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Conservation partnerships with private sector

We search for companies that show an active interest in making socio-environmental investments in the forests of our country. Working with responsible companies allows us to carry out conservation and restoration activities in the forests, and enables companies to engage their employees as volunteers in reforestation or maintenance initiatives. We also engage with the ejidos and commmunities -- the actual owners of the land -- in which we will be working. They participate in restoration activities and act as a local forest brigade to monitor the actions performed by corporate volunteers in order to achieve forest conservation. We have a win-win vision: the NPAs benefit because forests are preserved and restored; companies benefit because they develop a stronger socially responsible strategy; and communities and ejidos win because they find new sources of employment and alternatives that enable the sustainability of their forests.

The solutions to environmental problems, mainly deforestation, can’t be imposed to forest owners. Communities in Mexico are willing to identify their needs and establish solutions to preserve and restore the forests of Mexico and the private sector is a pretty effective ally. Private sector is willing to invest in reforestation and maintenance events, and also invest in productive projects in order to make them grow.

Some companies do plant trees, but most them lack policies to avoid buying illegal forest products so they obliviously give illegal loggers incentives to cut trees in the NPA. With our methodology reforestation events are great opportunities to engage employees to integrate forests into the company’s sustainability goals. It also provides opportunities to integrate people from key departments (example: procurement or public affairs) as part of the strategy. The core of our success does not lie in the mere quantity of reforested areas or planted trees, but in the establishment of long-lasting alliances and in the creation of a framework that allows future sustainable initiatives to be developed. Corporate volunteers become forests “spokepersons” in their daily lives.

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Building effective mentor-mentee relationships

Once protected areas and Business Mentors are matched, they are brought together on a 10-day Residential Training Programme, set within an inspiring and relevant protected area setting. This aims to: build relationships between Business Mentors and protected area managers that allow for effective ongoing mentoring and collaboration; develop business and leadership skills that enable protected area managers to perform better in their roles and manage the protected area more effectively; build a clear action plan for enhancing management effectiveness; provide an opportunity for networking between African protected areas; and build a shared understanding of the importance of effective protected areas, and the possible impact of business decisions. Following the residential training, protected areas and their mentors work together in a mentor-mentee relationship for at least 12 months. Mentoring from this point is usually conducted remotely, although mentors sometimes visit their site to support the roll-out of business planning activities.

Business Mentors deliver the training, which is guided by an 11-step business planning process and a Business Planning Toolkit (developed by Shell Foundation and UNESCO). In parallel, Earthwatch learning professionals provide training and coaching in leadership and management skills to both protected area managers and Business Mentors. The Residential Training Programme builds strong relationships that continue into the remote mentoring period. Committment to the implementation of action plans through ongoing colloaboration and partnership.

Developing the less tangible ‘soft skills’ of protected area staff (e.g. leadership and communication skills) is just as crucial to success as the business planning content. The ESN Residential Training Programme includes activities and discussions that develop protected area manager confidence, capability, competence and skills that influence their ability to put the learnings into practice.

Promotion

The greater the audience, the greater potential for impact. In addition to having a superb product (highly entertaining drama for social change), you must promote it to build an audience. Promotion may include launch event; radio spots; flyers; attending community events; interviews with radio stations, TV outlets, and print media; on-the-air quizzes and giveaways/contests; swag (caps, t-shirts, umbrellas, etc.) for distribution; utilizing social media, etc.

1) Funds to promote this activity. 2) Staff dedicated to devising, coordinating, and completing PR plans.

We have learned that it works best if the majority of the project team is involved with promotion of the drama. A large audience is crucial to driving significant levels of behavior change across the target demographic or country. An “all-hands” approach to community outreach, media engagement, and generating buzz leads to rapid audience size growth.

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Excellent production quality of drama

Well produced dramas with good music, sound effects, and excellent acting will draw listeners in and help create a large listening audience, which will in turn lead to greater impact. Poor quality production will alienate audiences, cause listeners to stop listening, and therefore result in a smaller impact.

1) Easy and safe access to recording studio and transportation to studio. 2) Good audio recording and editing equipment. 3) Excellent producer/director and studio technicians. 4) Excellent actors. 5) Excellent sound effects and inviting theme music. 6) Ability to easily distribute drama to radio stations.

1) We have learned that it is ideal to build and equip our own studio to ensure a high quality production and to maximize logistics of coordinating and recording with the technical and creative teams. It also allows us to have secure access to the studio when needed. 2) Recordings should be scheduled as to maximize creatives’ time; recording scenes out of order may be necessary.

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Well-written, entertaining stories about complex issues

PMC serial dramas are designed using a theory-based approach to behavior change communication that enables programs to tackle complex subjects in a non-threatening and enlightening manner. PMC dramas are culturally-specific stories with “positive,” “negative,” and “transitional” characters. Issues are woven into multiple storylines. PMC creates long-running dramas that include fictional characters exhibiting different behaviors. The gradual change of transitional characters is key to the approach, and dramas show a wide spectrum of choices and the realistic consequences of different decisions. The stories must be entertaining in order to gain and keep an audience tuned in. Excellent storytelling and compelling characters lead to emotional bonds forged between audience and characters, which leads to a loyal audience and exposure to the issues, correct information and busting of misperceptions about the issues, and positive choices modeled by the characters. PMC dramas don’t include direct messages, but instead spread information and encourage discussion, self-reflection, and positive behavior change.

1) Understanding of the issues, misconceptions and beliefs of the target audience (formative research). 2) Excellent writing. 3) Stories that reflect real-life situations and solutions.

By making the characters, stories and settings very believable and true to life, the audience is better able to imagine themselves within the story, and hence better able to feel the effect of the positive role models and choose positive attitudes and behaviors themselves. This was PMC’s first program to integrate environmental themes and related behaviors in a major way, and we learned that such issues 1) are able to be addressed as easily as social and health issues, given appropriate technical knowledge sharing to the writers, 2) are received well by the audience, 3) give the narrative a richer context, and 4) can successfully promote positive behavior changes (such as the buying of tree seedlings and replanting trees).

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Population Media Centre (PMC)

Role modeling knowledge and positive attitudes and behaviors

Characters in the drama gain knowledge of issues through dialogue and dramatic situations; they model the positive attitudes and behaviors that you want the audience to adopt. Social learning theory (Albert Bandura) contends that people learn through observation (models) and may at a later time imitate the behavior they observed. Negative characters are ultimately “punished” for their negative behavior (such as trapping protected species). Characters also model self-efficacy (part of social cognitive theory) where characters come to understand their actions can produce the outcomes they desire, thus being able to persevere in the face of difficulties, particularly related to complex issues the drama addresses.

1) Basic understanding of the theories by the writing team. 2) Ability of writers to incorporate the theories into compelling stories with characters role-modeling behaviors in a way that is not “preachy” and will resonate with audiences.

Our urban-dwelling Rwandan-national writing team found field visits very valuable. We realized that the team needed to spend time in the countryside and forest regions to better understand the context about which they would be writing. It is essential for the writers to interview people in the target communities, especially those who are similar to the characters they have created. This provided the writers with real-life examples, people and stories to ground the story and characters in, and experience of the dialect nuances, speech patterns, and word choices of the target population. This knowledge enabled them and the actors to create a drama with characters, stories and settings that felt like a very true and relevant reflection of everyday life in Rwanda. This blending of drama with reality to comfortably address social and health issues is a crucial aspect of PMC's methodology to create shows.

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Barker, K., Connolly, S., & Angelone, C. (2013). Creating a brighter future in …

Culturally-specific formative research

Formative research helped writers to understand where Rwandans were on the issues, enabling them to create an entertaining and believable trajectory of the characters toward the positive KAP in the drama. It includes: 1.Literature review, synthesizing the major findings of reports dealing with current cultural practices and social norms that influence attitudes and behaviors around the issues being addressed. 2.Policy framework, compiling the country’s official positions on the issues to be addressed by the serial drama including protection of gorilla habitats 3.Qualitative research explored the needs, habits, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors of people in Rwanda with regard to the drama themes. 4.Media and Communication Analysis provided a summary of mass media and technology consumption patterns by Rwandans and a summary of the media’s impact on knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors on the drama issues. 5.Health infrastructure analysis studied availability of family planning, reproductive health and HIV prevention services. Particular focus was put to attitudes, policies, and practices of health care providers.

1) A reputable and capable local research firm which uses country nationals to conduct survey. 2) Access to representative regions of the country, urban and rural. 3) Safe environment to conduct national study. 4) Funds to support the study.

Lesson 1: For writers, presentation of results should not be overly technical and should provide key insights into the audience’s daily life and their attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge on the health and social issues studied. Statistics should be used sparingly and there should be plenty of relevant quotes from target audience members interviewed. Lesson 2: The formative research is often the very first task to be undertaken when a new program starts and it needs to be well synchronized with the dates established for the training workshop so that delays and rescheduling are avoided during program start-up.

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Pyramid structure of management institutions

The management committees from each village constitute the bottom of the pyramid; they are responsible for implementing the action plan for the management of the forest as decided by the two paramount associations; they identify management activities to submit for approval to their paramount association; they are also responsible for designing and implementing the village development Plan. The two paramount associations coordinate the work programs of the management committees; they elaborate policy guidelines for the management of the forest; they consolidate the village development plans and are also responsible for fundraising. The federal association (at top of the pyramid) will be the official manager of the Tanoé forest on behalf of the villages of the project area.

All management committees and the two paramount associations have been established following the requirements and procedures of the national administration. Their bylaws and organizational schemes have been officially registered by the appropriate governmental authorities. The same procedures will be followed for the establishment of the "federal association" that will be the official interlocutor of the government.

It is important that local institutions are formed in compliance with the country’s laws and administrative procedures. In this case the process took some time because villagers needed to be well informed about the procedures and to be trained in elaborating the bylaws of their associations. Also the project focused on capacity building on the governance of local associations so that these associations become definitively functional.

Establishment of national committee

In October 2009, a national committee comprising community members, NGOs and governmental authorities was established by the Ivorian Minister of Environment to deal with the process of classification of the Tanoé forest as an official community reserve.

The process must be initiated by informed communities’ representatives and the conservation value of the site must be highlighted. In this case, traditional land owners, i.e. the villages located around the forest wrote a request letter to the Minister of Environment for the site to be classified as a community reserve. In their letter, they highlighted the conservation value of the site as revealed by the preliminary data provided by the CSRS team. They also highlighted threats to the site and expressed their willingness to protect their ancestral heritage.

Informed communities may take important conservation initiatives. In this case communities were informed about the uniqueness of the primate fauna of the Tanoé forest. They were also informed about the possibility offered by the Ivorian law as per the creation of community reserves.

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Paradigm shift from training to capacity development

During the first seven years of the project, REPC-MD has organized more than 50 trainings on conservation topics. These trainings were very popular. But we started to realize that it is very difficult for us to measure our impact. We, and most of our partners were more interested in going beyond expert based training and academic curricula, to equip PA staff with right skills and competences. The development of the Standards was the first step to move towards a competence approach. Instead of identifying topics or content to be taught to protected area managers and conservation actors, this approach looks for ways to help them better perform their job. Although we primarily worked on protected area management, we were able to duplicate the approach to a competency-based training program for conservation faculty-members. We have improved our assessment and evaluation methods to assess not only learning gains but to obtain proofs of performance as well.

Competency approach requires collaboration at individual and institutional level because the aim is improvement of job performance. Close collaboration with the Ministry in charge of PAs and with major NGOs helped us to position PA manager as a job on itself with its own sets of knowledge, skills and attitudes, and to develop a system of competency recognition. • Recent global advancements in PA capacity development confirmed the adoption of a competence approach. We got ideas from IUCN WCPA work as well as initiatives in other countries of East Africa.

The competency-based approach to enhance skills and identify gaps takes time for PA staff to understand, persistence is needed. We had the same guest lists for any of our event related to professionalization of PA management, in order to build a consistency of people that understand and assimilate the concepts and tools – or at least, are aware of the development of the approach. The position of the government (ministries and agencies) is really essential for real ownership and engagement by the various stakeholders. When the Ministry showed that it adhered to the vision and helped launch the initiative, other partners followed. The frequent change of staff at the Ministry level forced us to repeat some steps.

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