Zoo Outreach
Organization &
Wildlife
Information Liaison Development
ZOO/WILD's
2012-14 Activities . . .
Education
on Conservation of Freshwater
Biodiversity of Western Ghats
Project
Investigator:
Dr. B.A. Daniel
Grant Term:
01/12-03/14
Title:
Involving Community, Stakeholders and Journalists for the Conservation of Freshwater Biodiversity and Reptiles of Western Ghats through Education, Training and Follow up of the Assessment Projects.
This project is a follow up of the CEPF funded status assessments of freshwater ecosystem and reptiles in the Western Ghats. The objective of the project is to disseminate the results of the CEPF projects on freshwater and reptiles species of Western Ghats and to create awareness among local communities involving a range of stakeholders. The project cover five Western Ghats States viz Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra. Local communities and community heads, school teachers, educators at schools, NGO's, forest personnel, policy makers and journalists were involved through the project. The reports produced by the IUCN Freshwater Biodiversity Unit and the Global Reptile Assessment Unit were used as the fundamental information source.
As part of this project a variety of education materials has been developed. Some of the project products are available here for free download.
"The
Sahyadri Freshwater Biodiversity
Conservation" education materials
The
Sahyadri Freshwater
Biodiversity Conservation
Education Training Workshop,
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India.
25-27 February 2013
The
Sahyadri Timeline by Goa
participant
A
three-day trainers training on
Freshwater Biodiversity Conservation
Education was conducted by WILD/ZOO at
Coimbatore inviting selected educators
from five states
(Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa and
Maharashtra) of the Western Ghats. This
CEPF sponsored project is the follow up
of the Western Ghats Freshwater
Biodiversity Assessment report published
by ZOO/IUCN Biodiversity Unit in 2011.
The objective of this three-day training
is to take the assessment results of the
report to a wide range of stakeholders
such as local people, students,
community and also journalists living in
peninsular India. The aim of the
training is to empower educators to
teach about freshwater biodiversity and
its conservation that can be practiced
with their local audience in the Western
Ghats area and to demonstrate innovative
teaching and learning techniques
designed to change human behaviour for
the better. As part of this project a
teaching manual has been developed along
with a variety of education materials
that was used throughout the training.
About 17 educators took part in this
training and utilizing the resource
materials used during the training, they
will be reaching out to a wider audience
involving journalists. This training is
a collaborative effort of Conservation
Breeding Specialist Group, Conservation
Research Group, Kerala, Freshwater Fish
SG – South Asia region, South Asian
Invertebrate Specialist Group and ZOO’s
Educator Network.
Workshop series on Educator Skills Training
With the support of the identified focal points, we conducted a series of educator skills training and awareness programmes in five Western Ghats states. A total of 17 programmes were conducted throughout the region. The overall objective of the training is to impart knowledge about the status of the Sahyādri Freshwater Biodiversity and to bring about attitudinal change among students and other target groups towards conservation of the species. The Sahyādri Freshwater Biodiversity Teaching Guide and other education materials developed exclusively for this in 5 different South Indian languages were used throughout the trainings.
Complete report of the workshop series can be downloaded here.
Project
Investigator:
Dr. B.A. Daniel 
