.
Select issues, we were keen to learn more
of, came up during multiple occasions during the workshop, and we discussed how
best we could deal with them. These include-
a. process documentation,
b. monitoring and evaluation and
c. capacity building.
Discussions also touch upon larger
questions including relevance of some of the conventional CE actions in today’s
times and importance of delivery mechanisms. One line that came up stays with
me, ‘all said and done, for CE to work, both
the educators and participants need to be happy with the process.’
Six days ended up quick and the immediate
task for the team was to work on drafting the detailed plan and organizing
dry-runs for some of the activities proposed prior to freezing the plan. Trivedi
et al in their 2006 report ‘Living
with snow leopards: a conservation education strategy for the Himalayan high
altitudes’ state ‘To make education
worthwhile, interesting, and effective, it needs to be open yet focused;
structured yet flexible; thematic yet spontaneous; and directional yet
participatory’. We had attempted to not only adhere to this CE but also
ensured that the workshop was on these very lines. We had taken the first step,
small but ambitious. As we analysed the event later, we realized we had
committed some silly mistakes, but were also glad that we not only walked our
dream but also had friends join us.
Acknowledgements
Images: Aaranyak
Editing: Swati Chaliha
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