“Educating to conserve”: improving nature conservation through education (PAPACO)

The 8,700 protected areas identified across the African continent are facing significant challenges: demographic growth, pressure on resources, the effects of climate change. These are compounded by issues in terms of management, with potentially dramatic impacts on both fauna and flora. Faced with this situation, the Programme on African Protected areas & Conservation (Papaco) - run by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) - and Senghor University in Egypt have been training protected area professionals since 2009. The “Educating to conserve” project, financed by the FFEM, is part of this process. Its aim is to underpin the creation, adaptation and implementation of tools to develop the capabilities of those actors able to influence African protected areas.

The project has 3 components:

• Creating or reinforcing the capabilities of key players directly involved in the management of protected areas. The objective is to enable them to pursue their profession more effectively and empower them to face up to the evolving pressures bearing on conservation territories.
• Educating and informing those with an indirect influence on these areas: local communities, citizens, researchers, those working in industry, tourism and administrations, etc.
• Raising children’s awareness and providing teachers and educators with teaching tools for environmental education.

• Increasing the number of informed people.
• Improving the quality of actions taken in conservation.

The “Educating to conserve” project uses online educational and informational technologies to best attain its objectives. It contributes to the preservation of the global environment by educating staff in the protected areas, providing information to their partners and raising awareness among the next generation of the issues facing these territories.