Integrating environmental education within the management model of National Parks of Colombia

Abstract

Many experts consider environmental Education (EE) as an essential part in the management of protected areas, constituting a key element linking the biological and social dimensions for the conservation of ecosystems. Comparing with other kind of management strategies as biological monitoring and research, this field is still in its infancy, with many breaches in terms of systematization and assessment, a situation that difficult the integration and visibility of EA within management programs in the conservation of protected areas. Taking the Colombian National Natural Parks System as study area, a methodological route was developed to integrate local EE plans to the existing model of management planning. The study was developed through a participatory and inclusive research to respond to the specific conservation needs and goals. In first place, an internal EE diagnosis was developed, revealing that EE integration within the parks management structure was a first priority need, being a converging result on the two case studies on National Parks from the Pacific Coast of Colombia. The diagnosis also demonstrates that communication, participation, training and evaluation have to be reinforced, and linking the community and stakeholders involved in the park management was essential for the success of the EE program and management results. The proposed methodology route has been agreed upon by the National Parks staff from local, regional and national level, and incorporates advice and recommendations from different stakeholders, in order to better include the park users. Integrating EE into local action plans, will help us to advance toward sustainable management in marine and coastal protected areas elsewhere, taking into account not only the biological but also the social-cultural prism. Once the methodological route was agreed, the assessment was the remaining challenge. Nowadays, a new perspective to measure management effectiveness in protected areas goes through the inclusion of social data for decision-making. In this process, EE plays a key role in catalyzing biological and social fields in the management process, but there are scarce data about this relation. Following an institutional bottom-up perspective, an EE indicator set proposal was developed, being easy to use by practitioners and able to measure the response of the EE program in relation to the conservation objectives of protected areas management plan. Using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques, the data gathering and indicator elaboration is divided in five stages: 1. An EE program survey at a national scale. 2. An interview phase to EE staff and NGOs. 3. EE