Negative attitudes towards wildlife, and a lack of knowledge of how behavior can damage the environment, often underlie the conservation threats that we are trying to address. Education and awareness-raising are integral parts of almost all WCS landscape/seascape and country program strategies, and need to focus on both short-term behavior change and long-term constituency building (at the local, national and international levels) to effect conservation in the long-term.

Conservation Support supports these field-based initiatives through:

• Education and outreach strategy development. We assist with the definition of clear goals, objectives, metrics, audiences, messages, tools and activities necessary to support conservation objectives; support for proposal writing is part of this service.
• Coordinating partnerships for innovative new approaches. When appropriate, we help field programs partner with organizations such as RARE and Media Impact to bring innovative new methods and additional external capacity to help achieve our goals.
• Global Design and Outreach. This “one-WCS” partnership between Conservation Support and EGAD (Exhibits and Graphic Arts Department) supports our education and outreach goals through the design and construction of visitor centers, education centers and classrooms that help to inform and inspire various target audiences. Learn More>>
• Online resources. To facilitate learning across WCS country programs, we are creating an online repository of WCS education and outreach materials, proposals, reports and other useful resources.
• Coordination with the WCS Education Department. While WCS Education is primarily focused on educating teachers and students in the US, we are increasingly seeking opportunities for collaboration that provide a mechanism to link US and global audiences in support of our conservation mission.

For more information on our Global Education and Outreach activities, please contact Nalini Mohan.