Dr Maximus: Mass media can change public awareness on biodiversity conservation
Wednesday, 25 February 2004 (Source: New Sabah Times)

KOTA KINABALU: The mass media especially digital media have enormous potential in creating a change in public awareness on biodiversity conservation through environmental education.

While the focus of environmental education and public awareness programmes has been in the school system, the important role the media plays has often been overlooked.

Science and Technology Advisor to the Chief Minister, Datuk Dr. Maximus Ongkili said the problem in part has been insufficiency of environmental information in printed and electronic media and the lack of depth of writers on the subject.

“Furthermore, such contributions by the press have been ad-hoc and problem sounding rather than problem solving,” he said.

Dr Maximus said this when presenting a working paper on Public Awareness of Biodiversity Conservation: Current Status and Consideration for Effective Action at the Borneon Biodiversity Ecosystems Conservation Conference 2004 at Nexus Karambunai Resort yesterday.

He said the advent of ICT that has revolutionised the printing and electronic industry has made the media an important asset in biodiversity conservation.

Hence, he said there was a need for training media practitioners in key aspects of biodiversity resources and the role to be played in effecting conservation habit and practice.

“The power of the pen in this regard cannot be underestimated and every effort should be made by the government, the private sector and NGOs to invest resources in this strategic tool,” he said.

According to Dr Maximus, public awareness was crucial in garnering support of the people in conservation efforts.

And, he said environmental education was one of the key approaches to raising awareness on biodiversity conservation.

“The broad nature of environmental education, however, has to a certain extent contributed to the lack of understanding of its true concept among practitioners and the public,” he said.

He added that not only were the concepts broad in nature but they were too theoretical that they were seen as alien to young students, especially when the concepts were not explained in practical terms at the field level.

Hence, he said the concept of the ecosystem and its interrelationships meant very little to young students when they did not see them in reality and ‘feel’ them in their actual habitat.

“The concept of the ecosystems and conservation cannot be learned simply in the classrooms. Such an approach may create mental awareness among stakeholders but promotes very little conservation habit in practice,” he said.

As such, he said it could not be over stressed that there was a great need for all in Sabah involved with EE and public awareness on biodiversity conservation to collaborate and co-operate for maximum benefit and effective results.

In the conservation effort, Dr Maximus also said that dealing with the young was insufficient. It became necessary to deal with parents and with the family as a whole institution.

“It is quite fruitless to invest enormous resources on teaching and convincing young school children about the need to value and conserve biodiversity when adults and parents care little about the sustainability of our ecosystems,” he said.

In short, he said environmental education must address the total family component and not just the young school children. There was also a need to define stakeholders of biodiversity especially communities that were hosts to locations of biodiversity.

“There must be informed of their rights as stakeholders and future benefits to be gained from conservation,” he said.

Hence, he said the concept of property rights needed to be defined clearly to make communities understand their role as co-owners of biodiversity and custodians of benefits from conservation.

Dr Maximus also said that environmental education and public awareness programmes must equally be focused at policy makers and planners especially those who formulated the development programmes.

“While a lot of efforts have been undertaken to sensitise such groups regarding conservation and sustainability issues, strategies to ensure that development programmes are planned and implemented with sustainability goals in mind are still very limited,” he added.

Furthermore, he said action plans were not clearly defined to include sustainability practices, except where EIA requirements were made mandatory.

“Failure to adopt this approach would lead conservation planning to merely be an ad-hoc one and appropriately termed ‘fire-fighting’ approach,” he said.

Dr Maximus also said that policy makers and planners especially those involved in budget drafting needed to be sensitised that it paid to invest in environmental education and public awareness of biodiversity conservation.

He added that there was a need for increased funding for environmental education in schools including better provision of trained teachers and field facilities for study groups and environmental research.

Similarly, he said financial resources were required to ensure environmental messages were relevant to the target audience and that the right channels were employed to create a change in habit and environmental action.

“In short, in the context of biodiversity conservation, it pays enormously to invest in the future by embedding sustainability habits of stakeholders including the public sector, private sector, individuals and the family,” he said.