Biodiversity and Conservation 4,664-670 (1995)

Saying it with genes, species and habitats: biodiversity education and the role of zoos MALCOLM WHITEHEAD International Centre for Conservution Education. Greer@Ai House. Grtiting Pouw. Cheltenham.

Gloucestershire GL54 5TX. l/R

Received 9 July 1994: accepted 3 September 1994

This paper considers the role of zoological gardens as vehicles for teaching about biodiversity and conservation. The general importance of conservation and biodiversity education is outlined in the context of Agenda 21 and the Global Biodiversity Strategy, and the unique niche of zoo education for meeting these challenges is defined. This includes the exhibition of real live animals, accessibility. immediacy, popularity, egalitarianism and the unique combination of strengths and resources offered by zoo education departments. Effective zoo education for biodiversity conservation depends on answering certain criticisms (including behavioural distortion. ecological context and

people/animal relationships): working within the available resource framework; and careful strategic planning that considers appropriate messages, target audiences and communication methods. Future zoo education trends might include developing the unique niche: teaching about zoos’ role in

interactive management: and the contribution of zoo networks to education.

Keywords: biodiversity: conservation; education: zoos: strategic planning.

Introduction

Visitors to the London or Paris zoological gardens in the 1960s were confronted with a vast array of vertebrate diversity, a legacy from the nineteenth century origins of these so-called scientific zoos when taxonomy was one of the main directions of zoological research.

Today, both collections, and their progressive counterparts worldwide, keep fewer species than before but rather more specimens of each species. The emphasis is still on biodiversity but the details have changed. Genetic conservation, ecology and ethology are the predominant sciences (Brambell, 1993). Zoos are evolving from museum-like repositories to interactively managed sanctuaries with increasing links to the field. Their contribution to biodiversity conservation continues significantly to improve with the increase in managed, networked breeding programmes; a profusion of new biotechnologies, and a realization of the role that zoos can play in public education about biodiversity and its conservation. It is this last role that is the subject of this paper. I aim to identify the unique niche of zoo education and explore its potential and constraints with reference to communicating about biodiversity and its conservation. Further. I wish to outline the importance of strategic planning for the effectiveness of zoo education programmes, and to suggest possible future avenues for exploration and development.

0960-3115 C 19YS Chapman & Hall

Biodiversity education and zoos

Conserving biodiversity - the importance of education

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In general, education, training and public awareness are recognized as essential tools in bringing about effective conservation and sustainable development. Indeed, ‘education’ and ‘training’ are mentioned 617 times in Agenda 21, the work programme agreed at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This is second only to ‘Governments’ at 1107 mentions (IUCN, 1993).

With regard to biodiversity, it is clear that the spectrum, value, threats to and conservation of biodiversity are major issues facing humanity. Their importance is reflected in numerous global and national conservation strategies. According to the Global Biodiversity Strategy (WRI/IUCN/UNEP, 1992): ‘Since policy makers, activists and scientists cannot slow biodiversity loss without wider public support, a multi-faceted effort is required to expand public awareness about biodiversity’s importance and to strengthen the public’s will and ability to act. Whilst the avenues for strengthening awareness vary with place and culture, every society has numerous communication tools at its disposal’. The Strategy identifies four major action points as fundamental to increasing appreciation and awareness of the value and importance of biodiversity. These are:

Action 72 - build awareness of the importance and value of biodiversity into popular culture. Action 73 - use the formal education system to increase awareness about biodiversity and the need for its conservation. Action 74 - integrate biodiversity concerns into education outside of the classroom. Action 75 - establish or strengthen national or subnational institutions providing information on the conservation and potential values of biodiversity.

Zoological gardens are particularly well equipped to meet the above challenges.

Why zoos? The unique niche of zoo education

Zoos are the only institutions to keep collections of living (wild) animals (often) from all over the world. Large zoos with extensive species inventories may offer visitors the opportunity to view the fauna of Amazonia, Africa and Antarctica in a single day. As an old advertising brochure of New York’s Bronx Zoo once proclaimed: ‘You’d have to travel over 31000 miles to see this in the wild’. Most people will not achieve this in a lifetime.

There are variations. Some zoos specialize in their local biodiversity (e.g. many Indian collections, Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, USA, Healesville Sanctuary, Australia); particular habitats or taxa (e.g. Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Slimbridge and associated centres UK, numerous aquaria worldwide) and even the relationship of biodiversity to human culture (e.g. Sri Venketashwara Zoological Park, Tirupati, India and Hindu gods; Jerusalem Biblical Zoo, Israel).

Zoos offer accessibility to animal biodiversity on a number of levels including proximity and immediacy. In the early 21st century, humanity will become a predominantly urban species. For urbanites and their rural counterparts, progressive zoological gardens offer an unparalleled opportunity to experience wildlife at close quarters. Elephants are enormous: gibbons defend their territories with ear splitting whoops; parrots preen, boas bask, meerkats forage, and penguins really do smell of fish (Whitehead, 1994). There is no

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substitute for the real thing. Even wildlife TV camerapersons and film makers use zoos for close ups.

Such contact remains attractive to millions of people. It is estimated that 600 million of them visit the world’s 1000 plus federated zoos each year (WZCS, 1993). This represents over 10% of the global human population and is unequalled by any other group of public, conservation-oriented institutions (WZCS, 1993). Collectively then, zoos are among the largest providers of environmental education on Earth, and they have the potential to do much more depending on funding, public support, clear direction, capacity building and institutional strengthening. A further advantage is that zoos are truly egalitarian and, in many countries, draw their visitors from a wider cross section of society than, say. museums, historic attractions or comparable places. Quite simply, all ages, creeds, races and social backgrounds visit zoos - not only families with children.

Zoo educators are faced with numerous possible target audiences with whom to develop concepts, refine skills and nurture attitudes about the natural world, our impact upon it and responsibilities for it. Further, this is an unprecedented time for zoos to teach about biodiversity and its conservation. Zoos are at the forefront of conservation biology and education. Many species will become extinct and many habitats will become degraded or lost without input from zoo breeding programmes, zoo sciences and the professional expertise of zoo biologists. In a sense, zoos, or at least zoo networks, are becoming bigger as the wild shrinks. They support vast numbers of animals needed to augment wild populations in the future. Such aspects of conservation management could be very effective education and public awareness tools. As Colin Tudge has remarked, ‘zoos that set out only to educate, rather than to breed endangered species, throw away what is by far their best opportunity to educate’ (Tudge, 1991).

The unique contributions of zoo education to formal school education are myriad. Animals are a great stimulus for cross-curricular education, and with imagination one can teach anything from art to zoology in a zoo. Similarly the potential is there to take people from awareness to action. Education officers or departments within zoos can supply teachers to enhance class visits. Good zoo educators have up-to-date information, lively teaching methods and present a fresh face to pupils. Zoo teaching at school level offers a combination of resources not available to normal schools. The educational outcome is likely to be memorable, lasting, tailored to relevant curricula and cost effective.

Similar specialist zoo education provision is available for the tertiary education sector and all aspects of local communities. In many parts of the world, zoos are engaged in training programmes to help present and future generations of wildlife biologists, educators and conservationists (e.g. see Walker and Whitehead, 1994; Waugh and Wemmer, 1994).

Constraints on effective zoo education and means to overcome them

The contribution of zoological gardens to conservation is recognized at the highest levels (e.g. IUCN Policy Statement on Captive Breeding, IUCN 1987; WZCS, IUDZGICBSGI IUCN 1993). Nevertheless, not all zoos are good zoos and whilst advocates would champion reform rather than abolition wherever possible, there are reasoned arguments against the existence of zoological gardens. It is outside the remit of this paper to consider all of these arguments in detail but it is pertinent to address some that relate to the

Biodiversity education and zoos 667

perceived ability or otherwise of zoos to deliver good educational experiences and practice.

Critics maintain that zoos are not educational (in the way they intend to be) because animal behaviour in captivity is ‘distorted’; because species are presented in isolation (i.e. out of ecological context), and because zoos reflect the hegemony or power relationships of people over other sentient beings. To answer these points in turn:

Captive animal behaviour is not intrinsically ‘distorted’. Some species (and some individual animals) are more prone than others to behavioural abnormalities if kept in impoverished environments. Natural behaviour patterns are the goal of all responsible zoos and these can be facilitated by standards of excellence in husbandry, welfare and enclosure design that includes enrichment and caters for specific niche requirements. Good practice will result in the right educational experiences for visitors. Bad practice is to be deplored and will transmit inappropriate subliminal and overt ‘messages’. Obviously there are many other benefits of good practice, not least as far as the animals are concerned, but it is my intention here to confine remarks to the educational function of zoos.

Traditionally zoos did present species in isolation, or at least in houses or complexes that grouped together related taxa. Early scientific zoos were taxonomic in terms of design, and presented species as living natural history museum exhibits in the appropriate cabinets. One prevailing trend in zoo design is to move towards enclosures that reflect the fauna1 and floral biodiversity of whole ecosystems. From menageries there has been a development towards environmental resource centres with holistic displays and immersion exhibits (Rabb, 1992). Even traditional zoo enclosures can be enriched with the resultant improvements in welfare offering ample scope for intelligent and innovative interpretation.

Zoo education can supply ecological context through the above developments. In India, for example, the proposed Coimbatore Zoological Park will offer visitors the chance to take a ‘potted walk’ through the Nilgiri Hills Biosphere Reserve. Emphasis will be on not only the natural environment (including fauna1 and floral biodiversity) but also on the socio-culture of local people who will be involved in working on traditional crafts within the Park (Rangaswamy and Walker, 1992).

Without a holistic approach to display, it can be difficult to teach conservation in front of zoo enclosures. On their own, and out of context, tamarins look no rarer than toads or turkeys. As a young boy said while watching a baby orang-utan in a German zoo: ‘How can they be endangered? They have a good life here!’ (Seger, 1993).

The wider zoo environment may also emit contradictory messages. The labels may talk about breeding programmes, but the cafes may be awash with unnecessary packaging, for example. Practising what you preach or conservation with a big C is reviewed by Rabb (1986).

Whether or not zoos reflect human dominion over wildlife is fundamental to zoo education as it concerns important questions of ethics and values. As stated in the book ‘Zoo Culture’:

‘The zoo constitutes a gallery of images constructed by man. The fact that he is able to arrange around him living creatures from all parts of the world, to make decisions with regard to the quality and conditions of their lives and to give shape to the world for them

668 Whitehead

in terms of his imagination and desire is, in the end, an expression of power’ (Mullan and Marvin, 1987).

Modern zoo professionals view themselves as stewards rather than masters of nature. In a world where everything is affected to a greater or lesser extent by people, and where conservation depends upon manipulation and management of ‘nature’ by individuals and communities, the zoo becomes part of a spectrum that extends from ‘wilderness’ and protected areas to ex situ gene banks. A degree of distance between zoo animals and visitors is probably inevitable although it can be minimized by zoo education in the broadest sense (e.g. immersion design where visitor and animal space appears contiguous: animal handling and contact sessions that promote respect and understanding).

Strategic planning for zoo education

Zoo education can only be truly effective with careful, coordinated strategic planning. Many zoos ‘do’ education haphazardly without considering baseline data, evaluation (which should be included in the planning stage) or timescale.

Zoo educators should be clear about the messages they wish to convey. Confining this to biodiversity (which is not the only subject possible in zoo education by a long way), will the messages be global, local and relevant to local zoo visitors, about the zoo as biodiversity conservation institution per se, or combinations thereof? Are these messages perceived as issues, problems or neutral subjects to be taught? If a problem, then who are the creators, sufferers and beneficiaries? Most important of all is to consider why the zoo is undertaking the education programme. What is the zoo trying to achieve? Does it want to change people’s attitudes, actions and values and, if so, what to and whose values? What will happen if the education is not undertaken?

Strategic plans convey messages to specific groups of people or target audiences. These may be within formal or informal education systems. Zoo educators must define the target audiences they are seeking to reach, prioritise such audiences and set realistic aims. Programmes will only be effective if they consider the educational norms (e.g. present knowledge, traditional knowledge, taboos, literacy levels etc.) and socio-cultural specificities of particular targets. Target audiences for teaching about biodiversity in the zoo might include school pupils (e.g. through existing science curricula), general visitors (including local communities who may not otherwise be exposed to ‘their’ biodiversity). tertiary students and biodiversity professionals (through skills transfer training).

The transmission of messages to targets relies on a variety of communication methods. These are limited by resource availability (including constraints of staff, finance. equipment, time and access to data) and shaped by existing methods of communication familiar to targets (or new methods if research reveals that they work).

A plethora of communication methods are used by zoo educators worldwide. These include criteria of species choice for exhibition: exhibit design to reveal biodiversity in particular ecosystems: zoogeographical and ecological arrangement of enclosures (e.g. parts of the Anna Zoo. Madras, India): immersion design: signs, labels and graphics: interactive exhibits, models and graphics; audio-visual and computer technology: talks. guided tours and lectures; use of volunteers; classroom, exhibition and ‘hands-on facilities’: printed materials from pupil- and teacher-centred literature to guide books, brochures and scientific reports; outreach programmes; use of local media and creating a total ambience of a conservation conscious organization.

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Good zoos use a mixture of the above techniques and constantly evaluate their effectiveness. It is difficult to evaluate but crucial to know whether the messages are being received and whether the media used are appropriate. Evaluation might consider facts learnt, concepts understood, attitudes towards certain issues and actions taken if relevant.

Fuhre co~iderations

The people who learn the most from zoos are probably zoo workers-especially those with direct access to their animals. Their environment is ostensibly a multi-species society with profound and superficial interactions occurring daily on a number of levels (including intellectual, emotion, humanitarian and aesthetic). Effective zoo education shoud unlock the key to this hidden kingdom of ex situ biodiversity. It should use the animals as a starting point and should begin at the perception of the visitor rather than the perception of the zoo professional. Only then is there a possibility of introducing new concepts.

The immediacy and proximity of real, active, well adjusted animals will remain the primary source material for zoo educators. Additional goals will be to teach about the spectrum of managed fragmentation that constitutes biodiversity today, and the zoo’s role within the spectrum. Zoo networks will develop their own programmes and facilitate those of individual zoos. The Indian branch of IUCN’s Conservation Breeding Specialist Group (CBSG}, for example, has an Education Special Interest Group which is actively targeting professionals, teachers and children at grassroots level (Bannerjee, 1994).

Above all, zoo education will continue to employ experiential and active learning techniques. Most people still visit zoos for recreation although, with careful planning, this is entirely compatible with education (WZCS, 1993). That zoo visitors are open to receiving information is perhaps the best news for zoo professionals wishing to undertake programmes about biodiversity and its conservation.

Acknowledgements

To Phillip Coffey, Head of Education at the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust, Channel Islands for organization of international zoo education training courses, and to him and Sally Walker, Secretary Zoo Outreach Organization, India for inspiration and ideas.

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