Communication

Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) are important instruments for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. CEPA provides the link from science and ecology to people's social and economic reality. It supplies the oil for the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity and deals with the processes that motivate and mobilize individual and collective action.

Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) are important instruments for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. CEPA provides the link from science and ecology to people’s social and economic reality. It supplies the oil for the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity and deals with the processes that motivate and mobilize individual and collective action.

Almost half the world's people live in cities and this proportion is steadily growing. Protected areas provide important benefits to cities; conversely, conservationists depend on support from voters, leaders, and opinion-shapers largely concentrated in urban centres. This book's message is that conservationists' success will depend increasingly on taking these urban connections seriously.

Resulting from a conference held in September 2004 at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, this collection of papers treats the subject of scientific research in the environmental field. The debate was organized with the aim of clarifying the influence of scientific research on society and the responsibilities researchers can and should accept in matters of ecological research.

Protected areas operate within complex ecological and social systems, presenting challenges that cannot be resolved by technical solution alone. Achieving the management objectives of protected areas requires a social approach in which strategic communication is a key instrument.

CEPA tools have been identified as one of the keys to achieving better outcomes in a broad range of environmental projects – increased community engagement, higher levels of collaboration among stakeholders, better targeted public awareness materials and increased sustainability of results.