International Community Outreach

Interpreting Biodiversity
The CBC’s Interpreting Biodiversity: A Manual for Environmental Educators in the Tropics is designed especially for educators and resource managers in tropical regions. The manual, currently available in English, French, Spanish, and Vietnamese, has been distributed through CBC-sponsored training activities in Bolivia, Guatemala, and Madagascar, and has been requested by educators in more than 30 countries.

Workshops
The CBC offers workshops to build relationships among partners, improve interpretive skills, and create networks among participants.

In 1996, the CBC partnered with Peace Corps-Madagascar to present a workshop for volunteers and their Malagasy counterparts on developing exhibitions and other activities at recently constructed interpretive centers in Madagascar’s national parks. Our experiences there were the inspiration for the Interpreting Biodiversity manual. After sessions devoted to program development and options for interpretation, participants received hands-on training in producing scale models for exhibits, puppet shows, and games for children. The French translation of the manual provided the framework for a second workshop in Madagascar in 1999, this time partnering with Peace Corps and ANGAP (the Malagasy park service). Based on methods and materials demonstrated by workshop facilitators, participants planned three-dimensional displays, a musical skit, and interpretive labels for a botanic garden.

In March 2000, the CBC partnered with the Center for Biodiversity Conservation of Guatemala to offer a workshop for environmental educators at the National Museum of Natural History in Guatemala City, using as a case study renovated exhibit areas on which an AMNH team had consulted two years earlier. Participants from museums, zoos, and other conservation organizations exchanged ideas, worked together on program development, and practiced a variety of interpretive techniques.

In Bolivia, workshops have been a starting point for discussion among community members, protected area personnel, educators, and scientists. Most participants in workshops held in 1999 and 2000 had never before attended a workshop in which they were expected to be actively involved; they were encouraged to express their concerns in discussion and through role-playing, puppet shows, radio interviews, and designing exhibits. At the conclusion of the workshops, participants made presentations in an adjacent community, using the methods they learned to communicate the importance of conservation. Building on the dialogue initiated in these workshops, the CBC and Bolivian collaborators have offered training for park guards, community leaders, and extension agents involved in education and outreach activities, with a focus on defining specific communication strategies to address local conservation issues. A small grants program provides workshops participants with the opportunity to organize and implement projects they propose, including: developing informational materials about the protected areas, building or rehabilitating existing structures to house community interpretive or cultural centers, and designing interpretive trails.

Assessing Local Knowledge and Attitudes
CBC and Columbia University researchers will collaborate on an assessment of community attitudes and knowledge regarding marine reserves in the Bahamas. The study will complement a five-year project funded by the National Science Foundation’s Biocomplexity Initiative to develop models for marine reserve network development and management. With improved understanding of local knowledge and attitudes, the CBC with work with Bahamian partners to design appropriate strategies for promoting local support for and participation in conservation.

Exhibits
Inspired by the CBC’s research in Vietnam, the Museum will mount a temporary exhibition entitled Vietnam: Journeys of Body, Mind, and Spirit, a joint project with the Vietnam Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi, to open in early 2003. The CBC will produce a complementary exhibit and companion book highlighting Vietnam’s remarkable biodiversity. The exhibit, The Biodiversity of Vietnam: A Journey North to South, will subsequently travel to Vietnam. An educators’ exchange, based on the exhibit, will link educational efforts at the AMNH with those in Vietnam and explore ways of incorporating science into outreach in Vietnam.

In Guatemala, a team from the American Museum of Natural History worked on exhibit renovation plans for Guatemala’s National Museum of Natural History and, in March 2000, offered a workshop in partnership with the Center for Biodiversity Conservation of Guatemala, utilizing the renovated exhibit areas as a case study. Among the nearly 30 participants were educators from museums, botanical gardens, and parks in Guatemala, Ecuador, Chile, Nicaragua, Mexico, and Cuba.