World Sustainability Series

Paula Castro
Ulisses M. Azeiteiro
Paula Bacelar-Nicolau
Walter Leal Filho
Anabela Marisa Azul Editors

Biodiversity
and Education
for Sustainable
Development

123
World Sustainability Series

Series editor
Walter Leal Filho, Hamburg, Germany
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13384
Paula Castro Ulisses M. Azeiteiro
•

Paula Bacelar-Nicolau Walter Leal Filho

•

Anabela Marisa Azul

Editors

Biodiversity and
Education for Sustainable
Development

123
Editors
Paula Castro Walter Leal Filho
Department of Life Sciences, Centre HAW Hamburg
for Functional Ecology Hamburg
University of Coimbra Germany
Coimbra
Portugal and

Ulisses M. Azeiteiro Manchester Metropolitan University

Department of Science and Technology Manchester
Universidade Aberta and Centre UK
for Functional Ecology
University of Coimbra Anabela Marisa Azul
Coimbra Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology
Portugal University of Coimbra
Coimbra
Paula Bacelar-Nicolau Portugal
Department of Science and Technology
Universidade Aberta and Centre
for Functional Ecology
University of Coimbra
Coimbra
Portugal

ISSN 2199-7373 ISSN 2199-7381 (electronic)

World Sustainability Series
ISBN 978-3-319-32317-6 ISBN 978-3-319-32318-3 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016935961

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

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Editorial

This book joins the global debate on education for sustainable development
(ESD) and explores its contribution to biodiversity conservation. This book collects
reflections from various areas of knowledge and links biological and ecological
principles and pedagogical practices. In parallel, it reports on a remarkable wide
range of formal, non-formal and informal learning and participatory research and
awareness actions, as well as educational proposals and resources for critical
thinking and for fostering practices and attitudes, reconciling education with
principles of human behaviour and nature.
Along with the challenge of the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity
(2011–2020), this book aims to bring a scientific and pedagogical contribution
targeting the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, including the Aichi
Biodiversity Targets and also the Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for
Sustainable Development that states in its Goal 14. Conserve and sustainably use
the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development and Goal 15.
Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably
manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and
halt biodiversity loss, biodiversity conservation related goals.
The contents of this book are divided into five parts:
Part I Education Research on Biodiversity
Part II Teaching About Biological Invasions and Threats to Biodiversity
Part III Engaging Society in Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainability
Part IV Designing Sustainable Futures
Part V Online Education to Biodiversity and Sustainability Awareness
The first part gathers papers concerning education research on biodiversity as
well as conservation of biological resources. The second part focuses on the
biological invasions that threaten native biodiversity. The third part reports on study
cases that engage society in the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable
development. The fourth part focuses on novel approaches leading to more
sustainable futures, and the final part discusses the use of e-learning in the
progresses towards conservation of biodiversity and sustainability awareness. Using

v
vi Editorial

e-learning is becoming widely accepted in both formal and non-formal education,

proving to be effective in expanding education for sustainability (EfS).
Readers will find variety of topics, covering from urban biodiversity, island
ecosystems, polar regions biodiversity, endemisms and protected species to
biological invaders/invasive alien species (IAS), from fungal biodiversity and
teaching to insects biodiversity, in the context of endemic biodiversity in the Azores
Islands (North Atlantic) and soil biodiversity. These topics are addressed in a
scientific and investigative perspective, educational context (education for sustain-
able development) and incorporate social awareness/raising awareness into the
broader socio-environmental topic of biodiversity conservation and communication
strategies for public engagement. Biodiversity and rural communities and
biodiversity and indigenous communities are addressed together with the discussion
of biodiversity policies in national contexts.
Teaching biodiversity conservation and sustainable use of resources, ecosystem
services and sustainable development may also make wider use of, and profit from,
the new information and communication technologies, as also addressed in this
book by the study case of online teaching (e-learning and b-learning) for
biodiversity conservation.
A total of 20 double-blind peer-reviewed chapters from Europe (contributors
from Portugal, Germany, United Kingdom, Norway, Spain and Italy), South
America (contributors from Brazil and Mexico) and Africa (contributors from
South Africa) cover the different subjects related to the above-mentioned topics of
this book.
An introductory chapter from the editors Walter Leal Filho, Paula Castro, Paula
Bacelar-Nicolau, Anabela Marisa Azul and Ulisses M. Azeiteiro entitled
“Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD): Tendencies and
Perspectives” draws some theoretical concepts with reference to the links between
biodiversity research, biodiversity loss, biodiversity in education for sustainable
development, education and sustainable development, tendencies and perspectives
in the context of the United Nations Decade on Biodiversity (2011–2020).
Part I of the book includes five chapters relating to education research on
biodiversity and conservation of biological resources:
Paula Castro, Anabela Marisa Azul, and Jorge Paiva in the chapter
“Conservation of Biological Resources: Why Does It Matter?” emphasise on the
relevance of biodiversity in people’s life. The authors address the importance of
forests, the unknown biodiversity and the extinction of species in order to alert the
readers and the general public, students, teachers and other stakeholders on the
importance of all biological resources. This is the viewpoint of one of the lasting
researchers of a generation of naturalists—Jorge Paiva.
As we are increasingly becoming aware, “urban growth and human competition
for land have led to deep structural changes in the composition and dynamics of the
landscape, significantly affecting the fragile rural/urban equilibrium, and migration
from rural to urban areas has forced cities to expand into the surrounding
environments which created substantial environmental impacts on the functioning
of natural ecosystems, affecting land use of the rural-urban interface”. In this
Editorial vii

context, the chapter untitled “Urban Biodiversity and Cities’ Sustainability

Development”, by Lurdes Barrico and Paula Castro, looks at understanding the
human causes and consequences of land use change in urban environments.
Authors state that “with a correct model of urban development we may preserve
native biodiversity, ecosystem services, and diminish natural hazards in urban
environment” and “highlight the importance of greening cities and engaging resi-
dents and other stakeholders in the planning process and decision-making, as well
as the importance of teaching, training or raising awareness as key actions to
achieve these goals”.
“The Polar Regions are famously associated with extreme temperatures, ice,
snow, legendary explorers, indigenous people, polar bears, penguins and other
impressive fauna and flora. The past decades have witnessed a revolution in the
amount of data collected in the Polar Regions, with considerable advances in
the knowledge of numerous areas, including polar biodiversity. Educationally,
the Polar Regions can be perfect vehicles to transfer educational concepts related to
biodiversity, but unfortunately, the evaluation of the impact of educational activities
related to polar biodiversity is scarce”. In this fourth chapter, untitled “Education on
Biodiversity in the Polar Regions”, José C. Xavier, Gerlis Fugmann, Inga Beck,
Louise Huffman and Eric Jensen provide a general review of the importance of the
polar regions, the increasing status of polar education in the last decade, examples
of polar educational activities on biodiversity and a resource to stakeholders
interested in polar science and education.
María P. Martín and Roy Watling in “Teaching Mycology Worldwide” write
about taxonomy and fungi, stating the difficulty “to delimit a species concept which
is common to all fungal groups. In general, taxonomists continue using morpho-
logical characters; however, DNA sequence analysis (barcoding) is now essential to
discover the true identity of new fungal species”. In this chapter, some aspects of
teaching mycology are summarised, including well-documented fungi websites
from different countries, and scientific databases for various groups of fungi and the
application of new technologies. Some teaching experiences, while training tax-
onomists all around the world, are shared with the reader, such as sampling in the
rain forest with Malaysian and Thai students, teaching general and master courses
in Australia, Brazil, Ecuador and India and online tools for the effective training of
students and teachers, particularly when these participate at distance.
“The negative impact of biodiversity loss on ecosystem functioning and services,
and ultimately on human well-being, has been unequivocally established; however,
despite all efforts, biodiversity is still declining worldwide. It is widely accepted
that biodiversity awareness is crucial for its conservation. Nevertheless, after many
initiatives to alert society about the consequences of losing biodiversity, biodiver-
sity loss is still perceived as a minor environmental risk compared to others, such as
climate change. Thus far, most communication strategies have involved conven-
tional venues, targeting people who are already “environmentally-aware”, and have
not incorporated societal idiosyncrasies and cultural backgrounds”. In this context,
Ana Moura Arroz, Rosalina Gabriel, Isabel R. Amorim, Rita São Marcos and
Paulo A.V. Borges in the chapter “Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About
viii Editorial

Endemic Biodiversity” review the role of communication in risk governance, and

the principles and strategic options of the Azorean intervention.
The second part of the book discusses biological invasions and their threats to
native biodiversity and includes chapters “Science and Education at the Centre for
Invasion Biology” and “Engaging Society to Fight invasive Alien Plants in Portugal
—One of the Main Threats to Biodiversity”:
“South Africa has severe problems caused by biological invasions in terrestrial,
freshwater and marine ecosystems, and a long history of managing biological
invasions. However, appreciation and systematic study of the problems associated
with invasive species are relatively recent. In 2004, the Centre for Invasion Biology
(CIB) was established as one of the first six national Centres of Excellence funded
by the South African government”. Sarah J. Davies, G. John Measey, Dorette du
Plessis and David M. Richardson in “Science and Education at the Centre for
Invasion Biology” present the readers the aims, structure and activities of Centres of
Excellence. Researchers at these centres are involved in citizen science programmes
on invasive species, in collaborative work with partner organisations which
implement invasive species management programmes and provide employment
opportunities for graduates at the centre.
In the chapter “Engaging Society to Fight invasive Alien Plants in Portugal—
One of the Main Threats to Biodiversity”, Elizabete Marchante and Hélia March-
ante write about invasive alien species (IAS) in Portugal. A list of 32 animal and
plant species has been recognised as invasive species by the Portuguese legislation
since 1999. Nevertheless, a large portion of the population is still unaware of the
problem. This paper reviews the various strategies developed by the researchers in
engaging and raising public awareness with the topic of IAS, namely plant species,
since 2003, including the website invasoras.pt. Overall, awareness about IAS is
increasing amongst the Portuguese population and citizens are contributing more to
the prevention and control of IAS. Still, the challenge to reach public other than the
peers or professionals related to the topic is still daunting.
In Part III of this book, readers can find three study cases that engage society in
biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, Chaps. “Bugs and Society
II: Testing Two Communication Strategies for Public Engagement in the Azores” to
“Education for Sustainability in the Context of Community Forestry”:
Following from chapter 6 above, Isabel R. Amorim, Ana Moura Arroz, Rita São
Marcos, Paulo A.V. Borges and Rosalina Gabriel, in “Bugs and Society II: Testing
Two Communication Strategies for Public Engagement in the Azores”, introduce
the communicational programme “Bugs and society” and test two initiatives to raise
biodiversity awareness relating to Azorean endemic species—an outdoor exhibition
Açorianos há milhões de anos (Azoreans for millions of years) and a web contest to
name insects Chama-lhe Nomes! (Pick a name!). Both communicational strategies
targeted non-traditional audiences and relied on the Portuguese and Azorean cul-
tural identity and on anthropic verisimilitude of situations involving insects. The
assessment of impacts produced in the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of
viewers and users are discussed. Communication devices like the ones herein
Editorial ix

presented are expected to raise biodiversity awareness and empower people

regarding its preservation in the Azores.
“Dialogue and mutual learning between civil society and researchers involved in
natural resource management have been increasingly advocated as a means of
improving public understanding of science, biodiversity conservation, and local
well-being. In rural areas in developing countries, however, science communication
and environmental education strategies for disseminating biodiversity conservation
research have traditionally used methods based on top–down, one-way approaches
that have limited local engagement in research and undermined feedback generation
between local people and researchers”. In the Chap. “Communicating Biodiversity
Conservation Research Through Dialogue and Mutual Learning in Rural and
Indigenous Communities” Isabel Ruiz Mallen examines a participatory process of
developing a communication strategy for an environmental conservation project in
Southeastern Mexico. Such participatory approach increases the social relevance
of the research and improves both research results and dissemination products.
“Community forestry in Portugal is emerging as a promising form of
multifunctional forestry that combines scientific and technical knowledge with
the participation of the local residents in decision-making. These forests are
governed by collective property arrangements (baldios) based on millenarian
traditional usufruct rights of a local community of commoners (compartes).
Participation is open to all the new residents regardless of their gender, activity or
status. This connection between the commoners and the commons lands was
severely disrupted during the twentieth century, by the national Forest Services, by
compulsory afforesting the lands with tree species unknown to local populations
and causing the decline of collective agro-pastoral practices”. In “Education for
Sustainability in the Context of Community Forestry” Rita Serra, Patrícia Ferreira,
Iryna Skulska, Mayrén Alavez-Vargas, Anailton Salgado, João Arriscado Nunes
and Raúl García-Barrios describe the study case of a community of compartes that
recently gained back control of its common lands and initiated a project to
regenerate a degraded mountain forest. This includes the challenges and the edu-
cational activities jointly developed to activate meaningful engagement in collective
practices, intergenerational responsibility and active citizenship.
Part IV focuses on novel approaches leading to more sustainable futures in the
scope of education for biodiversity conservation and sustainability, with Chaps.
“Urban Forest Governance: FUTURE—The 100,000 Trees Project in Porto
Metropolitan Area” to “Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early
Childhood to Biodiversity Education and Sustainable Development”:
Marta Pinto, Conceição Almeida, Ana Maria Pereira and Margarida Silva in
“Urban Forest Governance: FUTURE—The 100,000 Trees Project in the Porto
Metropolitan Area” present the reader the case study FUTURE, describing its
context, scale, institutional framework, actors and partnerships, resources and
processes and governance model. The Porto Metropolitan Area is a region in
northern Portugal with approximately 2,000 km2 and 16 % of the Portuguese
population. The region is a jigsaw puzzle of urban, agricultural and forest areas.
A broad participatory regional planning process, conducted from 2003 to 2008,
x Editorial

concluded that major challenges ahead included the improvement of the green
infrastructure (forest, riverside areas and natural corridors), the need for education
and training for sustainability, as well as improved interinstitutional coordination.
The FUTURE – the 100,000 trees project in the Porto Metropolitan Area is the
outcome of this process.
“Sustainable development (SD) is a controversial concept informed by
conflictive narratives which reshape the way we envision the earth, the sea and
the stars. Its integration in international policies and national strategy plans for
development influences the ways we now know the past, our understanding of the
present, and our paths to the future. It influences our lives through policies that
regulate daily practices, such as the European Common Fisheries Policy which
focuses its strategies for SD in trade and education”. Chapter “Reflexive Research
and Education for Sustainable Development with Coastal Fishing Communities in
the Azores Islands: A theatre for Questions”, by Alison Laurie Neilson and Irina
Castro, raises the questions of environmental justice that challenges one to look
critically at research and education norms for SD, and also questions how the
deficit-model of the research is built on the assumption that failures of SD are due to
lack of knowledge. The authors bring together the research experience on education
and research practices, with the Azores archipelago in Portugal, as a background to
their reflexive and educational practices. The participation of Augusto Boal’s
Theatre of the Oppressed helps exploring the potential of multi-directional learning
via aesthetic practices and action-based research to engage people in research, and
in SD policy development which are environmentally just and sustainable.
Chapter “Public Policies and Education for Biodiversity: Brazilian Challenges
in a New Global Context”, by Klautau de Araújo, analyses Brazilian educa-
tion and public policies for environment and biodiversity, through the (i) legal,
(ii) organisational and administrative and (iii) participatory points of view. This
review allows us to understand the potential of environmental education (formal
and informal), in the Brazilian context, and the challenges of reforming the present
paradigm. The study case of the Escola Bosque (Forest School) illustrates a good
example of an integrated environmental education system, which has been inter-
nationally awarded for its positive impact on education for biodiversity and the
environment.
“Economic progress has been noteworthy in almost all fields in the last 70 years.
However, the unsustainable use of non-renewable resources, the destruction of
biological diversity and greenhouse gas emissions accelerated the environmental
crisis and highlighted social inequalities. The accountability over this civilizational
crisis is diffuse, but environmental education in Brazil is mostly focused on those
who cause the least environmental damage”. In the Chap. “Education for
Sustainable Development in Brazil: Challenges for Inclusive, Differentiated and
Multicultural Education”, Andreia Setti and Ulisses Miranda Azeiteiro analyse the
interactions between the determinants of the current environmental crisis and
the contribution of education to sustainable development, critically considering the
sustainability of the current means of production and consumption, and as a strategy
for the promotion of autonomy and equity in the Brazilian reality. Authors approach
Editorial xi

three main aspects: (i) the original, foundational and practical constitution of
environmental education, (ii) understanding the challenges of institutionalising
environmental education (the Brazilian context) and (iii) the paths of political action
needed to attain the sustainable development goals (SDGs).
“Soil is fundamental for human life as we know it. The top layer of Earth’s crust,
essentially composed of minerals, water and air, also harbours an immense variety
of organisms, from plants to microorganisms, which qualifies it as an actual living
system. On account of soil biodiversity and its functioning, soil can deliver services
essential for regulating, providing and supporting human life”. Sara Mendes,
Anabela Marisa Azul, Paula Castro, Jöerg Röembke and José Paulo Sousa in the
Chap. “Protecting Soil Biodiversity and Soil functions: Current Status and Future
Challenges” review the main advances in soil research, knowledge and monitoring
and discuss the status of current strategies towards soil protection and sustainability.
They also present a three vector plan for effectively contributing for soil protection
based on monitoring, experimenting and raising awareness towards soil issues,
which hopefully can change the way people use soil.
The Chap. “Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood
to Biodiversity Education and Sustainable Development” by João Miranda, Raquel
Maricato, Joana Vila Nova, Joana Margarida Baptista, João Lourenço Monteiro,
Nuno Freitas, Odete Gonçalves, Vera Vale and Anabela Marisa Azul explored how
biological understanding of the biodiversity and ecological processes at early
childhood may contribute to biodiversity education and sustainable development
(BESD) awareness. The participatory research undertook a constructive pro-
gramme, with the active collaboration of researchers from life sciences, humanities,
science education, kindergarten teachers, children and artists. The perceptions,
evaluation and validation of the approach are emphasised in the ateliers progres-
sively designed in the drawings by the children, the documentation by the
kindergarten teachers and the interviews to the children and findings focused
attention on the understanding of biological. Focus was given to the ecological
interactions, the adaptations to climate, the food and the products of the Mediter-
ranean forests and the biodiversity legacy in the Mediterranean region, where
children were actors/authors of knowledge that resulted from the mutual learning
and the active collaboration.
The fifth and the last part of the book focuses on information and communication
technologies (ICT) that lead to e-learning’s (and b-learning) significant role within
learning and educational processes, namely in Biodiversity Conservation and
Education for Sustainable Development (Chaps. “Engaging ODL Students with
Biodiversity Issues: A South African Case Study on the Role of ESD” to
“Knowledge Dissemination and Best Practice Transfer on Biosafety, Biosecurity
and Biorisk Management Through a Sustainable and Effective Education and
Awareness System”):
“Biodiversity is regarded as a key asset in safeguarding the well-being of future
generations. The threat to biodiversity through indiscretionary human activities is
increasingly gaining attention, from local to global scales. Biodiversity forms part
of the agenda for Education for Sustainable Development through addressing
xii Editorial

inter-linkages between the various components and systems comprising the

environment. This has been illustrated throughout the Decade of Education for
Sustainable Development, which ended in 2014. As a result, significant progress
has been made at various levels on the understanding of the impact of human
consumption on biodiversity, together with the sensitization of students in terms
of their potential roles to curb habitat and species loss as well as environmental
degradation”. Rudi W. Pretorius, Mathilda E. Brand and Leslie R. Brown in the
paper “Engaging ODL Students with Biodiversity Issues: A South African Case
Study on the Role of ESD” reflect on the way biodiversity is dealt with through the
b-learning approach to ESD in the Diploma in Nature Conservation offered by the
University of South Africa (UNISA). A review of the flexibility of a b-learning
approach to open distance learning (ODL), the challenges that were experienced,
the means through which these were addressed and a future perspective concludes
this chapter.
Ulisses Miranda Azeiteiro and Paula Bacelar-Nicolau in the Chaps. “Online
Teaching for Biodiversity Conservation” reviews the e-learning experience of
biodiversity conservation courses at Diploma and Master’s level, offered by the
Universidade Aberta, the Portuguese distance learning university. This review
includes the e-learning methodologies, their learning effectiveness, challenges
(throughout nine course editions’) and discusses future course’s improvements.
“Education is the first step to create a society that respects the others and the
environment and that works to design and build a peaceful future. An effective and
sustainable education system could rely on a tailored methodology that synergizes
self-evaluation, gap-analysis, and train-the-trainers methods. This combination
allows gathering information about real needs and expectations of training targets,
elaborating a made-to-measure educational programme and training future educa-
tors on topics of interest, making education and awareness system sustainable”.
In the last paper of the book the Chaps. “Knowledge Dissemination and Best
Practice Transfer on Biosafety, Biosecurity and Biorisk Management Through a
Sustainable and Effective Education and Awareness System”, Carola Argiolas,
Veronica Baldo and Maurizio Martellini review the methodologies applied to
develop a sustainable education and awareness system and the training contents
related to biosafety/biosecurity/biorisk management, and describe how the authors
set up a knowledge development and transfer of best practice system on
biosafety/biosecurity/biorisk management, in order to spread awareness and
know-how on these topics. Twenty-two countries, in four different regions
(South-east Europe, South-east Asia, North and West Africa) were involved in the
project titled “Knowledge development and transfer of best practice in biosafety,
biosecurity and biorisk management”.
This book offers science research on biodiversity and educational approaches for
biodiversity valuation and conservation within a geographical coverage. In
addition, the chapters address important challenges and future developments, also
giving insights into how education for sustainability may be pursued in a
conservation biology context.
Editorial xiii

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all authors who submitted their
manuscripts for consideration of inclusion in this book. And since the peer review
was a double-blind process, we also thank the reviewers who have taken time to
provide timely feedback to the authors, thereby helping the authors to improve their
manuscripts, and ultimately the quality of this book.

Paula Castro
Ulisses M. Azeiteiro
Paula Bacelar-Nicolau
Walter Leal Filho
Anabela Marisa Azul
Contents

Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development

(ESD): Tendencies and Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Walter Leal Filho, Paula Castro, Paula Bacelar-Nicolau,
Anabela Marisa Azul and Ulisses Miranda Azeiteiro

Part I Education Research on Biodiversity

Conservation of Biological Resources: Why Does It Matter? . . . . . . . . 13
Paula Castro, Anabela Marisa Azul and Jorge Paiva
Urban Biodiversity and Cities’ Sustainable Development . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Lurdes Barrico and Paula Castro
Education on Biodiversity in the Polar Regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
José C. Xavier, Gerlis Fugmann, Inga Beck,
Louise Huffman and Eric Jensen
Teaching Mycology Worldwide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
María P. Martín and Roy Watling
Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About Endemic
Biodiversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Ana Moura Arroz, Rosalina Gabriel, Isabel R. Amorim,
Rita São Marcos and Paulo A.V. Borges

Part II Teaching About Biological Invasions and Threats

to Biodiversity
Science and Education at the Centre for Invasion Biology . . . . . . . . . . 93
Sarah J. Davies, G. John Measey, Dorette du Plessis
and David M. Richardson
Engaging Society to Fight Invasive Alien Plants
in Portugal—One of the Main Threats to Biodiversity. . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Elizabete Marchante and Hélia Marchante

xv
xvi Contents

Part III Engaging Society in Biodiversity Conservation

and Sustainability
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication Strategies
for Public Engagement in the Azores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Isabel R. Amorim, Ana Moura Arroz, Rita São Marcos,
Paulo A.V. Borges and Rosalina Gabriel
Communicating Biodiversity Conservation Research Through
Dialogue and Mutual Learning in Rural and Indigenous
Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Isabel Ruiz-Mallén
Education for Sustainability in the Context
of Community Forestry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Rita Serra, Patrícia Ferreira, Iryna Skulska, Mayrén Alavez-Vargas,
Anailton Salgado, João Arriscado Nunes and Raúl Garcia-Barrios

Part IV Designing Sustainable Futures

Urban Forest Governance: FUTURE—The 100,000 Trees Project
in the Porto Metropolitan Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
Marta Pinto, Conceição Almeida, Ana Maria Pereira
and Margarida Silva
Reflexive Research and Education for Sustainable Development
with Coastal Fishing Communities in the Azores Islands:
A Theatre for Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Alison Laurie Neilson and Irina Castro
Public Policies and Education for Biodiversity: Brazilian
Challenges in a New Global Context. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Thiago Lima Klautau de Araújo
Education for Sustainable Development in Brazil: Challenges
for Inclusive, Differentiated and Multicultural Education . . . . . . . . . . 237
Andréia Faraoni Freitas Setti and Ulisses Miranda Azeiteiro
Protecting Soil Biodiversity and Soil Functions: Current
Status and Future Challenges. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
Sara Mendes, Anabela Marisa Azul, Paula Castro,
Jörg Römbke and José Paulo Sousa
Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early
Childhood to Biodiversity Education and Sustainable
Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
João Miranda, Raquel Maricato, Joana Vila Nova,
Joana Margarida Baptista, João Lourenço Monteiro,
Nuno Freitas, Odete Gonçalves, Vera Vale and Anabela Marisa Azul
Contents xvii

Part V Online Education to Biodiversity and Sustainability

Awareness
Engaging ODL Students with Biodiversity Issues: A South
African Case Study on the Role of ESD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Rudi W. Pretorius, Mathilda E. Brand and Leslie R. Brown
Online Teaching for Biodiversity Conservation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
Ulisses Miranda Azeiteiro and Paula Bacelar-Nicolau
Knowledge Dissemination and Best Practice Transfer on Biosafety,
Biosecurity and Biorisk Management Through a Sustainable
and Effective Education and Awareness System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Carola Argiolas, Veronica Baldo and Maurizio Martellini
Biodiversity and Education
for Sustainable Development (ESD):
Tendencies and Perspectives
Walter Leal Filho, Paula Castro, Paula Bacelar-Nicolau,
Anabela Marisa Azul and Ulisses Miranda Azeiteiro

Abstract
This introductory paper outlines some of the areas where research and action is
needed, so as to allow a more systematic development of Education for
Sustainable Development (ESD) in the Biodiversity Conservation context. Apart
from presenting the concepts of ecosystem services and biodiversity, this chapter
indicates the main initiatives needed to be developed to incorporate ESD in the
curricula as a multiple-perspective approach. Additionally, it is discussed how
biodiversity conservation through education action fit within the actual premises
and programmes of sustainability as the Convention on Biological Diversity and
the 2010 Biodiversity Target or under the scope of the Strategic Plan for
Biodiversity 2011–2020. Tendencies and perspectives on Education for Biodi-
versity Conservation in the coming decades is also a subject of debate in the
present chapter.

W.L. Filho
HAW Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
W.L. Filho
Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK

P. Castro
Department of Life Sciences, Centre for Functional Ecology,
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

P. Bacelar-Nicolau
U.M. Azeiteiro

Department of Science and Technology,
Universidade Aberta and Centre for Functional Ecology,
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

A.M. Azul
Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra,
Coimbra, Portugal

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_1
2 W.L. Filho et al.

1 Introduction

The incorporation of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in the cur-

riculum in a multiple-perspective approach is usually used for teaching and learning
in primary and secondary schools, to promote interdisciplinary and intercultural
competencies to address ESD (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization [UNESCO] 2012). There are many recommended ways to do it: the
scientific perspective way of knowing about the world around us; the historical
perspective of changes in the world over time; the geographic perspective of events,
problems and issues take on different complexities; the human rights perspective;
the gender equality perspective; the values perspective of individuals, cultures and
countries; the cultural diversity perspective, and the sustainability perspective
(sustainability balances environmental, social, and economic concerns, as well as
taking into account the well-being of future generations) (UNESCO Teaching and
Learning for a Sustainable Future programme: http://www.unesco.org/education/
tlsf/). For Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) approaches to incorporate ESD in
the curricula include: coverage of some environmental issues and material in an
existing course; a separate module, or chapter in a traditional course, tailored to the
nature of each specific training; finally, a specific sustainable development course
and renewal of the curricula (formal or non-formal programs, undergraduate or
post-graduate programmes) (Lozano et al. 2015a).
ESD will require the development of initiatives needed to:
(a) reorient and train teachers (linking theory and practice, interdisciplinarity,
transdisciplinary, informal learning, transformative learning, leadership
approaches);
(b) make use of holistic, collaborative learning methods, approaches and tools
(e.g. problem based learning, Triple Bottom Line, life cycle analysis, games,
on-line collaborative learning);
(c) fulfil student learning outcomes and competences for ESD (Aktas et al. 2015;
Amador et al. 2015; Barth and Rieckmann 2012; Dlouha and Burandt 2015;
Lozano and Lozano 2014) and key competences for ESD as described by
Disterheft et al. (2013).
Besides training and education of human resources and physical changes,
organizations have to institutionalize sustainability into their systems and cultures
(through values, visions, philosophies, policies, employee empowerment, and
change management practices) (Lozano et al. 2015b), together with community
outreach activities (Müller-Christ et al. 2014).
This chapter aims, through a whole-institution approach, multi-stakeholder
interactions and lifelong learning, to provide a description of the achievements in
the field of biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development. Furthermore,
this chapter will put in perspective future tendencies and point out some of the key
issues which will guide biodiversity and conservation teaching, education for
sustainable development, and sustainable development.
Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) … 3

2 Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity

Ecosystem services may be defined as the benefits that humans obtain from
ecosystems that support, directly or indirectly, their survival and quality of life
(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [MEA] 2003). However, human modification
of Earth’s biological resources—its species and genetically distinct populations—is
substantial and growing. The overall risks associated with modification of land-
scapes and soil functions, are seriously threatening biodiversity conservation and
the services provided by ecosystems (European Environment Agency [EEA] 2011).
Human socio-economic activities as well as their quality of life and well-being are
highly dependent on the function and associated services that ecosystems provide.
These include services such as providing food, water, wool, fertile soils, timber, and
other products; they regulate ecosystem processes such as climate, land degrada-
tion, disease as well as ensuring the flow of clean water and protection from
flooding or other hazards like soil erosion and landslides. They are also important in
supporting services like soil formation, nutrient cycling, and primary production.
Finally, they provide cultural services through recreation, education, spiritual
well-being, and other nonmaterial benefits (MEA 2003, 2005; Pittock et al. 2012).
The connection between ecosystems and human well-being is well known
(Fig. 1). Therefore, it is crucial to understand human dependence on how ecosys-
tems work so to better understand their resilience capacity.
Biodiversity and ecosystems are closely related as biodiversity is essential for
the functioning and sustainability of an ecosystem. Biodiversity can be described as
the sum of the total biotic variation, from genes to ecosystems, and supports
ecosystem functioning which ultimately affects human well-being (EEA 2015;

Ecosystems and Biodiversity

Biophysical
structure or Human well -being
process Function*
(e.g. slow (socio-cultural context)
(e.g. vegetation
cover or net water passage, Service
primary biomass) (e.g. flood-
protection, Benefit(s)
productivity)
products) (contribution
to health, (Econ) Value
safety, etc.) (e.g. willingness
to pay for
protection or
products)
* subsetofbiophysicalstructureor
process providing the service

Fig. 1 The relationship between biodiversity, ecosystem function, and human well-being
(adapted from de Groot et al. 2002, after modification by Haines-Young and Potschin 2010)
4 W.L. Filho et al.

MEA 2005). Biodiversity conservation emerged as a field in international policies

in the 2nd half of the 20th century, culminating in the United Nations Convention
on Biological Diversity [CBD], which entered into force in 1992.
Changes in drivers that indirectly affect biodiversity, such as population, tech-
nology, and lifestyle, can lead to changes in drivers directly affecting biodiversity,
such as the catchment of fish, the application of fertilizers to increase food pro-
duction, or urbanization, which in turn affect ecosystem’s function by changing
their species composition and species richness, and communities’ structures
(Alberti 2005; Leung 2015). At the same time, human activities have homogenized
the Earth’s biota, introducing many species into new areas where they can disrupt
both natural and human systems (Ceballos et al. 2015; Vitousek et al. 1997).
The loss of biodiversity is the most critical global environmental threat. More
than a third of the global species are facing extinction and an estimated 60 % of the
Earth’s ecosystems have been degraded in the last 50 years, with consequences for
the services that depend on them (Joppa et al. 2015; European Commission [EC]
2010). Marine biodiversity is also under pressure, a worrying fact given that
approximately 90 % of the planet’s biomass lives in the ocean (EC 2010).

3 2010 Biodiversity Target—The Convention on Biological

Diversity

Since the 2nd half of the 20th century, concerns about the use of natural resources
and the recognition of the importance of biological diversity, have grown. In May
1992, the Nairobi Conference resulted in the adoption of the Agreed Text of the
CBD (www.cbd.int/), which was open for signature at the Rio “Earth Summit”
(United Nations Conference on Environment and Development) in the same year.
The CBD text’s (1992) main objective (https://www.cbd.int/doc/legal/cbd-en.
pdf) was to preserve biological diversity through its sustainable use. Biological
diversity was then defined as “the variability among living organisms from all
sources including, inter alia, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the
ecological complexes of which they are part: this includes diversity within species,
between species and of ecosystems”. This includes all populations, organisms, and
genetic resources or “any other biotic component of ecosystems with actual or
potential use or value for humanity”.
Since then, several periodic meetings—The Conference of the Parties [COP]—
have occurred as to monitor and discuss advances and new strategies about the
CBD commitments. In COP 6 (Decision VI/26, April 2002) a new challenge for
scientists, policy-makers, and society was undertaken (www.cbd.int/doc/decisions/
cop-06/full/cop-06-dec-en.pdf). All the parties, at the time, should comply with the
Convention objectives and work towards achieving “by 2010 a significant reduction
of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a
contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth”. This
agreement became known as the 2010 Biodiversity Target or the Strategic Plan for
Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) … 5

the Convention on Biological Diversity, a global target incorporated as a new target

under the Millennium Development Goals.
To measure the progress towards the target of reducing biodiversity loss in
Europe by 2010, a set of 26 environmental indicators were presented in 2007 (EEA
2007). The process was however, initiated in 2005 by the Streamlining European
Biodiversity Indicators [SEBI] (http://biodiversity.europa.eu/topics/sebi-indicators).
Their goal was to build on current monitoring available data, to avoid duplication of
efforts and to complement—and not replace—other activities to describe, model,
and understand biodiversity and the pressures upon it.
The 2010 Biodiversity Target provides the scientific community with the chal-
lenge to engage in stimulating fundamental science and to participate in what is
likely to be the most significant conservation agreement of the early 21st century.
Despite some local successes and increasing responses (including the extent and
biodiversity coverage of protected areas, sustainable forest management, policy
responses to invasive alien species, and biodiversity-related aid), the rate of bio-
diversity loss did not appear to be slowing down (Butchart et al. 2010). Some
concern regarding the design of the indicators and communication to different and
relevant audiences was also demonstrated (Mace and Baillie 2007). Reports on the
assessment of biodiversity in Europe (EEA 2010) and the Global Biodiversity
Outlook 3 (http://gbo3.cbd.int), both launched in the 2010 International Year of
Biodiversity, demonstrated that despite some progresses, there was a continuing
decline in biodiversity at genes, species, and ecosystems levels, with the most
severe threats affecting several types of ecosystems (e.g. freshwater, coastal and
marine, forests, grassland, and urban ecosystems). It became clear that the original
global target had not been met and the loss of biodiversity in Europe was still a fact!

4 Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020

Failing to meet the 2010 targets forced the Conference of the Parties to rethink and
update its strategy to halt the continuous loss of biodiversity. Thus, a new decision
(X/2) at COP 10 (2010) was adopted and a revised global Strategic Plan for Bio-
diversity for the period 2011–2020 was approved to safeguard biodiversity and the
benefits it provides to people (https://www.cbd.int/sp/), under the flag “Living in
harmony with nature”. This decision, among other outputs, adopted the 20 Aichi
Biodiversity Targets (https://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/), which are grouped under 5
strategic goals: “(a) address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by main-
streaming biodiversity across government and society; (b) reduce the direct pres-
sures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use; (c) improve the status of
biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity; (d) enhance
the benefits to all from biodiversity and ecosystem services; and (e) enhance
implementation through participatory planning, knowledge management and
capacity building”.
6 W.L. Filho et al.

Fig. 2 EU biodiversity strategy vision for 2050 and target for 2020 (EU 2011)

The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 aims to provide a flexible

broad-based framework for the establishment of national and regional targets by the
parties and other stakeholders, for the implementation of the CBD requirements.
The plan focused on the necessity of developing effective communication tools to
engage all stakeholders in complying with the Aichi Targets, as well as streamlining
the mainstreaming of biodiversity into broader national and global agendas.
An ambitious global vision is transmitted in the plan, where “Living in harmony
with nature” will serve as a pillar to ensure that: “By 2050, biodiversity is valued,
conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a
healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people”.
The European Union [EU] also shared the same long-term 2050 vision and the
2020 headline targets proposed by the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020
and a new EU biodiversity strategy—“Our life insurance, our natural capital: an EU
biodiversity strategy to 2020” was agreed by the EC in 2011 (COM/2011) (Fig. 2).
Recognizing the importance of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, as
well as the Aichi Targets and the need to reduce the rate of global biodiversity loss,
the United Nations [UN] Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon declared the period
2011–2020 the “Decade on Biodiversity” (Resolution 65/161—https://www.cbd.
int/2011-2020/), reinforcing the urgent need for the global implementation of the
Plan.

5 Education for Biodiversity Conservation in the 21st

Century: Beyond 2015

The 2014 UNESCO World Conference on Education for Sustainable Development

marked the end of the United Nations [UN] Decade of ESD (2005–2014) and
launched the Global Action Programme [GAP] on ESD. Under the banner of
“Learning Today for a Sustainable Future”, the Conference celebrated the
achievements of the Decade, identified lessons learnt while setting the stage for the
Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) … 7

future of ESD. It also showcased initiatives, key players, networks, and ideas that
the decade has stimulated. Such examples from all over the world will help to
generate future action under the GAP. The outcomes of the World Conference will
inform the deliberations of the World Education Forum to held from 19 to 22 May
2015 in Incheon, Republic of Korea. The GAP on ESD, as a follow-up to the UN
Decade of ESD after 2014, in its principles stated, “ESD relates to the environ-
mental, social and economic pillars of sustainable development in an integrated,
balanced and holistic manner. It equally relates to a comprehensive sustainable
development agenda as contained in the outcome document of Rio+20, which
includes, among others, the interrelated issues of poverty reduction, climate change,
disaster risk reduction, biodiversity, and sustainable consumption and production. It
responds to local specificities and respects cultural diversity”.
It is also noteworthy to refer to the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Devel-
opment, launched in October 2015, entitled “Transforming our world: the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development” (Resolution 70/1, 2015) (https://
sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld), a plan of action
for people, planet, and prosperity. The plan identifies as extremely important, the
quality of an inclusive and equitable education to promote lifelong learning
opportunities for all, as the way to achieve the sustainable development goals set for
2030. The vision expressed in this agenda embraces a world where equitable and
universal access to quality education at all levels is mandatory.

6 Education for Biodiversity: Tendencies and Perspectives

In 2015, Europe stands roughly halfway between the initiation of the European
environmental policy in the early 1970s and the General Union Environment
Action Programme to (7th Environment Action Programme) “Living well within
the limits of the planet” (Decision N.º 1386/2013/EU, 2013). Access to ecosystem
services will become an even more critical factor for economic success and resi-
lience in the 21st century.
A survey carried out by the Gallup Organization (2010) entitled “Attitudes of
Europeans towards the issue of biodiversity” showed that two-thirds of European
citizens were familiar with the term “biodiversity”. Moreover, 38 % of interviewees
said they knew the meaning of the term and 28 % stated they had heard of the term
but did not know its meaning. Approximately one-third (34 %) of respondents
claimed they had never heard of the term biodiversity, let alone understand what the
threats and challenges to its conservation are. Respondents with the lowest level of
education, manual workers and non-working respondents, were the most likely to
claim that they had never heard of the term. This study also demonstrated that
citizens were unaware of what Europe was doing to save biodiversity. However,
they were conscious of environmental matters. When the issue was explained to
them, over two-thirds considered the loss of biodiversity a serious problem,
8 W.L. Filho et al.

Table 1 Key findings and trends of the decade of education for sustainable development (DESD)
(UNESCO 2014)
Main subject Findings/trends
ESD, an enabler for sustainable Education systems are addressing sustainability issues
development Sustainable development agendas and education
agendas are converging
Importance of stakeholder Political leadership has proven instrumental
engagement for ESD Multi-stakeholder partnerships are particularly effective
Local commitments are growing
ESD is galvanizing pedagogical Whole-institution approaches practise ESD
innovation ESD facilitates interactive, learner-driven pedagogies
ESD has spread across all levels and ESD is being integrated into formal education
areas of education Non-formal and informal ESD is increasing
Technical and vocational education and training
advances sustainable development

principally at global level. These results clearly indicate that the level of under-
standing of the problem is still inadequate.
Despite these worrying numbers, the final report on the UN Decade of Education
for Sustainable Development (2005–2014), showed that during this time, some
interesting findings and trends could be observed regarding the integration of all
features of education and learning with principles and practices of sustainable
development (UNESCO 2014) (Table 1).
Despite these advances in education for sustainable development, societies still
face several important challenges. According to UNESCO (2014), additional
alignment between education and sustainable development sectors is needed, more
efforts are required to improve the institutionalization of ESD, and tools to monitor
and evaluate programmes and action should also be perfected. Bennett et al. (2015)
argued that in order to achieve a better management of natural resources, it is
essential to improve communication with different stakeholders (e.g. private actors)
and for inspiring advances in policy.
Thus it is essential to identify and clarify trends and assess the effectiveness of
current and future policies aimed at raising public awareness and participation with
regards to biodiversity, as far as communication to the public is concerned. In
addition, biodiversity research and intervention should integrate new perspectives,
bringing together biological sciences, social sciences and local knowledge (Alves
et al. 2013).

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 Part I
Education Research on Biodiversity
Conservation of Biological Resources:
Why Does It Matter?
Paula Castro, Anabela Marisa Azul and Jorge Paiva

Abstract
The world population has grown from 2500 million people in the year 1950 to
more than 7300 million people in the year 2015, posing a challenge never faced
before in human history. People are less aware about the limitedness of natural
resources and the consequences of the present development. Increased
population, associated with technological advancement undermines the sustain-
able development of any nation. Daily, many species are going extinct due to the
continuous fragmentation/destruction of habitats, many of which have not been
studied or referenced. Presently, we are living in the «Decade of Biodiver-
sity» from the period of year 2011 to the year 2020, which was launched at the
end of the year 2011 by the General Secretary of the United Nations, Ban
Ki-moon. This poses a great challenge and all societies and nations are saddled
with the responsibility of revising their actual models of economic development
and increasing their knowledge base, by planning more intelligent and
integrative programmes for the conservation of our biological resources and
its functions in the ecosystems and human health. This chapter aims to raise
awareness on the relevance of biodiversity in people’s life. It emphasizes
subjects, such as the importance of forests, the unknown biodiversity, and the
extinction of species, in order to alert the general public, students, teachers, and
other stakeholders to the importance of all biological resources.

P. Castro (&)
J. Paiva

Department of Life Sciences, Centre for Functional Ecology,
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: pcastro@ci.uc.pt
A.M. Azul
Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra,
Coimbra, Portugal

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 13

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_2
14 P. Castro et al.

1 Introduction

A comprehensive knowledge of the natural systems and of the living beings that
inhabit them, together with the relationship they establish between themselves and
the environment, is far from being assembled and understood. Despite new tech-
nologies and study methodologies, such as the application of Remote Sensing or the
use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) which allowed us to study areas that
were inaccessible and observe organisms at scales that were never considered.
However, the huge biodiversity of the Earth’s ecosystems is yet to reveal all its
secrets!
Among the numerous living organisms that inhabit our Planet, Homo sapiens, is
certainly the species that cause more and serious environmental impacts. The tools
we have at our disposal have shown impressive signs of the habitat destruction,
particularly, the forest system (Food and Agriculture Organization [FAO] 2015).
Given the undeniable facts of environmental destruction (FAO 2015; Vitousek et al.
1997), the traditional human perception of nature’s equilibrium is severely affected.
In this present phase in which we live, the unbridled consumption of resources
(European Environment Agency [EEA] 2015; Giljum et al. 2009; Kovanda and
Hak 2011) is evident and brings incalculable costs.
The extreme and rapid expansion of human population (Fig. 1) and its model of
economic development that encourages the unbridled consumption of goods and
services demean the services provided by the different ecosystems and its resources
(EEA 2015). In the mid-2015, the total population reached an incredible number of
7349 million (United Nations [UN] 2015) (Fig. 1a), and it is expected to grow
above 50 % in the year 2100 (Fig. 1b).
Each living human, needs basic resources and almost all people seek to utilize
significantly more and more resources. These expected demands multiplied by a
factor of 7.3 billion (and growing rapidly) compromise the stability of the planet’s
system. Thus, the people do not only realize how we pollute the “cage” (Earth) in

Fig. 1 Estimation of total population growth and its main spatial distribution worldwide
according to the medium-variant projection. Adapted from: UN, Department of Economic and
Social Affairs, Population Division (2015). World population prospects: the 2015 revision
Conservation of Biological Resources: Why Does It Matter? 15

which we live, but also destroy the nature, daily eliminating species, many of
which, have not been studied.
The present chapter aims to contribute to the knowledge and understanding on
the relevance of biodiversity in every one’s life, and clarify the reasons to take
action towards the conservation of the biological resources. It underlines on issues,
such as the role of forest ecosystems, alert to the unknown biodiversity, and to the
extinction of species.

2 Reasons for Taking Action

The laws of physics (mass conservation, conservation of energy, and entropy laws)
are fundamental to the understanding and conservation of ecosystems: no system
can create or eliminate matter, it can only be transformed; energy can neither be
created nor destroyed (the energy conversion process involves the loss of quality);
and everyone constantly needs energy to maintain its low entropy (Fig. 2).
These messages are quite clear: the earth is finite and its ability to absorb wastes
and polluted effluents is also finite. The capacity to provide all the resources for
human survival is thus finite, and current economic practices which damage the
environment, in both developed and underdeveloped nations, cannot be continued.
All human activities make use of the services of the ecosystems and put pressure
as well, on the biodiversity that supports these services: (a) Habitat loss, alteration,
and fragmentation—for instance, through the land use change for aquaculture,
industrial or urban use; the construction of dams and other changes in river systems
for irrigation, hydropower or adjustment of current and harmful fishing activities;
(b) Overexploitation of populations of wild species—for instance, the harvesting or
killing of animals or plants for food, materials or medicine at unsupported natural
rates of its reproduction; (c) Pollution—for instance, the excessive use of pesticides
in agriculture and aquaculture; urban and industrial effluents and waste mining;
(d) Climate change—for instance, the rising levels of greenhouse gases in the

Fig. 2 Schematic representation of energy and matter fluxes in our planet

16 P. Castro et al.

atmosphere, mainly caused by burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and industrial

processes; and (e) Invasive species—for instance, the introduction (on purpose or
inadvertently) of exotic species that become very competitive, parasites or predators
of native species (Alberti 2015; Davidson et al. 2014; Doney et al. 2012;
EEA 2015).
Very few people realize that, presently, we are living in the “Decade of Bio-
diversity” launched by the UN in the year 2011. This decade is of extreme
importance, so that people may realize that we cannot survive without biodiversity.
Taking actions to inform and raise more awareness about the problems caused by
the continuous destruction of habitats, loss of biodiversity and the link between
biodiversity, ecosystem’s services and human well-being is therefore, urgent. The
extinction of species cannot be reverted, but it is possible to avoid future extinctions
of other species if appropriate programmes are implemented, mainly for those who
are at high risk of extinction.

3 Forests’ Ecosystems and Species Richness

The knowledge of spatial variation in species richness and the diversity along
environmental gradients is a central theme in ecology, as they harbour a large part
of the terrestrial biodiversity and provide a wide range of ecosystem services and
economic growth (EEA 2010). We know that the forests, particularly, the equatorial
forest (pluvisilva), due to a higher plant biomass production, are unique systems,
embracing high levels of biodiversity (Kier et al. 2005; Kraft et al. 2011).
Among plant species, there are huge differences in the amount of biomass
produced and on the volume of CO2 consumed. Among the dominating tree’s
ecosystems, moist tropical forests (pluvisilva) are hot spots for plant richness
(Barthlott et al. 2007; Gaston 2000), because, by virtue of being on the equatorial
zones, they have a constant energy and water source available. Another recent
example of these equatorial zones is in the work of Collen et al. (2014), which
showed that absolute freshwater diversity was highest in the Amazon Basin.
A study conducted by Kier et al. (2005) proved that tropical and subtropical
moist broadleaf forests were the ecosystems with higher plant richness (3161 taxa),
followed by Mediterranean forests with 2294 taxa. These two types of forest sys-
tems play an important role in biodiversity and in the survival of other species.
Despite the fact that there are no co-existing link between tree canopy height and
diversity in all regions of the world, the Afrotropic realm richness shows an
increase in diversity with tree canopy height, mostly for amphibians, a very slight
increase in birds and none for mammals (Roll et al. 2015).
It is also known, that living organisms (biodiversity) constitute our food source,
provide us with medicinal substances, clothing (practically, everything we wear is
of animal or vegetable origin), energy (for example, firewood, petroleum, waxes,
resins), construction materials, and furniture (wood), among other goods. A large
part of the electrical energy consumption would not be possible without the
Conservation of Biological Resources: Why Does It Matter? 17

contribution of other living beings. Other evidence is that Homo sapiens appeared
in ecosystems which support most of the earth’s biodiversity—the African tropical
forests. In addition, it is constantly discovered new uses of plants, animals, and
other organisms.
Despite this knowledge, the cutting down of forests continues and land is
drastically reclaimed for other uses (Barthlott et al. 2007; Chen et al. 2013). It can
be observed from the report on forest global assessment (2015) by FAO of the UN
that the loss of forest systems is still happening. In the year 1990, the global forest
area was estimated at 4,128,269 ha and in the year 2015, 3,999,134 ha was the total
area measured by FAO (FAO 2015). For example, in Brazil, which is among the
five countries with the largest area of forest, recent losses (from the year 2010 to
2015) reached 984,000 ha. Subtropical and tropical forests are the most affected
type of forest, when compared with boreal and temperate systems (FAO 2015). In
the Mediterranean region, the forested area is estimated to be 85 Mha (2 % of the
world’s forest area), however, this is unevenly distributed between countries. Of
this, approximately 1.67 million ha is a primary forest (FAO 2010).
Despite these worrying values, forest management is quite different when
comparing between Nordic countries, with an annual net forest gained since the
year 1990, with those countries from the South Pole (FAO 2015). Apparently,
Mediterranean forests witnessed a spatial expansion of about 1 %, but in contrast,
native forest and biodiversity is declining (FAO 2012). Many other examples of
native forest/biodiversity loss worldwide may be assessed in current literature
(Abood et al. 2015; Baltzer et al. 2014; Butchart et al. 2010; Ferreira et al. 2015;
Miranda et al. 2015).

3.1 The Easter Island as an Example of Human Unsustainable

Practices

The Easter Island situated in the Pacific Ocean (Eastern Polynesia) was a sub-
tropical forest covered by palm trees, before the arrival of Polynesian people,
approximately, in the 4th century (Kirch and Ellison 1994). Other evidences sug-
gested a later arrival (Hunt and Lipo 2006). This forest was completely devastated
by the Rapa Nui, and together with the concomitant erosion of primeval soils,
practically caused its extinction.
If we continue to destroy forests at this rate, it is estimated that before the end of
this century, the planet, will virtually have no forests. It will be transformed into an
“island” without forests, as what happened in Easter Island.
John Dransfield discovered that the most abundant palm tree that existed in the
Easter Island was extremely similar (or perhaps the same species) to the palm tree
of Chile (Jubaea chilensis), that once had a vast spatial distribution and currently,
only occurs in a strictly central area of Chile (between 32 and 35°S) (González
1998). Its fruit is highly appreciated for the purpose of eating and for extracting oil.
From its elaborated sap, they produce an alcoholic drink, which is also very valued
18 P. Castro et al.

by the Chilean people. The removal of the sap produced by incision is made on top
of the stipe, which causes it to stop producing viable fruit and, most of the time, the
tree dies. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature [IUCN],
it is classified as a vulnerable species (González 1998).
Despite already extinct in the subtropical forest of this island this native palm
tree was classified as a new species to science: Paschalococos disperta (Zizka
1991) which probably became extinct due to the overexploitation of these palm
populations. Not only was the respective fruit edible, it was used for many other
purposes as well (they eat the heart of palm, used the wood for boats, probably
produced an alcohol drink, and used the leaves to cover their houses). These and
other unsustainable uses of the species and the services provided to the population,
almost led to the extinction of the local population.
This example is a model of human-induced environmental degradation and
illustrates very well what may happen to our planet if we continue to foster
deforestation practices and devalue forest biodiversity and its services. Forests are
the largest producers of biomass, with an extraordinary capacity to depollute
(through the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) consumed) and behave as enormous
natural factories of oxygen (O2). Continuing with the present models of develop-
ment, human population will not survive and the land will be a universal “island”,
deforested and uninhabited.

4 The Relevance of Biological Resources: From Basic

Needs to Economic Development

Everyone knows that he/she needs to eat in order to live and grow, and that the food
consists of biological materials (plants, animals, and other organisms). It is also
known that, for any engine to work, it needs a fuel that, through exothermic
chemical reactions (combustion) releases enough heat (energy) for the engine to
operate. The fuels (for example, gasoline, diesel, alcohol, gas) are organic com-
pounds with carbon (C), hydrogen (H2) and O2. When a chemical reaction occurs,
CO2 is expelled into the atmosphere.
Making an analogy with this example, we may look at our body as a group of
several “engines”. If the heart, lungs, brain, for example, stops working, the body as
a whole also stops. These biological engines also need “fuel” to work. This fuel
(food/nutrients) comes from plant products, livestock, and other living sources
(yeasts, for example) which are then transformed into energy (heat), through
exothermic reactions (digestion), similar to the combustion referred above. Food is
the source of the combustible substances, C, H2, O2, and other elements crucial for
our survival [for example Nitrogen (N)].
All living beings need nutrients to survive (consumers). The plants (producers),
however, are able to synthesize their own food by taking sunlight, to generate
endothermic chemical reactions (photosynthesis) with the help of CO2 and water,
present in the atmosphere. The plants therefore, produce biomass. Humans, like any
Conservation of Biological Resources: Why Does It Matter? 19

other animal, need to consume plants and other consumers in order to produce their
own energy.
In addition to these basic services, other services provided by forests and bio-
logical resources are well known, clearly described in the Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment [MEA] report (2003) and other work studies (Barbeta et al. 2015; Baró
et al. 2014; Thompson et al. 2014). Despite the direct link, biodiversity and
ecosystem services need to be better studied and understood (Balvanera et al. 2014).
Forests may be used to effectively generate other services, such as income, and
employment. They are important systems for socioeconomic and political devel-
opment. These systems play important roles in the society such as providing land
for agriculture; timber and non-timber products, environmental services (for
example, to regulate local, regional and global climate, store carbon, and purify air
and fresh water), and employment (contributing to poverty alleviation) (Azul et al.
2009, 2014; Sunderlin et al. 2005; Verkerk et al. 2015). Indirect services may also
be of benefit to the various stakeholders who depend on these systems (Azul et al.
2014; Duarte et al. 2013).
A new paradigm in forest exploitation is growing and, in addition to having
more knowledge about the ecological functions (Barbeta et al. 2015), investment in
exploring endogenous resources (non-timber products) and research on bioactive
compounds are examples of new key ways that contribute to local, regional, and
national socioeconomic activities (Azul et al. 2014). Integrating people in intelli-
gent research and management of native resources, forests, and biodiversity are,
thus, essential in forest exploitation and conservation of biological resources. The
interest in buying green, natural, and native products is increasing. Environmental
concern is pulling the investment in biotechnology and bio-industry as an emerging
economy that may reverse the trends in the loss of forests and biodiversity as well as
ensure the ecosystem’s resilience (Azul et al. 2014; Pizarro‐Tobías et al. 2015;
Kingston 2010).

5 Biodiversity Unknown

From all our heritages (material, cultural, and biological), the only one essential to
our survival, is the biological heritage (biodiversity), which has received less
attention. In addition, the majority of our biological diversity is not yet known.
From the almost 4 million species listed, including oceans, a large part is not
sufficiently studied. At the end of the last century, the American biologist, Erwin
(1982) after several studies in tropical rain forests (pluvisilva) of Central and South
America, has calculated it could be as many as 30 million Arthropod species
worldwide, and not 1.5 million as estimated at the time. It may be assumed that not
even 10 % of the global biological diversity is known. The kingdom Fungi rep-
resent another example in which estimations increased from 0.5 to 10 million (Bass
and Richards 2011; Blackwell 2011) over the last two decades. Every year, several
new species are descried all over the world (see some recent examples on Table 1).
20 P. Castro et al.

Table 1 Examples of macro-species discovered in the 20th and 21st centuries

Organism Species Year of Common Local Reference
description name
Animals Muntiacus 1994 Giant Vietnam Tuoc et al.
vuquangensis Muntjac (1994)
Muntiacus 1997 Puhoat Vietnam Chau (1997)
puhoatensis Muntjac
Muntiacus 1998 Truong Son Vietnam Giao et al. (1998)
truongsonensis Muntjac
Muntiacus 1999 Leaf Muntjac Myanmar Amato et al.
putaoensis (1999)
Callicebus 2002 Prince Brazil Van Roosmalen
bernhardi Bernhard’s et al. (2002)
Titi Monkey
Callicebus 2002 Stephen Brazil
stephennashi Nash’s Titi
Monkey
Lophocebus 2005 Kipunji Tanzania Jones et al.
kipunji (2005)
Diopatra 2010 – Portugal Pires et al. (2010)
micrura
Rhinopithecus 2011 Myanmar Myanmar Geissmann et al.
strykeri Snub-nosed (2011)
Monkey
Squamatinia 2012 – Portugal Reboleira et al.
algharbica (2012)
Nactus kunan 2012 – Papua New Guinea Zug and Fisher
(2012)
Crocidura 2015 Shrew-Fingui Island of Principe Ceríaco et al.
fingui (2015)
Plants Wollemia 1995 Wollemi Pine Australia Jones et al.
nobilis (1995)
Labramia 1997 – Comoro Islands Labat et al.
mayottensis (1997)
Arabis beirana 2001 – Portugal Silveira et al.
(2001)
Zygodon 2006 – Portugal Garcia et al.
catarinoi (2006)
Narcissus x 2007 – Portugal Ribeiro et al.
caramulensis (2007)
Tahina 2008 Tahina Palm Madagascar Dransfield et al.
spectabilis (2008)
Dendroceros 2012 – São Tomé e Príncipe Garcia et al.
paivae Island (2012)
Stachys 2014 Hedge-nettle USA Nelson and
caroliniana Rayner (2014)
Fungi Psilocybe 2015 – Germany Gartz and
germanica Wiedemann
(2015)
(continued)
Conservation of Biological Resources: Why Does It Matter? 21

Table 1 (continued)
Organism Species Year of Common Local Reference
description name
Phallus 2015 – São Tomé Island Desjardin and
drewesii Perry (2015)
Inocybe 2015 – Mediterranean region Esteve-Raventós
praetervisoides et al. (2015)
Mutinus 2015 – Brazil da Silva et al.
albotruncatus (2015)
Macroalgae Fucus guiryi 2011 Seaweed Portugal Zardi et al.
(2011)
Phymatolithon 2015 – Portugal, Spain Peña et al. (2015)
lusitanicum

Fungi, habitat soil, water, and organisms, are major drivers of ecosystems life
cycles.
Another example of an extremely high biodiversity of insects of pluvisilva was
the work conducted by Wilson (1987). This myrmecologist collected in one
Fabaceae tree in the forest of Peru, 43 species of ants, which was approximately,
equal to the ant diversity throughout the United Kingdom. Not to mention the
enormous group of fungi (Blackwell 2011), and microscopic beings, constantly
being discovered by science, as bacteria (Albuquerque et al. 2014) or archaea
(Albuquerque et al. 2012), invisible to the naked eye.
Generally, when people think about unknown diversity they almost associate it
to organisms of small dimension. Nonetheless, this is not always the case. There is
probably more unknown micro biodiversity, but new macrofauna and macroflora
are also constantly being discovered. For animals, it may be cited, for example, the
discovery in the year 1994 in the pluvisilva of Laos, the species Muntiacus
vuquangensis, the Giant Muntjac, an antelope larger than a goat (Table 1). Since
then, 3 more Muntiacus species have been discovered (Table 1). In total, 1/3 of all
the known Muntjacs (12), were discovered at the end of the 20th century.
Already in the 21st century, were described, in the year 2002, in the Brazilian
Amazon, two new species of apes (Callicebus bernhardi and Callicebus stephen-
nashi) (Table 1). In the year 2005, a new species was seen in Africa (Lophocebus
kipunji) (Table 1), which was already in danger of extinction in the mountains of
Southern Tanzania. More recently, a new species of a shrew mouse (Crocidura
fingui) endemic, was observed in the Island of Principe. Many other examples are
presented in Table 1.
New techniques are available for researchers, as the use of DNA barcodes (Kress
et al. 2015), are revolutionizing the methods of identification and increasingly new
species are discovered each year.
22 P. Castro et al.

6 The Extinction of Species

Why should we be concerned about the loss of biodiversity? For the first time, one
single species (Homo sapiens) may cause mass extinction, triggering its own
demise and the first cause of the loss of biodiversity is habitat loss, which is due to
human activities. The majority of people believe that the only species that are vital
for us are those that we currently use (for example, for cooking) and that other
species do not present any significant value.
One of the most obvious examples of this indifference is what is happening with
the rhino. The 5 species of rhinoceros [2 African: the white rhino (Ceratotherium
simum) and the black rhino (Diceros bicornis), and 3 Asian: the Indian rhinoceros
(Rhinoceros unicornis), the rhino of Java (Rhinoceros sondaicus) and the rhino of
Sumatra (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis)] are endangered, mainly because of (prohib-
ited) hunt practices to remove their front “horns”, which supposedly have medicinal
attributes (cancer and sexual impotence). They are also used as adornment pieces,
similarly to what happens to elephants, particularly in Africa (Loxodonta africana).
Despite the strict prohibition of the hunting of the rhino (and other species), even in
Natural Parks, created for conservation purposes, illegal/legal hunt creates new
ways to bend the established rules of conservation. Who does not remember the
killing of the Cecil lion, a major attraction of the Hwange National Park in Matabele
land North, Zimbabwe? This shocking case broke out in the media and at least,
served to draw the attention for this kind of practices that lead to the extinction of
these type of animals.
This “folklore” of aphrodisiac attributes also occurs for other species. The
coconut of Seychelles (Lodoicea maldivica), due to its anatomical form (Fig. 3),
make people believe on its powerful aphrodisiac ability. Presently, it only exists in
two islands and collecting the fruit is strictly prohibited. Another example of this
stupid aphrodisiac panacea is the “Pau-de-Cabinda”, family Rosaceae, Prunus
African (Pygeum africanum), whose bark has chemical products (alkaloids) with
some effect in the treatment of prostatic hyperplasia and contractile dysfunction. It
is not, in fact, a good “aphrodisiac” and may cause death.
Living beings of greater volume (greater biomass)—plants—are also threatened
by human practices. Some examples are the Californian (USA) sequoias (Sequoia
sempervirens) (ca. 120 m height and 9 m in diameter), the Sierra Redwood
(Sequoiadendron giganteum) (ca. 100 m height and 12 m in diameter and
2000 tonnes of biomass), and the American Poplar (Populus tremuloides) (ca.
6000 tonnes of biomass). The animal with the highest biomass is the blue-whale
(Balaenoptera musculus). Larger animals of this species (35 m in length and
210 tonnes), were annihilated in the 20th century.
Plants are authentic factories of biomass and oxygen production and many
authors consider the preservation of plant diversity as a prerequisite, not only for the
maintenance of animals, but also for their evolution.
Conservation of Biological Resources: Why Does It Matter? 23

Fig. 3 Image of a coconut of

Lodoicea maldivica

There are still many examples which oblige us to act in order to preserve all
species without distinction, because, as it has already been mentioned, not all
species are sufficiently studied.
In the Plant Kingdom, a good example is the species Taxus baccata, a rare
species believed not to have any usefulness. It was a relatively common tree in the
Mediterranean forests, which grows at very slow rates, It is an extremely poisonous
plant, because it produces a mixture of alkaloids (taxine), lethal for all animals, and
is used by populations since remote times (wood, bows and arrows, ornamental
gardens, churches and cemeteries, as abortive, killing many times the foetus and
also the mother, and even for suicide purposes). However, in the year 1993
(Guenard et al. 1993), it was proved to be of inestimable value. From the American
Taxus brevifolia, it was isolated the taxol. This compound is an inhibitor of mitosis,
by increasing the polymerization of tubulin, with the consequent stabilization of
microtubules which prevents nuclear and cellular divisions. Unfortunately, a cen-
tenary Taxus tree provides only 300 mg of taxol, being necessary the bark of 6
centenarian trees to produce enough taxol to treat one patient. Fortunately, in the
month of February 1994, the semi-lab synthesis of the substance was announced
(Holton et al. 1994). Therefore, if Taxus had been extinct, this substance would
never have been found.
In the animal kingdom, we present the case of the lizard Heloderma suspectum,
the Gila Monster, native of south west of the United States and north of Mexico,
that pastors killed whenever they visualized an individual, because it killed their
animals (causing hypoglycaemia). The saliva of the lizard contains a protein
24 P. Castro et al.

(exendin-4) which stimulates the pancreas to produce insulin. Since the year 2009, a
medicinal product is authorised for diabetes type 2, that is, the synthetic version of
exendin-4 (exenatide). Currently, it is prohibited to collect this species of lizard.

7 Conclusion

The well-being of mankind is directly connected to the way we treat the biological
resources of our planet. Strategies to prevent deforestation, the extinction of species
and habitats, pollution, and loss of biological diversity embody a major paradigm to
societies, including the scientific community. Our consumerist society must take
into consideration, the choice of more environmentally friendly goods, services, and
economic activities. Together with public authorities, managers, scientists, land
owners, and other stakeholders, new holistic management actions must be
developed.
The conservation of our biological resources is crucial, due to the known ser-
vices provided for human survival, but also encloses other services that we still
cannot diagnose. New species are always being discovered and who knows what
we may find. Without the biological heritage there is no food, medicinal drugs,
energy, and other services. Therefore, we must assume the commitment to change
our behaviour towards the sustainability of the ecosystems, because without bio-
diversity we will endanger the survival of our very own species.

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Urban Biodiversity and Cities’
Sustainable Development
Lurdes Barrico and Paula Castro

Abstract
Urban growth and human competition for land have led to deep structural
changes in the composition and dynamics of the landscape, significantly
affecting the fragile rural/urban equilibrium. Migration from rural to urban areas
has forced cities to expand into the surrounding environments which created
substantial environmental impacts on the functioning of natural ecosystems,
affecting land use of the rural-urban interface. Understanding the human causes
and consequences of land use change, particularly in urban environments, has
presently become a major challenge worldwide. Strategic actions and integrated
responses involving several stakeholders, including residents, policy-makers,
scientists or managers will surely originate the necessary pathways and
implement a more adequate planning framework to create sustainable and
resilient cities. With a correct model of urban development we may preserve
native biodiversity, ecosystem services, and diminish natural hazards in urban
environment. We highlight the importance of greening cities and engaging
residents and other stakeholders in the planning process and decision-making, as
well as the importance of teaching, training or raising awareness as key actions
to achieve these goals.

L. Barrico (&)
P. Castro

Centre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences,
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: lurdesbarrico@gmail.com

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 29

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_3
30 L. Barrico and P. Castro

1 Introduction

Interest in the science of ecosystem and landscape functions and services has grown
especially since the release of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment report in
2003, where the value of ecosystems’ services to human activities and well-being
was globally recognized. The conservation of the landscape structure and ecosys-
tems’ processes are crucial to the maintenance of their functions which in turn
provide the services to human practices and quality of life (de Groot et al. 2002;
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [MEA] 2003; Schuhmann and Mahon 2015).
Therefore, an effective assessment of the trade-offs between the human benefits and
the future costs of environmental damage or ecosystems’ capacity to provide goods
and services for future generations need to be further investigated.
Biodiversity, “the diversity of life on Earth”, is thus essential for the functioning
of ecosystems that underpin the provisioning of ecosystem services that ultimately
affect humans (European Environment Agency [EEA] 2015; MEA 2005). Different
species play specific functions and changes in the species composition, richness,
and communities’ structures directly disturb the efficiency in which resources are
processed within an ecosystem (Alberti 2005; Leung 2015). Consequently,
increases in biodiversity may lead to increases in plant community’s productivity,
greater nutrient retention in ecosystems, and superior ecosystem stability (DeClerck
et al. 2011; McCann 2000).
Habitat destruction, fragmentation, and its degradation caused by land use
change, over-exploitation of natural resources, unsustainable human practices,
invasive species, ocean acidification, pollution or climate change are jeopardising
the provision of several key ecosystem services, threatening biodiversity (EC
2010a, 2014).

2 Urban Ecosystems

The typology of ecosystems used in the EEA report (2010a) was discussed and
further refined by the Working Group on Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems
and their Services (MAES WG) (EC 2013a). Presently, they recommend distin-
guishing ecosystems into 12 types considered more adequate for European biodi-
versity assessments. Those include the typology of an urban ecosystem.
Urban areas constitute a particular type of ecosystem, that contain organisms,
physical conditions and entities, and the interactions between them (Pickett et al.
2013; Pickett and Grove 2009). Urban ecosystems balance between the artificial
and the natural ecological systems. They are open and very dynamic systems which
behave like any other ecosystem consuming/releasing and transforming materials
and energy, and interact with other ecosystems. These ecosystems are highly arti-
ficial areas, dominated by humans, who reclaimed natural land to build their set-
tlements and to implement their numerous activities (EEA 2010b; Guidotti 2010).
They can only survive and deliver quality of life by using the basic services
Urban Biodiversity and Cities’ Sustainable Development 31

provided by nature, their complex structure and growth affects natural ecosystem’s
functions (EEA 2010b).
Nowadays, we are entering a new era in which the ecology of the planet is
increasingly influenced by human activities, with cities as “hotspots” of demand for
ecosystem services and sources of environmental degradation (Hodson and Marvin
2010; Solecki et al. 2013). One of the most salient features that characterize human
civilization during the past century is the accelerating urban development (Wu
2008a; Wu et al. 2014). According to the United Nations [UN] (2014), the year
2007 was a historic moment in human civilization, where for the first time more
than half of the world’s population (slightly over 50 %) was living in urban areas.
Nowadays, 54 % of the global population lives in cities and in 2050 it is expected to
reach a mean value of 66 %. In developed countries, in 2015, about 73 % of the
population lives in cities and in 2050 this is expected to increase to ca. 85 %.
While the urbanized areas occupy a surprisingly tiny fraction (roughly 3 %) of
the Earth’s surface, their impact has been global (Grimm et al. 2008; Schneider
et al. 2010). Although urban development often corresponds to higher levels of
economic and social development at national and regional scales, these citizens
usually have substantially greater and more diverse demands for natural resources
than those from rural areas. Therefore, this urban development, most of the times,
adversely affects natural ecosystems and landscapes at local and regional scales
(Alberti 2015; Wu et al. 2014).

3 Urban Development, Land Use Change,

and Environmental Impacts

The growth of the human population and its migration from rural to urban areas has
forced cities to find solutions for its expansion. The most alarming phenomenon of
urban growth and simultaneously a modern model of development is called urban
sprawl. The EEA (2006) has described urban sprawl as “the physical pattern of
low-density expansion of large urban areas, under market conditions, mainly into
the surrounding agricultural areas”. This is an unaffordable growth pattern in the
long-term due to a higher consumption of resources and energy. The loss of bio-
diversity is an urgent issue that cities need to deal with owing to the continuous
fragmentation and habitat loss as a result of this model of development (Convention
on Biological Diversity [CBD] 2007).
Urban sprawl emerges as an artificial growth to serve society, in opposition to
the traditional neighbourhoods characterized by a mixed composition, who evolved
as a function of the needs of these societies. Urban sprawl illustrates the complexity
of interactions and feedback mechanisms between human decisions and ecological
processes in urban ecosystems (European Union [EU] 2011). It fragments forests
and croplands, alters biogeochemical cycles, contributes to climate change,
degrades hydro-systems, decreases native biodiversity, and reclaims land for
infrastructure, altering the structure and functioning of natural ecosystems (Alberti
2008; EU 2011; Vitousek et al. 1997).
32 L. Barrico and P. Castro

Urban sprawl has become a very remarkable characteristic of European urban

development (Arribas-Bel et al. 2011; Kasanko et al. 2006). Many examples of this
trend can be found in the literature, for example, in Milan (Camagni et al. 2002),
Madrid (López de Lucio 2003), Porto (EEA 2006), Barcelona (Catalán et al. 2008),
Rome (Frondoni et al. 2011), or Coimbra (Barrico 2015). The area of the city of
Coimbra, considered the main urban centre of the municipality by the National
Institute of Statistics [INE] (www.ine.pt), expanded from 5873 ha in 2001 to
8318 ha in 2011 (mean growth value of 245 ha/year) (Fig. 1). In this process, land
was mostly taken at the expense of the surrounding cropland areas. This expansion,
however, was not followed by the corresponding population’s growth population
growth rate; instead, the population density in the city decreased about 29 % during
the same period. This physical pattern of low-density expansion in built-up areas
contributed to the evolution of a less compact city, clearly an indicator of urban
sprawl (Barrico 2015).
Changes in land use to yield goods and services represent the most substantial
human alteration of the Earth system and the urbanization process (the spatial
expansion of the built human-constructed elements, such as buildings, roads or
runways) is a major driver of this land conversion (Alberti 2010; Vitousek et al.
1997).
Land use is determined by the interaction in space and time of biophysical
factors, such as soils, climate, topography, and human factors like population,
technology or economic conditions. Consequently, although the land use change is

Fig. 1 Comparison of the area of the city of Coimbra and the inhabitant human population in
2001 and 2011 (data from INE)
Urban Biodiversity and Cities’ Sustainable Development 33

necessary and essential for economic and social progress, it also drags negative
socio-economic and environmental impacts (Wu 2008b).
Urban areas’ expansion implies an increase in impermeable land which affects
both geomorphological and hydrological processes, thus causing changes in water
and sediment fluxes (Grimm et al. 2008; Wu 2008a). These impervious surfaces
and the generation of heat from various combustion processes in urban areas
modify its microclimate and air quality (Alberti 2010, 2015). A best-known
example of inadvertent climate modifications is the urban heat island effect once the
urban areas tend to have higher air and surface temperatures than their surrounding
suburban and rural areas (Arnfield 2003; Rosenthal et al. 2008). This effect occurs
due to the greater heat retention of buildings and artificial surfaces, compared to the
lesser heat retention and cooling properties of vegetation, which is more abundant
in the countryside (Rosenthal et al. 2008; Winguth and Kelp 2013). The urbanized
areas usually have fewer trees and other vegetation to shade buildings and cool off
the air by evapotranspiration and thus, they tend to retain less surface water from
precipitation (Rosenthal et al. 2008).
Urbanization also affects biogeochemical processes by modifying the mecha-
nisms that control the spatial and temporal variability of nutrient sources and sinks
(Grimm et al. 2008; Kaye et al. 2006). Humans modify the ways in which nutrients
are transported across the landscape and their cycles, for example, when nutrients
are released from municipal wastewater and from combined sewer-storm water
overflow systems in urban surface waters (Alberti 2015).
The expansion of urban areas also drastically affects water resources due to the
increased per capita use of freshwater and contamination of water bodies by sewage
and wastes (Wu 2008a). In addition, the urban centres, especially those in the
developed world, are the major producers of greenhouse gases and other air pol-
lutants that cause health problems for humans and the environment (Grimm et al.
2008; Wu 2008a).

4 Recognizing the Importance of Urban Biodiversity

Whilst cities pose major challenges for the protection of biodiversity, they have
received little consideration in the existing global debate. The impact of urban-
ization on biodiversity and other natural resources was considered by the CBD in
1992, but a major step towards recognizing the potential of cities for increasing
biodiversity was made in Curitiba in 2006 (COP 8) (CBD 2006). Here was initiated
a global partnership to promote the discussion on “Cities and Biodiversity” with the
objective of encouraging local authorities to contribute to the Convention’s 2010
target of significantly reducing the biodiversity loss rate (CBD 2006). The “Curitiba
Declaration”, adopted at the meeting reaffirmed the urgency to achieve the CBD
objectives in urban areas and to engage local authorities for the “Battle of life on
Earth”, where according to the words of the Executive Secretary “The battle for life
on Earth will be won or lost in urban areas”. Particular emphasis was placed on
raising public awareness and educating future generations as well as on
34 L. Barrico and P. Castro

disseminating best practices and lessons learned through cooperation between cities
(CBD 2007). At the 9th COP, in Bonn, a decision to promote the engagement of
cities and local authorities (Decision IX/28) in national biodiversity strategies and
action plans was adopted for the fist time (CBD 2008).
The UN declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity (https://www.cbd.
int/2010/welcome/) to celebrate life on earth and the value of biodiversity for our
lives. The world was invited to take action in 2010 to safeguard biodiversity. In a
series of assessments under the title “10 messages for 2010”, five key messages
were specifically addressed to urban ecosystems (EEA 2010b) (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2 Key messages relating to urban ecosystems (EEA 2010b)

Urban Biodiversity and Cities’ Sustainable Development 35

Presently we are living the “Decade on Biodiversity” (2011–2020), as declared

by the United Nations General Assembly at its 65th session (UN 2011), (https://
www.cbd.int/2011-2020/) aiming to contribute to the implementation of the
Strategic Plan for Biodiversity for the period 2011–2020 (https://www.cbd.int/sp/)
elaborated by tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (CBD 2010).
Recently, the COP 12, held in Pyeongchang, Republic of Korea (CBD 2014)
reiterated the need for the post-2015 development agenda and sustainable devel-
opment goals to support the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. An
important goal was placed on making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe,
resilient and sustainable.

5 Urban Sustainable Development

According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

[UNESCO] (2000), one of the greatest challenges facing the 21st century will be
the attainment of sustainable development. This concept has encouraged
policy-makers to formulate new strategies to achieve a balanced economic and
technological pathway to safeguard the environment now and into the future (EC
2014; Nijkamp and Vreeker 2000). With the unprecedented growth of urbanization
it is mandatory to look upon the urban ecosystem, considering the economic, social,
and environmental impacts of cities on cities themselves and on other ecosystems
(Childers et al. 2015).
The explosive growth of cities and resident population aspiration for a better
quality of life needs to be carefully addressed and managed. Therefore, improving the
ability of policy-makers to better plan their cities and achieve sustainable development
goals are pressing needs of this century (Childers et al. 2015; EC 2014).
The concept of sustainability has become an important paradigm in urban plan-
ning, as cities play a key role in our society. Cities are important generators of wealth,
employment, and productivity, and often serve as the engines of their national
economies (EC 2014; EEA 1995). Consequently, strategies to make cities more
sustainable have been addressed more prudently by governments and institutions all
over the world, focusing on the protection of their environmental resources (e.g., air
quality, biodiversity) as well as the social, cultural, and economic resources (e.g.,
liveability, prosperity) (EC 2014; EEA 1995; EU 2011; European Federation of
Metropolitan and Periurban Natural and Rural Areas [FEDENATUR] 2004).
Urban sprawl is generally believed to result from an uncontrolled and inefficient
urban dispersion accompanied by low building and population density, over rural or
semi-rural areas (Altieri et al. 2014; Zhang 2001). As a consequence, this model of
urban expansion leads to negative effects on the environment. Sustainable planning
is an opportunity for cities to address in a more innovative and effective way the
challenges they are facing, as well as to create a vision for their future considering
all socio-economic and ecological aspects (Sustainable Cities International [SCI]
2012). Hence, the knowledge of the driving forces behind land-use change and
36 L. Barrico and P. Castro

urban sprawl, particularly about the natural characteristics of the landscape, the
importance of land use history and its relation to the planning framework, are of
great importance (Tavares et al. 2012). Pato et al. (2015) found that the importance
of physical variables on the planning process on small-scale hydrological basin in
the city of Coimbra, Portugal, decreased during the past decades, and their
importance for the planning framework was very small when compared to political
actors and planning managers.
In Europe, the first step towards sustainability of towns and cities was signed in
1994 with the first European Conference on Sustainable Cities and Towns held in
Aalborg, where participants undertook the compromise to develop and implement
their own local development agenda—the Aalborg Charter (more information in
http://www.sustainablecities.eu/). Since then, five more conferences on this topic
have been held. The latest was organized in Geneva in 2013 focusing on “A green
and socially responsible economy: a solution in times of crisis?” (www.
sustainablegeneva2013.org) and five key outcome messages were produced,
highlighting the importance of cities’ functions and strengthening communication
between stakeholders.

5.1 Greening Cities

In 2010 the Environment Council agreed in a new vision and target for biodiversity
beyond 2010, explicitly calling for the development and investment in “Green
Infrastructures” to support biodiversity and ecosystems’ processes. It particularly
emphasized the restoration of natural ecosystems as to improve cities’ resilience, to
sustain the services provided, and also to reduce cities’ vulnerability to climate
change (EC 2011). More recently, the EC launched a strategy untitled “Green
Infrastructure—Enhancing Europe’s Natural Capital” based on the principle that
protecting and enhancing nature and natural processes, and the many benefits
human society gets from nature, are consciously integrated into spatial planning and
territorial development (EC 2013b).
Building a green infrastructure can reconnect fragmented natural areas and
improve their functional connectivity (Andersson et al. 2014). It can promote
quality of life and human well-being, for example, by establishing recreational
areas, help to better adapt to climate change through natural flood management, and
soil protection or enhance water quality by wetland restoration. Specifically, the
second target of the European Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 focuses on maintaining
and enhancing ecosystems and their services by establishing green infrastructure
and restoring degraded ecosystems across the Europe, in line with the global goal
set in 2010 to restore degraded ecosystems at least on 15 % (EC 2011).
Green Infrastructure is a strategically planned network of natural and
semi-natural areas with other environmental features designed and managed to
deliver a wide range of ecosystem services. It incorporates green spaces (or blue if
aquatic ecosystems are concerned) and other physical features in terrestrial
(including coastal) and marine areas (EC 2013b).
Urban Biodiversity and Cities’ Sustainable Development 37

Greening cities though the creation or restoration of green spaces is thus of much
importance to cities’ sustainability. Urban green spaces are public or private open
spaces in urban areas, mostly covered by vegetation, which are directly (e.g. active
or passive recreation) or indirectly (e.g. positive influence in urban functions)
available for their users (Baycan-Leven et al. 2002). Public green space includes
parks and reserves, sporting fields, riparian areas, greenways and trails, community
gardens, street trees, and nature conservation areas. Conventional spaces such as
green walls, green roof tops, green alleyways, and cemeteries (Roy et al. 2012) may
also be classified as green spaces. Private green spaces includes private backyards,
communal grounds of apartment buildings, and corporate campuses (Wolch et al.
2014).
There is a broad consensus about the importance and value of urban green spaces
in cities towards protecting and maintaining biodiversity (Haq 2011). Although
urban ecosystems tend to have less biodiversity than natural forest habitats, efforts
at mitigating global biodiversity must be also a goal in urban areas, especially if
they maintain or restore forest fragments (e.g. remaining forests) (Alvey 2006;
Goddard et al. 2009).
Remaining forests within urban areas provide important refuges for endangered
species and species of high conservation value, and are more frequently occupied
by native rather than exotic species (Barrico et al. 2012; LaPaix and Freedman
2010). For example, the study carried out by Barrico (2015) in Coimbra city,
comparing public gardens and remaining forest areas, showed that despite the
similar values found for the plant species richness and diversity indices on both
areas, important differences were obtained regarding the native taxa and taxa with
higher ecological and conservation value, which mostly occurred in the native
forests.

5.2 Public Participation

Individuals around the world recognize that current economic development trends
are not sustainable and that public awareness, education, and training are important
in pointing society towards sustainability (EC 2015; Krasny et al. 2014; Tilbury et al.
2002). Therefore, more effective strategies are needed to raise awareness and
improve communication and education efforts on the importance of biodiversity and
ecosystem functioning in urban environments (CBD 2014). It is also necessary to
identify trends and assess the effectiveness of current and future policies to improve
individuals’ participation and involvement in actions regarding biodiversity con-
servation, urban ecology, and sustainability (CBD 2014; Krasny et al. 2014).
Individuals are generally aware of their local environmental problems, but the
level of public involvement is usually low. To solve problems we need to act
locally, so the importance of local knowledge and approaches on continued edu-
cation and coordination between local/regional stakeholders are needed to achieve
of sustainable urban public policies (Table 1).
38 L. Barrico and P. Castro

Table 1 Proposals for Measurement and mapping of biodiversity

biodiversity conservation and
sustainability of urban areas at Engaging society (e.g. public, NGOs, private sector, and other
local level of governance actors in the planning process)
Reinforce the communication and people involvement on
impact assessments and other decision-processes so to make
well-informed choices (e.g. environmental impact assessment
and strategic environmental assessment or the Local Agenda 21
processes)
Environmental education through teaching, training or raising
awareness actions for the importance of biodiversity tailoring
different stakeholders
Allocation of more resources (e.g. funds, green infrastructure,
and personnel)
A more clear understanding of the systematic representation of
the different driving forces affecting land-use change
Improve the network between the scientific, political, and the
private sectors
Control of alien invasive species and other threats to native
biodiversity
Greening cities

The provision, design, management and protection of urban green spaces are the
main purposes of the plan of sustainability and liveability of modern cities
(Baycan-Leven et al. 2002; Haq 2011). This requires large economic efforts and
future commitment to their conservation by the government and local authorities.
This should be followed by actions to promote environmental citizen awareness, so
that the urban environment can be protected and preserved (Gomes and Panago-
poulos 2008).

6 Final Remarks

It is not easy to understand the true nature of cities. They are key systems of social,
cultural, and economic growth. However, the strategic model of development and
its spatial expansion is a crucial challenge to manage. Changes in land use asso-
ciated with urban sprawl/urbanization drastically affect biodiversity, ecosystem
functioning, and environmental quality as well as human behaviour, community
structure, and social organization. Both the loss and fragmentation of natural
habitats due to urbanization also have direct and indirect impacts on the diversity,
structure, and distribution of vegetation leading to important consequences in the
distribution, movement, and survival of species (Alberti 2015).
The Europe 2020 strategy sets out a vision of Europe’s social market economy
for the 21st century, putting forward three mutually reinforcing priorities: smart,
sustainable, and inclusive growth (EC 2010b) and under this work programme
specific funding calls are addressed to cities’ development. Promoting a more
Urban Biodiversity and Cities’ Sustainable Development 39

resource efficient, greener, and more competitive economy are objectives of

sustainable growth which includes preventing biodiversity loss, sustainable use of
resources, improving green procurement, promoting civic participation, and the
adoption of biodiversity conservation practices.

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Education on Biodiversity in the Polar
Regions
José C. Xavier, Gerlis Fugmann, Inga Beck, Louise Huffman
and Eric Jensen

Abstract
The polar regions are famously associated with extreme temperatures, ice, snow,
legendary explorers, indigenous people, polar bears, penguins and other
impressive fauna and flora. The past decades have witnessed a revolution in
the amount of data collected in the polar regions, with considerable advances in
the knowledge of numerous areas, including in polar biodiversity. Educationally,
the polar regions can be perfect vehicles to transfer educational concepts related
to biodiversity, but unfortunately, the evaluation of the impact of educational
activities related to polar biodiversity is scarce. This chapter provides a general

J.C. Xavier (&)

Marine and Environmental Research Centre (MARE), Department of Life Sciences,
University of Coimbra, 3001-401 Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: jxavier@zoo.uc.pt
J.C. Xavier
British Antarctic Survey, Natural Environment Research Council,
High Cross, Madingley Road, CB3 0ET Cambridge, UK

G. Fugmann
Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS), UiT,
the Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

I. Beck
Heidelberg University, Institute of Geography, Berliner Straße 48,
69120 Heidelberg, Germany

L. Huffman
Polar Educators International (PEI), ARCUS, 3535 College Rd., Suite 101,
Fairbanks, AK 99709-3710, USA

E. Jensen
Department of Sociology, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 43

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_4
44 J.C. Xavier et al.

review of the importance of the polar regions, the increasing status of polar
education in the last decade, examples of polar educational activities on
biodiversity, and a resource to stakeholders interested in polar science and
education. With pivotal inputs to polar education during the International Polar
Year, 2007–2008, three of the most important challenges to be addressed in the
future are to assess the needs of polar educators, strengthen the network of
information sharing of educational materials (e.g. in a validated, multi-lingual
and easily accessible online mode) and to develop robust evaluation of the
educational activities. Recent improvements in internet technologies may
provide a major source of ideas and the ability to effortlessly spread polar
information relevant to biodiversity education.

1 Importance of Polar Regions

The polar regions are the cornerstones of the global ecosystem, barometers of the
health of the planet, and the places where global processes connect across the Earth
(Kennicutt et al. 2014; Krupnik et al. 2011; Smetacek and Nicol 2005). Indeed,
polar environments are changing faster than any other region on Earth (with
regional and global implications for societies, economies and ecosystems), pro-
cesses in polar regions have profound influence on the global environment (e.g.
climate, sea level, ocean systems), the polar regions are home (particularly for the
Arctic) to more than four million people who face changes in their natural envi-
ronment faster than elsewhere and, finally, within the polar regions lie important
scientific and technological challenges yet to be investigated (Allison et al. 2007,
2009; IPCC 2007; Kennicutt et al. 2014; Krupnik et al. 2011; Sarmiento et al.
2004). Furthermore, human impacts on polar regions, such as pollution, invasive
species and development of non-renewable resources may contribute to extend
these changes (Bennett et al. 2015; Convey et al. 2012). Indeed, the intensity and
governance of human activities also vary greatly between the Arctic and the
Antarctic; the Arctic has been continuously inhabited for millennia (and most Arctic
land masses belong to sovereign states) while much of the Antarctic has been
claimed by various states but governed by the international Antarctic Treaty System
which sets issues of sovereignty (Bennett et al. 2015). At a time when the world´s
population is exerting an increasing influence on Earth and its environments, and
the human living conditions are rapidly affected by global changes, the polar
regions are critical to any vision of humanity’s overall prospects on the
“over-stressed” earth. It has become clear that the polar regions provide a litmus test
and the insight to help society as a whole recognize the planetary limits of our
behavior (Allison et al. 2007; Bennett et al. 2015; Rockstrom et al. 2009).
Education on Biodiversity in the Polar Regions 45

2 Importance of Polar Biodiversity

Organisms that live permanently in the polar regions face extreme environmental
conditions including chronic low temperatures, high winds and solar radiation,
freezing and/or desiccation stress, environmental variability on both short and long
time-scales, and extreme and acute events (Convey et al. 2012; Meltofte 2013;
Meltofte et al. 2013; Peck et al. 2006; Thomas et al. 2008; Xavier and Peck 2015).
For example, the terrestrial habitats of the higher latitudes of the Arctic and
Antarctic are characterized by the combination of long winters, short-productive
cool summers with short growing seasons, and extremely climatic variability with
low air temperatures of up to −40 to −80 °C or even lower (although such extremes
are not reached at lower latitudes or in habitats protected by winter snow) and large
regional differences (Convey et al. 2012; Meltofte 2013).
There are contrasting patterns of biodiversity in the Arctic and Antarctic in terms
of species diversity, both on land and in the sea (Aronson et al. 2011; Convey et al.
2012) (Fig. 1).
Excluding endo-parasites and microbes, the Arctic is home to 21,000 species of
animals, plants and fungi (Meltofte et al. 2013). Although large and globally sig-
nificant populations of seabirds and marine mammals breed on the fringes of the
Antarctic continent, macroscopic terrestrial biodiversity is low and comprised
almost entirely of invertebrates and cryptogams (Convey 2007). There are no native
terrestrial vertebrates in the Antarctic, contrasting with large populations of birds
and mammals (including land predators) in the Arctic (e.g. Polar bears, narwhals,
caribou, muskoxen, walruses) (Convey et al. 2012; Meltofte 2013).
Arctic terrestrial ecosystems are characterized by high numbers of migratory
vertebrates, providing an important connection with global biodiversity (Convey
et al. 2012; Thomas et al. 2008). In contrast, there is no analogous migratory
component within Antarctic or sub-Antarctic terrestrial ecosystems.
Arctic and Antarctic marine environment are amongst the most thermally stable
on Earth (Convey et al. 2012), although in some regions significant changes have
been noticed in these marine environments (Gutt et al. 2015; Walczowski and
Piechura 2006). The extreme seasonality in light regime at high latitudes leads to
intense pulses of biological production in the short and cold polar summers (i.e.
June–Sept. in the Arctic and Dec.–March in the Antarctic), this being particularly
apparent in the short phytoplankton blooms in spring that form the basis of the
Arctic and Antarctic marine food webs (Knox 2007; Thomas et al. 2008). In terms
of plants, 2218 species and subspecies are regarded as part of the regular Arctic
flora whereas the Antarctic vascular plant flora includes only two native species on
the continent (Convey 2007; Elven et al. 2011). The reverse pattern is apparent at
sea; today, Antarctic benthic marine diversity is second only to that of coral reefs.
The Arctic Ocean has lower diversity in some groups than typifies the Antarctic
with its lesser sea ice extent (Verde et al. 2012). However, the Arctic also has a
much more complex oceanographic system than does the Antarctic, and in other
biological groups, such as fish, there is higher diversity as well as representation of
46 J.C. Xavier et al.

Fig. 1 Examples of a polar animals (Black-browed albatross Diomedea melanophrys, Gentoo

penguins Pygoscelis papua, and the squid Galiteuthis glacialis, b Polar bear Ursus maritimus,
caribou Rangifer tarandus, walrus Odobenus rosmarus and polar cod Boreogadus saida,
c educators (including indigenous of the Arctic) working together on biodiversity activities. Photos
by José C. Xavier, Inga Beck, Hauke Flores and Louise Huffman
Education on Biodiversity in the Polar Regions 47

more than one higher taxonomic level (Convey et al. 2012). Both regions support
large breeding populations of marine mammals and birds during their respective
summers (Thomas et al. 2008).
A special situation can be found in the Arctic due to the connection of humans
and biodiversity. The harvesting of Arctic flora and fauna (mammals, birds, fish and
plants) has for millennia been not only the basis for human existence and survival in
this harsh climate, but also an integral part in the culture, identity and spiritual life
of Arctic peoples and communities (Meltofte et al. 2013).
As some of the most rapidly changing ecosystems on our planet are located in
the polar regions, polar ecosystems and the biodiversity they hold are already
responding to these changes and it is expected that even more profound impacts
will occur this century (Convey et al. 2012). In the Arctic today, climate change is
seen as the greatest threat to its biodiversity (CAFF 2015). Compounding the risk to
polar biodiversity is the fact that many polar ecosystems have limited functional
redundancy; in the event of the loss of a single keystone species, they may
potentially be exposed to cascading effects and complete ecosystem restructuring
(Post et al. 2009). In several parts of the Arctic, shifts are already witnessed
including changes in the ecosystem and the northward expansion of many species
(Meltofte et al. 2013; Richter-Menge and Overland 2010).

3 Importance of Linking Education and Biodiversity Issues

Related to the Polar Regions

Biodiversity provides numerous essential services to society, yet biodiversity

continues to decline, even though worldwide conservation efforts are increasing
(Barnosky et al. 2012; Rands et al. 2010; Rockstrom et al. 2009). Filling gaps in our
knowledge and building on success, through scaling up and further long-term
investment in conservation that works and bringing this knowledge to society are all
critical steps that must be taken. The UN declared 2010 the International Year of
Biodiversity with goals to adopt a strategic plan containing a vision for 2050 and
new biodiversity targets to be achieved in 2020 (Hill et al. 2015; Rands et al. 2010;
Velasco et al. 2015). The Arctic Council published the Arctic Biodiversity
Assessment 2013 which included 17 key recommendations to be implemented
through an implementation plan by 2021 (CAFF 2015; Meltofte 2013). Biodiversity
must be made an integral element of social, economic and political
decision-making, as is happening with carbon and climate change. Members in a
civil society (along with governments and businesses) all have crucial roles in
education related to biodiversity.
The polar regions continue to spark our curiosity and imagination, coupled with
a sense of adventure and fear of the unknown (May et al. 2014; Kaiser et al. 2010),
providing perfect ingredients for both education and public outreach related to
biodiversity. The polar regions do benefit from public enthusiasm for images and
exploration and public interest in ice and ice-dependent biodiversity such as the
48 J.C. Xavier et al.

charismatic mammals. Substantial national investments in polar formal education

and outreach activities, including films, exhibitions, expeditions, educational
materials, and books, will undoubtedly increase public awareness (Carlson 2009).
Polar examples can be an excellent way to transmit basic concepts about a wide
range of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines.
Indeed, numerous countries conducted their education and outreach programs in the
last few years (particularly during the International Polar Year, in 2007–08)
focusing on a wide range of disciplines, including biodiversity, while sharing
knowledge about the importance of the polar regions (Kaiser et al. 2010; Zicus et al.
2011). An assessment of the hundreds of education, outreach and communication
activities during the 4th International Polar Year (IPY) 2007–2008 concluded that
they touched more than 14 million people in 70 countries (Provencher et al. 2011).
Globally, habitat loss and degradation directly caused by local human activities
appear to be the greatest threats to biodiversity (IPCC 2013; Vié et al. 2009). In
polar environments, the primary threats are largely a result of human activities in
distant lower latitudes, particularly as a result of CO2 emissions and other pollu-
tants, and increased pressure to exploit polar resources as those elsewhere become
depleted; consequently anthropogenic climate change is the predominant threat to
the polar regions, directly precipitating massive ecological change and interacting
synergistically with other threats (e.g. fisheries overexploitation, pollution, invasive
species) (Bennett et al. 2015). Such issues related to biodiversity must be addressed
under a concerted plan to inform the broader educational system worldwide, as well
as policy makers (e.g. at the Arctic Council and at the Antarctic Treaty Consultative
Meetings) and the general public.

4 Examples of Polar Activities Related to Biodiversity

Educational initiatives on biodiversity are manifold and include various levels of

audiences. For example, these can be schools (through student outreach programs
and other classroom activities, teaching resource projects, student and teacher
expeditions and science fairs); universities (through field courses, expeditions and
professional development programs) and the general public (through multilevel
initiatives presentations, exhibitions, science events, music, books, films and con-
tests) (Kaiser et al. 2010). There were hundreds of examples of projects from small,
local initiatives to larger international projects during the IPY related to polar
biodiversity. Among others, the Global POP: International School Education—
future scientists at work project (http://sustain.no/projects/globalpop) focused on
environmental contaminants in fish and “included hands-on school activities and
scientific research” (Kaiser et al. 2010). Seasons and Biomes of the GLOBE Pro-
gram (http://www.globe.gov/do-globe/measurement-campaigns/past-projects/earth-
as-a-system-projects/seasons-and-biomes) focused on monitoring seasons of the
taiga/tundra forest and tundra biomes by engaging school teachers and students
(Kaiser et al. 2010). The book, Polar Science and Global Climate: An International
Education on Biodiversity in the Polar Regions 49

Resource for Education and Outreach, developed during the IPY contained among
others a series of classroom materials on a variety of biodiversity-related topics (e.g.
“Penguin Family Reunion”, “Polar Feasts” including Antarctic and Arctic Food
Web Cards, and “Optimal Foraging”) (Kaiser et al. 2010). Student expeditions,
organized by Students on Ice (http://studentsonice.com/) and Students on Board
(http://www.arcticnet.ulaval.ca/sb/index.php), among others, venture into both the
Arctic and Antarctic and include strong components on polar biodiversity educa-
tion. They are successfully continuing today (Kaiser et al. 2010). During the IPY,
also several larger multilevel-initiatives and projects were organized. LATI-
TUDE60! (http://www.portalpolar.pt/latitude60—o-que-foi.html) was the polar
educational program in Portugal for the IPY, and was recognized as a success story
internationally. It reached all corners of the entire country, from children to adults,
from kindergarten to University level, and the general public through more than 40
educational activities (e.g. national contests, field courses, theatre plays, exhibi-
tions, films, polar calendar). The activities were organized by polar scientists and
educators around the country while addressing issues such as biodiversity, climate
change and polar research (Kaiser et al. 2010; Schiermeier 2009; Xavier et al. 2013;
Zicus et al. 2011). The EALÁT-Network Study (http://icr.arcticportal.org/about-
ealat) on reindeer husbandry and climate change focused on the adaptability of
reindeer herding communities to environmental change and the knowledge of
reindeer herders, and had strong project components on education and outreach
(Kaiser et al. 2010). Polar Weeks initiated during the IPY with the theme “What
happens at the poles affects us all” provided an opportunity for focused events
worldwide on polar regions and a variety of issues (Zicus et al. 2011).
When funding ended at the end of the IPY, many of the IPY initiatives stopped or
evolved into new projects. The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists
(APECS) and Polar Educators International (PEI) both had their roots in the Inter-
national Polar Year and are working to continue the momentum and interest in the
polar regions, by continuing many initiatives with e.g. the contribution of early
career researchers and teachers around the world (e.g. during Polar Weeks). PEI is a
vital international network of educators and researchers that aims to provide a deeper
understanding of current polar science and to inspire appreciation and knowledge of
the polar regions, their connectedness to Earth’s systems and biodiversity, and
importance to all humans across latitudes and cultures. These PEI goals are met
through continuing professional development activities such as webinars and
international workshops (Huffman et al., in press; Walton et al. 2013). Another
recent example are the implementation actions of the recommendations provided as
part of the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment 2013 published by the Conservation of
Arctic Flora and Fauna (CAFF) Working Group of the Arctic Council, which also
emphasizes the importance of promoting public training and education on Arctic
biodiversity as well as the development of communication and outreach tools (CAFF
2015). An “Arctic Biodiversity Through the Lens” Photography Contest was
organized in connection with the Arctic Biodiversity Congress 2014, and other tools
(e.g. publications, films, social media campaigns) and educational kits (e.g. on Arctic
ecology) are among the resources developed (CAFF 2015).
50 J.C. Xavier et al.

5 Tackling the Challenging Issues on Polar Education

Related to Biodiversity: Step 1. Evaluation
of Impact

While many types of polar education could make a difference in addressing the
human dimensions of biodiversity conservation, it is important to identify which
types of initiatives contribute and how. While impact evaluation can be difficult in
many contexts, the way it operates is straightforward conceptually: You try to
isolate the effect of an intervention (for example, by measuring a child’s thinking
about a polar concept before and after an intervention). The social sciences have
invested decades of effort into developing the tools to validly research phenomena
relating to attitudes, interests, motivations, thought processes and emotions, out-
comes which are the subject of most informal learning and engagement goals.
Indeed, few educational objectives are impervious to robust measurement using
social scientific methods of one kind or another. For example, if we know how the
same person understands the concept of polar biodiversity before encountering an
educational programme and after, then we can identify the ‘effect’ or ‘impact’ of the
educational programme on this outcome (Moss et al. 2015). Qualitative data or
multiple data collection time points within the informal learning or engagement
experience can further close the inferential gap to be able to robustly attribute
impact (whether positive or negative) to an experience (Wagoner and Jensen 2015).
Turning to children’s attitudes or learning, accurate impact evaluation of polar
education programmes requires gathering data directly from the children (not a
proxy such as a teacher or parent) using appropriate language and good survey
design techniques. For example, after pilot testing different impact evaluation
question options (Wagoner and Jensen 2015) for evaluating children’s learning at
London Zoo, the following question was used: ‘Please draw your favourite wildlife
habitat and all the plants and animals that live there (put names and labels on
everything)’. This item yielded annotated drawings from questionnaire data gath-
ered from pupils by their teachers before and after their visit to London Zoo. These
annotated drawings were then subjected to rigorous content analysis to quantify the
impact patterns (and variables that predicted impact), as well as a conventional
qualitative analysis to elaborate understanding of the details of what was happening
with children’s understanding of wildlife habitats over the course of a zoo visit
(Jensen 2014a). In the following example, a UK pupil visiting the zoo shows a
small improvement in the accuracy of the representation, with a shift from having a
polar bear and penguin side by side to showing only a penguin (female, age 13;
Fig. 2). To elicit evaluation data, polar educators could ask children to draw a polar
landscape and all the plants and animals that live there both before and after an
educational intervention.
When conducting an impact evaluation of polar education with limited resour-
ces, the limitations in available budget, staff and methodological expertise are real
problems for many polar education organisations (Jensen 2014b), undermining their
ability to use robust evaluation methods. Indeed, those working in polar education
Education on Biodiversity in the Polar Regions 51

Fig. 2 Pre- a and post-visit b drawings for same child from impact evaluation at London Zoo

organisations are busy people. Most of polar educators have not been trained in the
social scientific research methods required to produce valid evaluations (example in
Fig. 3) or to be a critical consumer of impact evaluations conducted by others such
as external evaluation consultants. Below it is discussed two main options for
overcoming these challenges: Improving methodological knowledge within polar
education institutions and using technology-enhanced methods of evaluation.
Some methodological understanding would certainly be beneficial for polar
education staff who will encounter evaluation evidence over the course of their
careers. It is important to be a savvy consumer of polar education evaluation
research, able to identify and avoid common limitations. Today however, there is
less of a need for polar education practitioners to develop the practical knowledge
and skills to be able to implement high quality evaluations for themselves. This is
because recent improvements in open source technology bring good quality eval-
uation within easy reach of many more polar education professionals and
organisations.
For many, if not most, polar education organisations, technology-enhanced
evaluation could be a real solution for embedding robust evidence within the fabric
of polar education practice. Automated evaluation tools enable answers to questions
such as, what proportion of polar education participants are satisfied with their
experiences? And, what factors are affecting the quantity and type of impact on
polar education participants? Automated methods of evaluation can eliminate the
need for on-going costs and expensive external consultants in order to gain eval-
uation evidence. New technologies enable the design of evaluation systems that can
be fully automated after an initial customization and set-up. Using these tech-
nologies, a one-time infusion of expertise can create a system used by polar edu-
cation practitioners without any skills in social scientific analysis. Recently
developed options using open source technology include:
– A web-based system for gathering impact data before, during and after a polar
education programme using automated evaluation technologies for data col-
lection and analysis (www.qualiaanalytics.org);
– A system of evaluation that is integrated into a polar education institution’s
visitor smartphone app to automatically gather, analyse and display for the
institution evaluation results such as visitor timing and tracking information and
micro-survey feedback through the app. (www.qualia.org.uk);
52 J.C. Xavier et al.

Fig. 3 Pre-visit survey and pos-visit survey to evaluate the impact of educational activities on
polar biodiversity
Education on Biodiversity in the Polar Regions 53

– An automated system that identifies indicators of ‘quality of experience’ in

social media messages posted by visitors, using categories developed through
online ethnographic research with people tweeting about public engagement
experiences (www.culturesmile.org).
In each of these cases, data collection and analysis are fully automated, with
visualisations of the results displayed for institutions using the systems in real time.
This means that institutions can immediately act on incoming evaluation results,
rather than waiting for cumbersome processes of data collection, data entry and
analysis to take place (also see www.qualiaanalytics.org).
Of course, any polar education evaluation approach has strengths and limita-
tions. Automated evaluation methods are not suitable for every evaluation chal-
lenge. However, greater adoption of these technologies could raise the minimum
standard of evaluation in the polar education sector, and provide institutions with a
finger on the pulse of their audiences. Because these systems have been built using
robust open source software development, the systems can be easily adopted by
polar education organisations and interface with other commonly used software
such as Eventbrite. The result is greater availability of higher quality evaluation
evidence, while organisations conserve resources by replacing existing consultancy
costs or diverted staff time. Ideally, if the resource burden of on-going polar edu-
cation evaluation and market research could be removed, the sector would then be
able to focus on strategic investment in in-depth rigorous research on aspects of
engagement that require particular attention across the globe’s polar regions (for
example, reaching new audiences for polar education (Dawson and Jensen 2011;
Jensen et al. 2011)).

6 Final Considerations

In this book chapter, we reviewed the importance of the polar regions to our planet,
assessed how education on the polar regions has been developed in the last decade,
provided key educational activities related to the polar regions on biodiversity, and
provided a resource to stakeholders (such as scientists, educators, teachers and
policy makers) interested in polar science and education.
Various steps have been taken to have an efficient international network of polar
educators, particularly with the recent establishment of Polar Educators Interna-
tional. Several themes, related directly or indirectly to polar biodiversity, must be
considered for a sustainable growth of polar educational issues: (1) Funding is
needed to build a more reliable and vibrant online presence and platform for
connecting polar educators and researchers internationally, (2) There is a need to
continue to provide face-to-face opportunities for collaborations: educator/educator
and educator/researcher and educators with other stakeholders, (3) The need to
build an online “matching” service for educators to find researchers and researchers
to find help with their broader impact and communication needs, (4) Seek creative
solutions for making resources and dialogues easily shared across multiple
54 J.C. Xavier et al.

languages, (5) Clearly design goals for polar education and communication in such
a way that they can be quantified and evaluated, and (6) Continue to leverage what
individuals within the polar community are doing and build on lessons learned
during education outreach projects from the International Polar Year.
Within other future challenges to polar education, using robust evaluation to
ensure the steady improvement of polar education initiatives should be viewed as
essential. Developing appropriate skills and knowledge to use impact evaluation to
inform the practice of polar education and engagement practice should not be an
insurmountable barrier. Moreover, recent improvements in evaluation technology
have opened up new options for implementing systems that provide on-going
evaluation insights on an automated basis with a one-time infusion of expertise at
the survey design stage (e.g. see www.qualiaanalytics.org, www.qualia.org.uk or
artory.co.uk). Given the logistical challenges involved in developing high quality,
practical evaluation methods training for practitioners whose primary responsibil-
ities lie elsewhere, such technology may be a big part of the answer to the challenge
of implementing robust evaluation in informal learning and engagement institu-
tions. On-going evaluation systems would allow polar education organisations to be
much better attuned to their audiences’ needs, less reliant on speculation about
which interventions are effective and therefore more likely to deliver positive
impacts.

Acknowledgements This work is a culmination of numerous discussions with members of the

Association of Polar Early Career Scientists and Polar Educators International, and is a product of
the educational legacies from the International Polar Year. JX is supported by the Investigator FCT
program (IF/00616/2013) and is part of the SCAR Ant-ERA, SCAR EGBAMM, PROPOLAR and
ICED programs.

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Teaching Mycology Worldwide
María P. Martín and Roy Watling

Abstract
Taxonomy is the discipline responsible for the classification of organisms and
involves sampling, discovery, and description of species. Fungi are a large group
of eukaryotic organisms very diverse in morphology, physiology, and ecology. It
is very difficult to delimit a species concept which is common to all fungal
groups. In general, taxonomists continue using morphological characters;
however, DNA sequence analysis (barcoding) is now essential to discover the
true identity of new fungal species. In this chapter some aspects of teaching
mycology will be summarized, including websides where fungi from different
countries are well-documented, as well as scientific databases available for
various groups of fungi and the application of new technologies. Some examples
when training taxonomists all around the World are included, such as collecting
in the rain forest with Malaysian and Thai students, teaching general and master
courses in Australia, Brazil, Ecuador and India, and on-line-tools needed for the
effective training of students and teachers when they are particularly when
separated by long distances.

M.P. Martín (&)

Departamento de Micología, Real Jardín Botánico, RJB-CSIC,
Plaza de Murillo 2, Madrid, Spain
e-mail: maripaz@rjb.csic.es
R. Watling
Caledonian Mycological Enterprises, Crelach, 26 Blinkbonny Avenue,
Edinburgh EH4 3HU, UK

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 57

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_5
58 M.P. Martín and R. Watling

1 Introduction

Prof. Frederick DeForest Heald (1872–1954), pioneer in teaching plant pathology

wrote: “the minimum time for a course in mycology according to the plan outlined
is six hours of laboratory work per week throughout one school year” (Heald 1922).
Although the number of hours is important, even more is how to teach. The plan
outlined by Prof. Heald was teaching to construct diagrammatic keys to the various
groups of fungi through the observation of specimens and discussion among stu-
dents, instead of teaching directly how to use artificial keys to determine the species
(to put the specimens in their respective species pigeon-holes, as he said). Prof.
Heald recommends his method because of: “(1) The creation of greater interest on
the part of the student in his work; (2) The development of students’ ability to
reason and weigh evidences; (3) The cultivation of the scientific imagination; (4) A
better understanding of evolution and what it means; and (5) The possibility of
emphasizing natural descent of the various groups and bringing out the fact that
classification is in reality but a means to an end—an expression of relationships.”
Today, when studying fungi, students not only have the figures in books to interpret
the features, as in the time of Prof. Heald, but now there is also a wide range of new
tools.
Fungi are a large group of very diverse eukaryotic organisms and it is very
difficult to delimit a species concept to apply to all the different fungus groups
(Webster and Weber 2007). However, today in order to distinguish and to describe
new species morphological, ecological or physiological characters are not just relied
upon but DNA sequence analyses are available. In particular, the sequences of
nuclear ribosomal DNA are very useful in the identification of fungi at different
taxonomic levels (Bruns et al. 1991). The results from the last technique demon-
strate that even if it is a well understood area the mycodiversity is surprisingly more
diverse than previously thought. Documentation in tropical areas is even more
difficult but the indication is that even the morphological approach uncovers many
more species and some genera not previously recognise. Although recent molecular
methods have moved onto another plane which still confirms this high fungal
diversity morphological methods are still important where difficulties are experi-
enced in communication, availability of relevant materials, etc. After applying good
documented collecting techniques the dried material will always be available for
future molecular study. It is now possible for some students learn how to obtain and
interpret other characters, such as the small portion of DNA that has been selected
by Schoch et al. (2012) as the first bar-coding option for fungi, although more
recently there have been other regions suggested (Stielow et al. 2015). What,
however, is most important is for the student to appreciate that what is imbued in
the morphological approach is still relevant and ideally new and classical methods
should be married. Present-day students have a great advantage in this digital era in
which they are comfortable using the new methodology over those of earlier years
but it is everyone’s loss if the classical approach is totally ignored!
Teaching Mycology Worldwide 59

In the next pages, how mycology has developed from just utilizing books to the
use now of free tools available through the new technologies is presented. Such
tools include movies, webpages, applications to mobile devices, etc. and it is shown
how these facilities have developed further with the advent of molecular analysis.
However, there is no doubt that learning mycology in any country and knowing
its mycodiversity, at least at the scholar and high school level, should start with a
class in a near-by forest, in a Botanical Garden, or a place were teachers can attract
attention and demonstrate the diversity of fungi. If for any reason this is not pos-
sible, teachers could call upon some of the excellent movies found free on the
internet, where curiosity in fungi can be ignited in young minds. Some examples of
these kind of movies: Natural History, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
70LA0mijzCM; Kingdom of the Forest-Fungi, National Geographic, https://
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb4y40kFhL4; Fungi, BBC’s The Private Life of
Plants documentary series, such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ5Me4N_
XXE, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETRX1-3fqRo). Good DVDs by
Taylor F. Lockwood covering various aspects of larger fungi are available from
www.kingdomoffungi.com.
Teachers should utilize the wide range of fungi available to offer selected
examples of fungal diversity and not just rely on the fruit-bodies of the well-known
macromycetes, available in stores such as those from the genera Agaricus or
Boletus, although nowdays the range of species available is increasing. Lichenized
fungi (Lichens), mouldy food-stuffs, plant parasites, and soil samples should all be
included. Then under both binocular and monocular microscopes students can
discover other important dimensions of fungi by observing hyphae or mycorrhizas,
features which set fungi apart.
Although this chapter focuses on teaching mycology to secondary students, the
advice is that in the university, the mycological course should start also with
fieldwork and develop the subject around careful observation and documentation. If
this is not possible, students should locate good internet pages about biodiversity of
fungi, share and discuss them in an internet forum or in their university intranet, if
available, and their tutors (http://www.nifg.org.ik/other_websites.htm), allow
access to British Isles fungus groups, and also to many other fungus sites, some of
them dedicated to special groups, such as one devoted to waxcaps (http://www.
aber.ac.uk/waxcap/). Moreover, both students and tutors should be aware of the
information available in the well-developed fungus databases of Index Fungorum
(http://www.indexfungorum.org) and Mycobank (http://www.mycobank.org),
where one can find not only the nomenclatural novelties, such as new names and
combinations, but also find the first description of a fungus, and in the case of
Mycobank the DNA sequences associated with them. Also, the website Global
Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF 2015; http://www.gbif.org offers); this
page offers the opportunity to explore and contribute to the global body of evidence
documenting the huge diversity of life on our planet; actually there are more that
579,000,000 records shared freely by hundreds of institutions worldwide, and
10,103,232 correspond to fungi, which around 7,000,000 are included with coor-
dinates (Fig. 1).
60 M.P. Martín and R. Watling

Fig. 1 Map of the world showing around 7,000,000 fungi occurrences (GBIF.org)

2 Collecting

As mentioned before the fungi are such a diverse group of organisms that even the
collecting methods to be adopted are very different from fungus to fungus.
Macrofungi even the tiniest specimens can be preserved for later examination; if the
fieldwork is for more than one day, a different approach depending of the country
should be adopted (Fig. 2).
When collecting fungi make sure that all the fungus and not just the top has been
collected, as sometimes they may be buried deeply in the soil, so carefully excavate
the specimens. In order to protect the specimens an array of small disused tins
and/or plastic (not glass) containers can be used to place the specimens in. This
keeps them separate and avoids accidents by not using glass containers. The
important aspect of collecting is to keep the specimens in good condition once
picked and so several professional mycologists wrap their material loosely in twists
of wax-proofed paper or even in metal ‘bacon’ foil. Both these can be obtained
from a local store being used extensively for culinary activities. Do not put spec-
imens in polythene bags as they will sweat in transit and start to decompose rapidly,
destroying many important characters. Specimens can be maintained in the cool
part of a household refrigerator over-night if they cannot be examined immediately.
Working with macrofungi in the tropics is sometimes difficult when a source of
electricity is not available, so that the use of a European fruit drier cannot be set-up
at a base camp. Failing the use of such a drier, larger specimens should be placed on
Teaching Mycology Worldwide 61

Fig. 2 Field work in Thailand. Author Roy Watling

a drying rack set up with an encircling cardboard chimney and small source of heat;
smaller specimens can be placed directly into indicator silica gel (this can be used
also for bulkier specimens, in which case they must be sliced appropriately),
changing the silica gel next day, or at least twice for leathery and tougher speci-
mens. If using a drier or the drying action of a fire, then place the specimens in
small open mesh sacks e.g. old nylon stockings or similar are appropriate. This
keeps collections separate, as once dry, specimens which looked very different in
the field may look like each other. Keep a record of the specimen, and always make
sure the collection number accompanies the specimen at all times. The old silica gel
can be reused by drying it near to a source of heat, on the rack, etc., and leaving for
24 h. Delicate specimens can be protected with moss, within the silica gel phial, and
the whole retained for shipping back to the laboratory. Also, it is very important to
choose the correct silica gel, since fine silica gel is damaging to cover-slips when
examining on return; round silica gel pellets tend to grind the specimens when dry;
so use medium coarse calibre silica gel. Collecting and Examination of larger fungi
is described in Henderson et al. (1969), illustrating important features to observe
when the specimens are in the fresh condition.
Once collected, in many groups of fungi, the spore print is important for suc-
cessful identification and should be obtained, by using a second specimen from the
collection or part of any larger specimen. Label the specimen taken for the
spore-print with the same number as the original collection so that they can be
reunited at a later date. Moreover, it may be rewarding to check close to the place of
collection, since mushrooms make the spore-print in nature; if the mushroom is
62 M.P. Martín and R. Watling

mature one can notice coloured dust covering the surrounding ground, leaves or
branches, and this can be carefully collected. Some videos are available on the
Internet, of how to obtain spore prints (such as https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
5XztAeKjKHY or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fNHTmNy5to). Always
make a note of where the specimen was found and with what species it might have
been associated. It might not be possible to identify individual trees or plants when
in a woodland but some broad description of the habitat is better than nothing and
could assist in any future identification. Keep the same numerals for the notes as on
the specimens. With small specimens and when collecting microscopic specimens a
piece of the substrate is best dried with the actual fruiting body.
Students should be encouraged to make illustrations of their finds by either
photography or sketches, preferably coloured. Digital cameras which young people
are so familiar with make photography much easier but in the latter case crayons
whose colour is released when dampened allows a whole range of colours to be
taken in the wettest rain forest. As many fungi are not recorded or even described
from an area, colour illustrations play an important role in documenting that specific
area. If the specimens cannot be identified, then with the collected material and an
illustration, an expert might be able to identify them in the future. Make sure the
number for the collections is kept also with the illustrations. Even without a name,
the illustrations add to the knowledge of the fungal diversity as there are still many
fungi to be formally recognised.

3 Morphological Analyses

Exploring the fungal world will continue in school, since students can prepare a
series of exhibitions. The exhibitions can be set on the walls of the classroom
covering the different aspects of fungi. Such an exhibition could include edible (and
poisonous—if known) mushrooms, wood-rotters including bracket fungi,
crust-fungi, rotting fruit and vegetables, and even pharmaceutical products and
domestic utilities such as biological washing powders. The exhibition should be
prepared with fresh specimens, but if this is not possible, with images obtained from
different sources: books, colour images or internet pages. Different countries or
even areas of countries have produced attractive illustrative books which will show
the range of colours and textures and sometimes the bizarre nature of some fruiting
bodies. Excellent collections of images (including Spanish and Catalan description)
have been published by the Societat Catalana de Micologia under the abbreviate
name Bolets de Catalunya (http://www.micocat.org; 34 collections already pub-
lished with 50 planches each). Generally, edible fungi and rotten examples of
vegetable and fruit can be obtained fairly easily, the latter two from the discards of
green-grocers!
The focus of the exhibition should first be related to macroscopic morphology.
Students can arrange their specimens or images according to the different mor-
phologies they observe. Later, the students can be distributed in teams and choose a
group of fungi to focus upon: team A, stomach (gasteroid) fungi; team B, fungi with
Teaching Mycology Worldwide 63

a stem (or stipe); team C, fungi lacking a stem; team D: lichens, and so on. After
discussing the forms that they observed, each team, will look for information on the
internet (some examples included below) or use any mobile device application
(some exampled below), in order to prepare a short talk in which they should
describe the group they have studied using the appropriate names for the different
macroscopic morphological characters observed. Tutors will decide which team
will be the first to give the talk as it depends on the specimens and whether they are
resilient and less likely to decay. It is very important for students also to prepare
spore-prints (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFgg8ZBLruY), because they
can use them as a source of spores which they can observe directly under the
microscope after registering their colour in deposit but later also act as source by
which to grow the fungus in culture in the following days. This activity will
demonstrate the diversity of fungi and their importance in everyday life as visual
impact is very important and relates to young people.
There is a series of very good webpages that students can look through in order
to find information. Here are some examples, such as the North American Myco-
logical Association, http://www.namyco.org/join.php, to general information;
http://www.mycokey.com/newMycoKeySite/MycoKeyIdentQuick.html, with
interactive keys; some Wikipedia pages, such as the page of gasteroid fungi (in
English), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasteroid_fungi; or some specific pages,
such as the page about crustose lichens, http://centexnaturalist.com/, maintained by
Jerry Evans.
The application to mobile devices that students could use is dependent on the
countries and their languages. Some popular fungus applications are: Roger’s
Mushrooms (Pro), by Roger’s Plants Ltd, this App is based upon the works of
Roger Phillips, author of ‘Mushrooms’, the worldwide best-selling mushroom and
fungus book; and others, such as the Great Encyclopedia of Fungi by AppGrade, or
Audubon Mushrooms, a field guide to North American Mushrooms by National
Audubon Society, and Mushrooms PRO, NATURE MOBILE—For Safe Enjoy-
ment! by NATURE MOBILE G.m.b.H; and, iMushroom Hunter by iCartel s.r.o.
Also, the App FunKey: Key to Agarics of Australia, by LucidMobile. The first
author, together with a Spanish entreprise (Wake App!), has developed an appli-
cation called FungiNote, with simple ways to observe the mascroscopic features, in
order to try to find which fungus is in front of you (more about this application, and
experience gained is included in the next section of this chapter).
Returning to the student exhibitions, if it was done with fresh collections, the
next class could focus on microscopic characters of fungi. As a minimum exercise,
students will need to observe the spore morphology, basidia, asci and cystidia, and
structure of the cap (pileus) preparing their own microscopic slides. In this second
activity they can discuss how the new information they have discovered can change
their first grouping (classification). A second interpretation should be prepared
based on microscopic observations, including their own microscopic drawings.
Micrographs of these fungal structures can be viewed in the series of manuals ‘How
to Identify Fungi’ published by Mad River Press (California, USA) (Largent 1977)..
This will allow comparisons to be made to establish between what the students
64 M.P. Martín and R. Watling

observe down the microscope with what is seen in the different images. Also, they
can look at the New Zealand’s virtual Mycota webpage (http://virtualmycota.
landcareresearch.co.nz/webforms/vM_Mushroom.aspx?PK=0), from where fungi
are distributed according to the spore colour and other morphological features.
To study fungi from a very different angle, cultures can be prepared. Students
can make soil dilution plates or rub soil along the base of a Petri dish before
flooding it with luke-warm agar. Equally a small amount of a spore print can be
dispersed in water and added to luke-warm agar before pouring the agar out. After
incubation, the students can compare what they have obtained with colour illus-
trations of soil fungi and discuss their role in the soil. If for any reason, poor or
negative cultures result, tutors should have some extra cultures, prepared earlier, to
show to the students what ideally they should have obtained. These cultures can be
the source also of material, which will later under-go molecular study. There are
some good books on cultures, such as Watanabe (2010) or St Germain and Sum-
merbell (1995), and part of the series mentioned above produced by Mad River
Press; as well as the classic book on soil fungi by Barron (1968) and Domsch et al.
(1980). Also, students can look through different papers published on line in order
to observe the different cultures obtained from a variety of sources, such as those
isolates from butternut (https://www.purdue.edu/htiKrc/newsletter/2012/May.html),
culture fungal endophytes from Australian rainforests (http://eatlas.org.au/media/
736), or fungi present in indoor environments (http://scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=ajbs.
2012.304.313).
After some days, observing and discussing about fungi, students should be able
to answer a series of general questions related to these incredible organisms, such as
those included in the files http://www.namyco.org/docs/Answers_to_Fun_in_
Fungi.pdf and http://www.namyco.org/docs/Answers_to_More_Questions_About_
Fungi.pdf (English/Spanish). If students need help, they can go through other books
and webpages, such as the Fungi Kingdom of the Kew Botanical Garden, UK
(http://www.kew.org/science-conservation/plants-fungi/fungi).

4 Scientists and Company Collaboration to Education

Although scientists and private companies collaborate in many ways, such as in the
production of new medicines or innovations in different fields of engineering; the
collaboration is less habitual when we speak about education. Two years ago, the
first author had the opportunity to collaborate with the Spanish company Wake App!
a company that produce and edits applications for mobile devices. As young people
are now very familiar with the use of apps in an ever-expanding field of digital
communication it was seen that a Mycological Application should be considered. As
explained to the different media, at the beginning the company wanted an
app. focused just on mushrooms or toadstools (fungi with a stem and a domed cap),
but after discussion it was agreed to produce an app. suitable for macroscopic fungi
in general (http://www.dicat.csic.es/rdcsic/index.php/en/recursos-naturales-2/96-
historiasde-exito/236-cientificos-y-empresa-colaboran-en-la-creacion-de-una-app).
Teaching Mycology Worldwide 65

The company Wake App! which had previous experience with medical apps.,
focused on the design and usability whilst an independent developer carried out the
programming with the scientists at the Real Jardín Botánico (CSIC) providing the
scientific advice and guidance for the content.
Thus with FungiNote students can compare morphological aspects of the fungi
with clear drawings, and progressively filter the characters until arriving at the most
probable species (Fig. 3).
Moreover, the app can filter by habitat and by season of the year when fungi are
found, both in Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Also, the app. allows the
creation of a personalized field notebook where the user can annotate the findings
and share them with other students or people interested in fungi using the same
application (Fig. 4).
This app will be improved, since at present it is only in Spanish and for devices
with the IOS operating system; however, it was well noted in some educational
webpages (e.g. www.thebiologistapprentice.com/blog/categoru/funginote).

Fig. 3 FungiNote screens showing some morphological aspects of the fungi with clear drawings,
and progressively filters until arriving at the most probable species. The app. can filter by habitat
and by season of the year when fungi are found
66 M.P. Martín and R. Watling

Fig. 4 FungiNote allows

creation of a personalized
field notebook where the user
can annotate the findings and
share them with other students
or people interested in fungi
using the same application

To develop this app. was a very rich experience, since there is the chance to
explore a totally new sector in which to transmit contributions to the knowledge of
fungi as well as the ability to encourage curiosity for the fungi. To us, there is not
doubt that “the combination of scientists and commercial companys makes
Teaching Mycology Worldwide 67

knowledge transfer to society possible. This allows knowledge to be passed onto

society to the point of putting it in the hands of thousands of fans, teachers and
citizens, in an innovative scientific outreach activity”.

5 Conclusions

Current knowledge of fungal diversity in many areas of the World is poorly doc-
umented, even though fungi are vital for terrestrial function of ecosystems. One of
the biggest problems in the description and monitoring of the mycodiversity of a
site is undoubtedly the decline of the number of taxonomists in the world. It is vital
that new generations are introduced in the study of fungi and thankfully this is being
made easier with the widespread availability of digital systems. Even with the
stimulus of molecular data, the study of mycology will wane if no new taxonomists
are forthcoming. Thus teachers and tutors should use all the tools available, from
books to the use of new technologies. Potential mycologists should be versed in not
just molecular work and digital communication but also in the long tested classical
methods. The marriage of all these techniques ensures an exciting future for young
people. They will not only be able to expand our present knowledge of the
mycodiversity but by digital means link with information sourced from other
organisms and ecosystems.

Acknowledgments We would like to acknowledge to all the students and colleagues for helpful
discussions when preparing our mycological courses. M.P.M. would like to thank to those
involved in FungiNote: Wake App! (production and design), Ricardo Sánchez Sotres (techno-
logical development and programming), colleagues who collaborate on the first 150 scientific
contents (F.D. Calonge, L. Suz, R. Pino-Bodas, M. Tabarés and D. Sierra), and to the CSIC.
To F. Pando (www.gbif.es) for helping with Fig. 1.

References
Barron, G. (1968). Genera of hyphomycetes from soil. New York, USA: Kreiger Publishing Co.
Bruns, T. D., White, T. J., & Taylor, J. W. (1991). Fungal molecular systematics. Annual Reviews
of Ecology and Systematics, 22, 525–564.
Domsch, K. H., Gams, W., & Anderson, T. H. (1980). Compendium of soil fungi (p. 865). London,
England: Academic Press.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility. (GBIF.org; 2015, November 10). GBIF occurrence,
download http://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hzimk7
Heald, F. D. (1922). Some suggestions for teaching mycology. Transactions of the American
Mycological Society, 41, 175–178.
Henderson, D. M., Orton, P. D., & Watling, R. (1969). British fungus flora: Agarics and Boleti—
Introduction. Edinburgh, UK: HMSO.
Largent, D. (Ed.). (1977). How to identify fungi. California, US: Mad River Press.
Schoch, C., Seifert, K. A., Huhndorf, S., Robert, V., Spouge, J., Levesque, A., et al. (2012).
Nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region as a universal barcode marker for
fungi. PNAS, 109(16), 5907–6354.
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St Germain, G., & Summerbell, R. (1995). Identifying filamentous fungi: A clinical laboratory
handbook. Star Publishing Company.
Stielow, J. B., Lévesque, C. A., Seifert, K. A., Meyer, W., Irinyi, L., Smits, D., et al. (2015). One
fungus, which gene? Development and assessment of universal primers for potential secondary
fungal DNA barcodes. Persoonia, 35, 242–263.
Watanabe, T. (2010). Pictorial atlas of soil and seed fungi: Morphologies of cultured fungi and
key to species (3rd ed.). CRC Press.
Webster, J., & Weber, R. (2007). Introduction to mycology (3rd ed.). UK: Cambridge University
Press.
Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness
About Endemic Biodiversity
Ana Moura Arroz, Rosalina Gabriel, Isabel R. Amorim,
Rita São Marcos and Paulo A.V. Borges

Abstract
The negative impact of biodiversity loss on ecosystem functioning and services,
and ultimately on human well-being, has been unequivocally established;
however, despite all efforts, biodiversity is still declining worldwide. It is widely
accepted that biodiversity awareness is crucial for its conservation. Nevertheless,
after many initiatives to alert society about the consequences of losing
biodiversity, biodiversity loss is still perceived as a minor environmental risk
compared to others such as climate change. Thus far, most communication
strategies have involved conventional venues, targeting people who are already
“environmentally-aware”, and have not incorporated societal idiosyncrasies and
cultural backgrounds. The wicked problem of loss of biodiversity and the
existing strategies to promote people’s engagement are discussed under the risk
communication framework. The risk perspective focuses science communication
on the mitigation of risk and/or the minimisation of its consequences. Further, it
helps to keep the target in mind, to establish activities and strategies that are
useful for reaching the proposed goals, and to regulate the processes based on
desired outcomes. After presenting the role of communication in risk
governance, the principles and strategic options of the Azorean intervention,

A.M. Arroz (&)
R. São Marcos

Departamento de Ciências da Educação, cE3c—Centre for Ecology,
Evolution and Environmental Changes/Azorean Biodiversity
Group and Universidade dos Açores, 9700-042 Angra do Heroísmo, Açores, Portugal
e-mail: ana.mm.arroz@uac.pt
R. Gabriel (&)
I.R. Amorim
P.A.V. Borges
Departamento de Ciências Agrárias, cE3c—Centre for Ecology,
Evolution and Environmental Changes/Azorean Biodiversity
Group and Universidade dos Açores, 9700-042 Angra do Heroísmo, Açores, Portugal
e-mail: rosalina.ma.gabriel@uac.pt

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 69

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_6
70 A.M. Arroz et al.

Bugs & Society, are presented. This communicational programme will be

analysed and evaluated in another chapter through the presentation of two
activities, which are provided as examples for further discussion.

1 Framing Biodiversity Loss Within Risk Governance

Towards Nature Conservation

1.1 Social (Ir)relevance of Biodiversity Loss: A Minor Global

Problem

Biodiversity1—the remarkable variety of life (CED 1992), appears to be unique to

Earth (Cardinale et al. 2012). It is not only a major component of a region’s natural
heritage, but is also essential to our survival. Ecosystem services including provi-
sion (e.g., food, fuel, fresh water) and regulation (e.g., climate, floods, disease)
(MEA 2005) rely on species, even on those that are considered too small and/or
superfluous.

1.1.1 Biodiversity Loss as an Environmental Risk

An increasing consciousness of the importance of biodiversity and its conservation
is evident in several established global targets, such as the 2010 target (Adenle
2012) and the “Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020” (SPB 2010), and in
local, national, regional and international legal regulations concerning species and
habitat conservation (e.g., Bern Convention, Habitats Directive). In the Azores, the
Regional Legislative Decree 15/2012/A, recently approved the legal regime for the
conservation of nature and biodiversity in Azores. However, despite the mounting
evidence regarding the negative impact of biodiversity loss on human well-being
and health, the efficacy of those initiatives has failed to meet the expectations since:
(i) biodiversity is still declining due to human activities (MEA 2005; Butchart et al.
2010; Cardinale et al. 2012); (ii) deadlines to achieve conservation goals keep being
pushed forward (e.g. SPB 2010; Butchart et al. 2010; Adenle 2012); and (iii) bio-
diversity loss is still not presented as a major risk in international agreements on
disaster risk management (e.g., Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction
2015–2030; UNISDR 2015). Despite the broad consensus among biologists on the
magnitude of biodiversity loss (Cardinale et al. 2012), the number of studies that
demonstrate that the loss of biodiversity is already beyond safe operating planetary
boundaries (e.g., Rockström et al. 2009; Liu et al. 2015), and the fact that halting
biodiversity loss has become a key sustainability challenge for the 21st century,
non-expert citizens tend to downplay the consequences of biodiversity loss.
In fact, when compared with the visibility attained by other environmental risks,
such as climate change, scientists dealing with biodiversity loss have not been able to

1
For the definition of most technical terms see EEA (2015).
Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About Endemic Biodiversity 71

effectively persuade society at large, and politicians in particular, of the seriousness

of the risk (Pereira et al. 2010). An innovative strategy towards a better awareness of
biodiversity in the policy arena is the recently created Intergovernmental Platform on
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) (see Pereira et al. 2013).
This difficulty in communicating the risk of biodiversity loss can be attributed to
several factors, some of which are related to the specific characteristics of the
problem, namely, the difficulty of evaluating the impact of biodiversity loss, the
uncertainty, and pervasiveness of this risk, and the delayed invisibility of its effects.
A clear enunciation of this problem thus requires an understanding of its uncertain
and ambiguous nature (WBGU 2000). When considering biodiversity loss, uncer-
tainty refers mostly to the type and severity of its consequences, while ambiguity
refers to the lack of consensus among stakeholders regarding the prevalence and
consequences of biodiversity loss—they all present different attitudes and values,
focus on different interests and change their minds at different paces. There is also a
time lag between the moment that biodiversity is lost and the moment its impacts
start to be noticed; consequently, biodiversity loss is not taken as an imminent threat,
even though both its probability of occurrence and damage potential are high. In this
sense, biodiversity loss may be considered a Cassandra type risk (WBGU 2000;
Renn 2008). Finally, the complexity (multiple causes and consequences), ambiguity
(different recognition by various stakeholders), and insidious nature (effects only
visible after a long time) of biodiversity loss make it a wicked problem (e.g. Sharman
and Mlambo 2012): ill-defined, with no “best solution”, impossible to address by
trial and error, but, at the same time, too important not to solve.

1.1.2 Engaging Society with Biodiversity Loss

Once a risk has been identified and the probabilities and consequences of risk
events have been assessed, the next obvious step is to plan mitigation strategies.
With risks as complex as biodiversity loss, many measures need to be put in place
to account for different possibilities (flexibility), including precautionary measures
(preparedness), which must be able to anticipate and face many scenarios,
regardless of ecosystem resilience (e.g., ecological corridors and micro-reserves,
projection analyses). However, to achieve a consensus, or at least a strategic tol-
erance regarding ambiguous problems (e.g., WBGU 2000), it is necessary to
engage people.
In Portugal, among other issues that should be addressed to increase communi-
cation efficacy, is the concern regarding the low level of scientific literacy (EC 2005)
and the estrangement towards science (EC 2005, 2010). In 2005, only 52 % of
Portuguese individuals inquired answered scientific questions correctly, while the
European average (EU25) was 66 %. In 2010, Portugal ranked 4th among EU27
countries in not acknowledging any relevance to science in everyday life; besides,
about one-third (35 %) of the inquiry respondents were not interested in new sci-
entific findings and technological innovation (compared to the 20 % EU27 average),
although more than half (56 %) felt that they were poorly informed regarding those
subjects. This suggests that science and technology are not adequately
72 A.M. Arroz et al.

communicated, which not only hinders the objective set in 2000 of turning EU into a
knowledge economy centred on an ambitious research and innovation agenda (EU
2000), but also may jeopardise sustainable development in Portugal. Risk commu-
nication may become a key player in changing this situation.
Promoting science and scientific literacy, and narrowing the gap between
research and “real life” are challenges that must cope with the complexity of science
and its typically encrypted language, which often makes communication between
different scientific fields difficult, and is even recognised by several authors as a
paradigmatic incommensurability (Kuhn 1970).
Bridging the gap between people and science does not mean forcing the former
to value science according to the same criteria as experts. The aim, instead, is that
by combining different agendas and interests, personal and significant reasons will
emerge and allow people to understand and value the positive role of science in
dealing with everyday life situations. To achieve such a goal, people’s interests and
universes of significance must be investigated, and science communication must
play a mediating role among agendas of different actors to achieve a higher good,
such as nature conservation or biodiversity loss mitigation. Moreover, to widen
audiences, science communication must diversify its strategies, languages and
discourses according to a variety of citizens with unique cultural backgrounds,
sensibilities and values to successfully reach the intended public.
Besides, exploring stakeholder’s perspectives on biodiversity will provide
important undercover arguments, relevant for delineating successful science com-
munication strategies tailored according to people’s interests, as well as the
opportunity to deconstruct their assumptions and beliefs. Questions like the fol-
lowing are crucial for gathering pertinent information among locals to assist in
communication strategies planning:
• How is biodiversity loss perceived by different stakeholders?
• What knowledge do they have on biodiversity? Where did they get this
knowledge?
• How do they estimate the probability of risk occurrence and the severity of its
consequences?
• How do emotional factors, such as the delight/disgust in a species, affect peo-
ple’s perceptions of the impact of its loss?
• Who is responsible for what, in terms of nature conservation?

1.2 Risk Communication as a Tool for Biodiversity

Conservation

1.2.1 Risk Communication Within the Governance of Risk

Risk communication is a relatively new field (Box 1) that has been expanding
rapidly as current societies face new risks and uncertainties (Beck 1999; Giddens
2002) that must be addressed to improve preparedness and build confidence within
Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About Endemic Biodiversity 73

communities. Risk communication is understood, according to CAC, as an inter-

active exchange of information among individuals, groups, and institutions related
to the assessment, characterization, and management of risk (CAC 1997).

Box 1. A brief overview of the evolution of risk communication

In the last decades, a paradigm shift has occurred in how risk is communi-
cated, from mainly informative, unidirectional and persuasive strategies, to
more dialogical ones (Fischhoff 1995; McComas 2006; Saunders et al. 2006).
Early on (1975–1984), risk communication mostly consisted of conveying
technical information, and did not consider the perspectives of the target
groups. In the following decade (1985–1994), risk communication was
dominated by persuasive approaches aimed to make people believe in certain
ideas (or raise acceptance levels) and/or to produce changes in behaviour.
Around 1995, it began to rely more on participatory approaches, namely by
including citizens as privileged partners in negotiations towards collective
understanding and actions. These methods bring together citizens and experts
in a social learning process intended to create mutual trust (Renn 2008),
respect for each other’s backgrounds and agendas (Rowe and Frewer 2005),
and empower community members (Burgess and Clark 2006) to deal with the
issues in private and/or public (legal, institutional) ways (McComas 2006).
One thing that is obvious from the history of risk communication is the
growing recognition of risk as a social, cultural and psychological construct
(Fischhoff 1995; McComas 2006). This shift to dialogical approaches started
a new era in risk communication, where the ability to engage various
stakeholders, to stimulate dialogue and to foster tolerance plays a central role,
i.e., recognising that considering many different viewpoints allows for the
building of a strategic consensus, which is a prerequisite for action to take
place. Risk communication is seen as a bridge combining the ideas of sound
science and democratic participation.

In integrated risk management, risk communication must take the central role in all
processes concerning risk, from risk identification and assessment to decision-making
and implementation and regulation of risk interventions (Renn 2008; IRGC 2008).
Communication is meant to facilitate the understanding of risk specificities by all of
society and to promote discussion on everyone’s role and responsibilities in the
process of governance. The intentional interactive nature of risk communication is
meant to “give a voice” to all stakeholders in order to reach agreements that maximise
everyone’s interests and, consequently, to achieve the expected outcomes of aug-
menting public audibility and commitment, and communication effectiveness. Part-
nerships, where civil society as a whole becomes a stakeholder and emphasis is put on
the local context where these dynamics take place, allow for the inclusion of all actors
as collaborative partners (Fig. 1).
74 A.M. Arroz et al.

Fig. 1 Stakeholders involvement in the IRGC risk governance framework (reproduced from
IRGC 2008, p. 18)

Once these conditions are met, risk communication becomes, at the same time,
an empowerment tool that allows informed decision-making and increases the
power to act and, thus, autonomy. It also becomes a tool to promote public trust in
the risk management system.

1.2.2 Engaging Society Through Risk Communication

It is noteworthy to underline the fact that decision-making in risk management
depends on the social, institutional, political and economic characteristics of the
place where a specific risk exists. Those characteristics dictate the processes of
governance to be implemented, which may facilitate, or compromise, engagement
of different actors in the management process itself. Inclusive management is based
on the assumption that all stakeholders have something to contribute to the process
of risk governance and that their inclusion improves the final decisions rather than
impedes the decision-making process or compromises the quality of scientific input
(IRGC 2008, p. 18). However, this does not mean that stakeholders and civil
society should have the same levels of involvement and commitment for all risks.
Following the IRGC approach, the appropriate type of involvement by different
actors should be according to risk profile and risk knowledge. Given that biodi-
versity loss falls within the category of high-ambiguity risk, measures should focus
on promoting risk visibility and analysis of risk implications. To address these types
of risks, society at large must be engaged (Fig. 1), even though some may not be
aware or may underestimate all the negative consequences of this particular risk.
Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About Endemic Biodiversity 75

A more inclusive philosophy that seeks to obtain and to be influenced by more

diverse opinions is believed to increase participation and bring innumerable social
benefits (e.g., Fischhoff 1995; Rowe and Frewer 2005), such as the facilitation of
policy implementation and the promotion of their efficacy, conflict reduction,
consolidation of the democratic processes and increased trust in politicians (Vas-
concelos et al. 2009).
Yet, it is possible to recognise different rationales for public engagement prac-
tises (Fiorino 1990; Cass 2006): normative, substantive and instrumental (Table 1).
Public engagement may be used as a means to reach better practises and policies
(substantive), but it can also be a goal in itself, to pursue democratic values towards
empowerment and participation (normative), and/or to strategically attain social
trust to conquer advantages in the social game (instrumental).
Although all involvement strategies aim to increase public participation,
typologies of participation may differ, including in the level of engagement pur-
sued. According to the International Association of Public Participation, five levels
of engagement may be recognised according to the increasing level of public
impact, corresponding to different purposes: inform, consult, involve, collaborate
and empower (IAP2 2007). Each goal calls for specific engagement techniques and
creates distinct expectations among citizens, but all of them may be useful per se or
in combination, depending on the specific situations.
Strategies of public involvement are often organised in a bipolar continuum,
ranging from less to more engaging, or from the involvement of the public to the
involvement by the public, according to strategic goals and emphasis on persuasion,
mediation or co-production. Regardless of the specific public engagement strategy
considered, communication and public participation processes should be guided by
ethical values, such as accountability, transparency, respect, inclusion and a true
willingness to involve the public (e.g., Rees 2013; OPE 2014).
The importance of public participation in the relationship between science and
society, namely in risk communication, but also in policy and public management,

Table 1 Rationales for public engagement

Normative Substantive Instrumental
Aim Goal Mean Strategy
Key To pursue Multiple opinions guarantees Get an advantage in the
ideas democracy quality “social game”
Benefits Increase Provide better and more Build trust to conquer
empowerment and informed policies and audibility and legitimate
participation practices positions
Critical Democracy and Cost/benefit Dubious ethics of
points instrumentalization Believe in a common will to strategic behaviour
Representation and be discovered Rhetoric
representativeness Support of automatic Manipulation
consensus
76 A.M. Arroz et al.

in general, has been well established. However, some authors question the enthu-
siasm for a so-called doctrine of engagement (Walls et al. 2011). Walls and col-
leagues draw attention to the rather uncritical acceptance of many of these
(assumed) potential benefits (Walls et al. 2011, p. 243), while Cass (2006) sys-
tematises the critiques of participation and deliberation addressing normative
legitimacy (democracy and representation), substantive effectiveness of policies,
instrumentality (strategic uses of participatory-deliberative public engagement) and
incorporation into policy.
One of the acutest problems with establishing the benefits of public engagement
initiatives is the difficulty of assessing their efficacy. Firstly, few studies evaluate
the outputs and outcomes of interventions. Secondly, even when interventions are
critically examined, there is little empirical evidence of the existence of benefits
(review in Rowe and Frewer 2004). As Rowe and Frewer (2004) point out, there are
theoretical and practical difficulties for the implementation of such an evaluation
system, which must be fair to all participants and efficient in getting results.
Despite the criticisms and difficulties presented in evaluating the performance of
communication strategies, the design of the public intervention Bugs & Society
considered an efficacy assessment, using a system to continuously evaluate and
regulate intervention outputs and outcomes (see also Amorim et al. 2016; this
book).

1.3 The Problem: How to Promote Endemic Insects

as Azorean Natural Heritage?

1.3.1 Endemic Biodiversity in the Azores

The Azores are well known for its breath-taking nature landscapes, dominated by
volcanic features and vibrant green vegetation. Moreover, the Azores belong to one
of the most diverse biogeographical regions of Europe, the Macaronesian Islands, a
group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean that also includes the archipelagos of
Madeira, Canaries and Cape Verde (Derneği 2010; Myers et al. 2000). The Mac-
aronesian Islands host around 23,000 terrestrial and marine species, of which
approximately 5600 are endemic species (Izquierdo et al. 2004; Arechavaleta et al.
2005; Borges et al. 2008, 2010), i.e. species that only occur there. The fact that
these species can only be found on the Macaronesian Islands may be due to the
extinction of all populations that may have existed on continental areas or, alter-
natively, the endemic species may have originated on the particular archipelagos
where they occur, as the result of local evolutionary processes over the course of
millions of years.
Focusing on the Azores, roughly 60 % of its terrestrial endemic species (and
subspecies) are arthropods (Borges et al. 2010), those small things that run the
world (Wilson 1987, p. 344), and are crucial for healthy ecosystems. Arthropods
Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About Endemic Biodiversity 77

include many animal groups such as spiders, mites, springtails, crustaceans, cen-
tipedes, millipedes and, most of all, insects. In fact, around three-quarters of the
Azorean endemic arthropods are insects, which represent almost half of the ter-
restrial endemic species of the Azores. Despite the uniqueness of these Azorean
endemic species, their important ecosystem functions and growing interest amongst
biologists, their small sizes and the occupancy of recondite habitats makes them
difficult to observe and, consequently, most, if not all, are unknown to the general
public. Azorean endemic arthropods lack, therefore, the charisma of other island
endemic species, such as Darwin’s finches or the giant tortoises of the Galapagos
Islands, which adds to the many challenges that the conservation of Azorean ter-
restrial biodiversity must face.

1.3.2 The Invisibility of Azorean Biodiversity Loss

Almost 600 years after the first settlers arrived in the 15th century, 246,000 people
live in the Azores (INE 2012). Most of the territory in the archipelago has been
transformed into urban areas, Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica (L. fil.) D.
Don) plantations and, mainly, into graze lands, with dairy farms and agriculture as
the main sources of livelihood (SREA 2011). The native forest has been reduced to
less than 3 % of its original extent (e.g., Gaspar et al. 2008), being almost restricted
to mid and high elevations, where most of the endemic fauna and flora of the
archipelago can be found. Only circa 17 % of the territory is protected under the
Azorean regional network of Natural Parks (Calado et al. 2009). These land use
changes have had an impact on the species that inhabit the Azores, and many
endemic species, namely insects and spiders, but also birds and other life forms that
once roamed the Azores, are now extinct (Terzopoulou et al. 2015).
Although the need to preserve this unique natural heritage has already been
recognised as a priority in Regional and European Development Strategies
(RIS3-Açores, H2020), society, in general, is largely unaware, on one hand, of the
value of the Azorean biological diversity and the risks associated with its loss, and
on the other hand, of the need to preserve it and the responsibility of all citizens in
this endeavour. This lack of awareness is echoed in many areas, namely in the
growing economic activity of tourism, where the Azores are advertised as a
“pristine wilderness” destination. Tourism marketing, including initiatives pro-
moted by local authorities, present the green landscapes of the archipelago as an
indicator of unspoiled nature. However, this green portrait of the Azores “sold” to
visitors and locals is quite misleading, as it fosters a biased and uncorrected view of
the biodiversity found in the archipelago (Santos 2014), and overlooks current
threats to its conservation. More protagonism is given to the flora compared to the
fauna, when, in fact, almost half of all species in the Azores are animals (43.3 vs.
25.8 %), and almost three-quarters (73 %) of all terrestrial species that can only be
found in archipelago are also animals (Borges et al. 2010). In addition, having
landscapes dominated by green is not by any means an environmental quality
78 A.M. Arroz et al.

stamp, since not all green areas may be relevant to the conservation of biodiversity.
In the Azores, a green patch of native forest and a green patch of intensive pasture
represent ecosystems with distinct levels of human intervention, hosting different
kinds and amounts of biodiversity. The former habitat is the least disturbed—where
most of the endemic species can be found; the latter, in spite of being much more
common and presenting great economic relevance, is rather poor in species (Borges
et al. 2009).
Both graze lands and areas covered by exotic (and even invasive) plant species,
such as the Japanese cedar or the kahili ginger (Hedychium gardnerianum Sheppard
ex Ker-Gawl.), are unfortunately commonly perceived as emblematic of nature in
the Azores (Arroz and Gabriel 2011). Also very revealing of this attachment to
exotic species is the fact that the most popular and iconic plant of the Azores,
hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla (Thunb.) Ser.), is an exotic species introduced
from Asia that, in some of the Azorean islands (e.g., Faial and Flores), has the status
of an invasive species (Silva et al. 2008). The inability to distinguish and value
species that naturally occur in the Azores (indigenous species), the lack of
knowledge regarding species that only exist in the archipelago, and that many of
them are threatened are all serious impediments to the conservation of the unique
Azorean biodiversity.
A high level of environmental literacy and awareness of the seriousness of the
risk of local biodiversity loss, particularly of indigenous species (native and
endemic) of a community represents a valuable resource to conservation. Those
communities tend to be more involved in the management and mitigation of bio-
diversity loss, demanding the mobilisation of resources (scientific, technical,
financial, social, politics) (Vasconcelos et al. 2009). The first step towards the
creation of a public involvement culture is, thus, to promote high-quality public
communication, as Rowe and Frewer (2005) proposed in their typology of public
involvement considering the flow of information.

1.3.3 Challenging the Social Invisibility of Biodiversity Loss

with Azorean Insects
Insects are among the least favoured taxonomic groups in most cultures. People have
a strong dislike for many insect species; this negative attitude comes from the fact
that insects are regarded as useless, dangerous and disease vectors (e.g., malaria) and
agriculture pests (Neto 2004; Posey 1983). Besides, insects awake feelings of
phobia, dislike, disgust and aversion. Being seen as ugly and dangerous, insects are
perceived as a threat, even as a “God’s mistake” (Gurung 2003, p. 337). The Azores
are no exception, and preliminary studies show similar attitudes towards insects and
other arthropods (Silva and Gabriel 2007; Gabriel et al. 2012a, b). The economical
and heritage damages caused by a few insects in urban areas (e.g., termites) (Arroz
et al. 2012a; Borges and Myles 2007) and agriculture (e.g., Japanese beetle, Popillia
japonica Newman, 1841) (Lopes et al. 2001) in the Azores certainly contribute to
that negative view. Accordingly, 22.8 % of Azorean students from 12–18 years old
Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About Endemic Biodiversity 79

(N = 1023) claim that, in the case of a global catastrophe, they would not safe-keep
insects in Noah’s Ark, basing their attitudes, in order of importance, on the fact that:
(i) they “do not like” insects, (ii) insects “are gross”, (iii) “are bothersome”, (iv) “are
scary”, (v) “are useless”, (vi) “are ugly” and/or (vii) “are irrelevant” (Gabriel et al.
2012a, b; unpublished data).
This project aimed to raise biodiversity awareness, which is a goal clearly in line
with European (EU Regulation No 1291/2013 [Horizon 2020]; SPB 2010 [Aichi
Targets]) and Regional Development Strategies (EC 2014 [RIS3-Açores]).
Specifically, it aimed to:
(i) outline a science communication programme with the specific characteristics
of the risk of biodiversity loss, sensitive to the cultural references of the local
people;
(ii) develop communication strategies that take into account Azorean biodiversity,
focusing on insects—the taxonomic group with the largest number of endemic
species; and
(iii) describe the principles and strategies that supported the intervention Bugs &
Society.

2 Planning the Bugs & Society Intervention: From

Principles to Evaluation

2.1 Purposes and Guiding Principles

It is widely accepted that one of the first steps towards conservation is knowledge
(e.g., Balmford et al. 2002), and that the primary goal of any conservation initiative
must be to acquaint people with the species in need of protection. Given the
predominantly negative perspectives of Azorean people towards insects and aiming
to promote endemic species as a significant part of the natural heritage of the
Azores, the ultimate goals of the intervention Bugs & Society were the following:
(1) to make people aware of the existence of these species, particularly of their
uniqueness, to strengthen people’s identity with their natural heritage;
(2) to foster biodiversity conservation, alerting people to the risks associated with
its loss and to their responsibility in the matter;
(3) to develop communication strategies to be implemented and tested inside and
outside conventional science venues (schools, science centres, museums,
interpretative centres), targeting people that are “environmental unaware”, and
using multiple discourses and languages; and
(4) to alert researchers to the need for approaching the grammars of the population
when communicating science, which involves understanding the way people
perceive the issues in question.
80 A.M. Arroz et al.

To be able to work as part of a multidisciplinary team, there was a need to create

a common lexicon among diverse scientific domains, making explicit the principles
guiding the science communication intervention on environmental education of the
Azorean Biodiversity Group (e.g., Arroz et al. 2006; Cordeiro et al. 2012; Gabriel
et al. 2012a). The main guiding principles behind the Azorean intervention Bugs &
Society are summarised in Box 2.
Ethically, in risk/science communication, as in other public interventions, the
golden rule should be to establish relationships between researchers/communicators
and citizens that rely on the acknowledgement and respect for all interlocutors and
for their diversity of cultural capitals, reasoning and logics.
From an epistemological perspective, the relationship between the
researcher/communicator and the subject under analysis should seek to respect the
complexity of the problem (biodiversity loss), the different legitimation agencies of
making science and communicating science (Dahlstrom 2014), and of the strategies
to address it, adopting a critical posture in order to inform future interventions.

Box 2. Main guiding principles for the communication intervention Bugs

& Society
Ethical
Suitability: to successfully involve citizens, communication must be tailored
according to their cultural references, which implies acknowledging their
logic and rationalities, as well as their needs and interests.
Inclusivity: science communication must reach all citizens and should par-
ticularly target those with less access to scientific culture.
Autonomy: a social intervention, based on a collaborative logic, aims to
engage, capacitate and empower citizens.
Epistemological
Multidisciplinary: addressing the complexity of wicked problems, and dealing
with the social indifference generally associated with them, demands the
engagement of many scientific domains and disciplines.
Accuracy: taking into account citizens’ logic, interests and perspectives when
tailoring communication to specific audiences must not compromise scientific
truthfulness.
Accountability: the strategic planning of a social intervention must include the
systematic and continuous evaluation of its implementation, results and
impacts to allow for adjustments during the progress of the intervention and,
therefore, ultimately guarantee its efficiency and effectiveness.
Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About Endemic Biodiversity 81

Ontological
Extensiveness: using a multitude of communication strategies and vehicles
promotes message saturation, which facilitates raising awareness among the
target group, even on non-focal issues, at the same time that contributes
towards reaching a wider audience.

Finally, from an ontological perspective, science and risk communication

interventions may be seen as processes of social influence (Weber and Word 2001)
by which citizens may or may not allow themselves to be critically persuaded. This
will ultimately depend on, for example, the proximity between people’s beliefs and
the message being conveyed, and the ability to establish a relationship of trust and
credibility with communicators.

2.2 Logic Model: A Pragmatic Approach for Planning,

Implementation and Evaluation

A logic model was used as a pragmatic approach that provides a critical framework:
(i) to regulate the entire process of conception, planning, and evaluation of all
initiatives within the intervention; and (ii) to operationalise output indicators in
order to assess whether planned activities are likely to achieve intended results. This
is particularly relevant, given that criteria for measuring public engagement and
intervention success are often neglected (Walls et al. 2011).
A logic model is a planning tool to clarify and graphically display what a project
intends to do and what it hopes to affect and accomplish (NNLM 2006). Besides
summarising key programme elements, such as goals, resources, activities, outputs
and outcomes, it also elucidates the rationale behind the activities and facilitates
project management. It is a central reference for everyone involved in the inter-
vention, therefore promoting communication and learning (Knowlton and Phillips
2013). However, a logic model differs significantly from an action plan. While an
action plan may be seen as a guide for running a project, a logic model tests an
explicit hypothesis to the extent that it implies a “theory-based” evaluation. Thus, a
logic model potentiates experience-based learning (Schmitz and Parsons 1999),
concerning both project implications and knowledge transferability. Equally
important for using a logic model framework in the Azorean Bugs & Society
intervention were the facts that logic models are easily adaptable to specific
activities, by deciding on indicators specific to the particular issues being addressed,
and that team members have had previous positive experience with these models
(Arroz et al. 2012a). Developing a logic model was crucial for structuring the
monitoring and regulatory processes of all activities, as it facilitated identifying
proper indicators for those activities (Fig. 2).
82 A.M. Arroz et al.

Fig. 2 Logic model for the Azorean intervention Bugs & Society (initials for the fields partners,
human resources and funding refer to research team members, collaborators and institutions—see
acknowledgements)

2.3 Logic Model: A Pragmatic Approach for Planning,

Implementation and Evaluation

Thus, the Azorean intervention Bugs & Society comprised: (i) defining action
priorities, namely, making local citizens aware of the existence of insect species that
can only be found in the Azores, and establishing a link between endemic biodi-
versity and natural heritage, so that it becomes part of the Azorean identity;
(ii) establishing short-, medium- and long-term expected results according to the
available time, resources and partnerships negotiated, (iii) planning and imple-
menting specific activities for different target groups; and finally, (iv) comparing
actual outputs and outcomes to expected ones.
The initial challenge—to increase awareness of Azorean endemic biodiversity—
was briefly characterised according to three axes: (i) negative perspectives of
Azorean people concerning insects and their lack of interest concerning insect
conservation; (ii) the gap between expert biologists and general public perspectives
on the importance of insects and their role in nature, and on the value of natural
heritage; and (iii) that the Azorean Biodiversity Group has yet to incorporate in its
scientific research agenda the perspectives and interests of Azorean citizens.
Activities that mobilised different resources and languages were planned, at
different times, for different target groups. All of which aimed to impact the local
Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About Endemic Biodiversity 83

conservation of endemic species and, therefore, contribute to halting biodiversity

loss (see Box 3 and Amorim et al. 2016).

Box 3. Activities developed in the communication intervention Bugs &

Society
Açorianos há milhões de anos (Azoreans for millions of years)—an outdoor
exhibition of large banners (4 m × 2.75 m) of close-up (focus stacking
extreme macro) photographs of Azorean endemic insects, targeting the local
population and tourists visiting Terceira Island (see Amorim et al. 2016);
Insetos: Vida nos Açores (A bug’s life in the Azores)—an indoor exhi-
bition on the diversity of insects (including endemic species) that can be
found in the Azores, and their importance in insular ecosystems, developed in
collaboration with the Science Centre in Angra do Heroísmo, targeting the
local population and tourists visiting Terceira Island;
Chama-lhe Nomes! (Pick a name!)—the creative naming of endemic
insects—a contest on the social network Facebook, targeting a wider online
audience (see Amorim et al. 2016); and
Communications on scientific meetings targeting biology and entomology
experts to raise awareness of the importance of considering citizens’ per-
spectives about insects on their scientific activities: XV Congresso Ibérico de
Entomologia 2012 (Arroz et al. 2012b; Gabriel et al. 2012b), I Encontro
sobre Biodiversidade e Conservação de Invertebrados 2013 (Amorim et al.
2013; Arroz et al. 2013; Gabriel et al. 2013).

The Azorean intervention Bugs & Society comprised several stages (Fig. 3).
The logic model was also used to evaluate participation, outputs and outcomes,
where indicators and data-collection methods were specific to the particular

Fig. 3 Intervention stages and general time schedule

84 A.M. Arroz et al.

communication activity (see chapter: Amorim et al. 2016): the exhibition Azoreans
for millions of years and the Facebook contest Pick a name!
The evaluation was based upon an existing approach, developed by us and other
authors (e.g., Arroz et al. 2012a; Reed 2008; Walls et al. 2011). This approach is:
• Pragmatically oriented, focusing on participation as a means to an end, where
engagement with the stakeholders aims to promote the quality of environmental
decisions and practises;
• Multi-criteria, considering various sets of criteria/evaluation perspectives;
• Multi-method, comprising a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods; and
• Reflexive, identifying underlying implications to improve future interventions,
rather than simply evaluating the success of the present intervention.
Regulatory processes involved in the intervention conception and production of
communication devices, the characterisation of participants’ representations of
nature and insects, the characterisation of participants’ relationships with nature and
insects, and the evaluation of results and impacts were all operationalised (see
Amorim et al. 2016). However, prior to that, action indicators concerning results
and impacts had to be envisioned:
• results/outputs: indicators mainly concerning regulatory processes of the effi-
ciency and efficacy of devices, interest sparked by the communication devices,
and public resonance of the intervention, via both informal channels and social
media amplification; and
• impacts/outcomes: indicators concerning the enhancement of basic entomo-
logical literacy concerning endemic species, social introjection of endemic
insects as valued natural heritage entities, and the willingness of entomologists
to incorporate citizens’ perspectives on insects into their scientific agendas.
Additionally, unpredicted outcomes and spontaneous activities (e.g., photogra-
phy contest, other lines of research, education activities) were documented.

3 In Synthesis

The rate of biodiversity loss has not decreased despite all efforts, which indicates
that the measures taken to address this issue need to be improved, including the
strategies to communicate the value of biodiversity and the risk of its loss. The
communication strategies adopted to date have likely misjudged the scientific lit-
eracy level of the general public and struggled to bridge the gap between science
experts and the general public. For instance, the use of highly technical and/or
encrypted language (e.g., concepts alien to most people, such as biodiversity—see
Lindemann-Matthies et al. 2010), the venues traditionally chosen for science dis-
semination (e.g., science centres, museums, universities), and/or targeting already
environmentally aware audiences (e.g., teachers, students) may have hampered the
goal of mainstreaming the message and attaining engagement from all of society.
Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About Endemic Biodiversity 85

Additionally, the use of concept terms, such as endemism, so dear to conserva-

tionists were signalled as having xenophobic resonances (Simberloff et al. 2013)
and may be read as morally controversial.
In this chapter, it was presented an example of a science communication inter-
vention established in the integrated risk management framework. The purposes
and principles of risk communication were addressed, highlighting the mediation
role among stakeholders with different agendas and cultural capital. The risk per-
spective focuses science communication on the mitigation of risk and/or the min-
imisation of its consequences. These rather concrete purposes help to keep the
target in mind, establish activities and strategies useful to achieve goals, and reg-
ulate the processes based on desired outcomes.
Therefore, based on the principles and strategies of Bugs & Society described
above, in the next chapter (Amorim et al. 2016), the description and evaluation of
two practical initiatives, Açorianos há milhões de anos (Azoreans for millions of
years) and Chama-lhe Nomes! (Pick a name!) will be presented.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank several persons and institutions without which this
work would not have been possible. FUNDING: Project PTDC/BIA-BEC/104571/2008 (FCT,
Portugal), Project ATLANTISMAR - M2.1.2/I/027/2011 (DRCT, Azores), Grant SFRH/BPD/
102804/2014 (IRA); PARTNERS: University of the Azores (UAç), Os Montanheiros, Amigos dos
Açores (AA), Sociedade Portuguesa de Entomologia (SPEN), Ordem dos Biólogos (OB), Museu
Carlos Machado (MCM), Expo-Lab Lagoa - Açores, Câmara Municipal de Angra do Heroísmo
(CCAH), Associação Regional de Turismo (ART), Secretaria Regional do Ambiente e do Mar
(SRAM), Ecoteca da Terceira and the owners of private buildings and managers of public insti-
tutions that made the outdoor exhibition possible; PHOTOGRAPHERS: J. Torrent (JT), E. Men-
donça (EM), PAV Borges (PAVB) and M Gascoigne-Pees (MGP); PARTICIPANTS and
COLLEAGUES: all the participants in pilot-studies, surveys and interviews, people involved in
logistics and colleagues from the Azorean Biodiversity Group, especially C. Gaspar, for fruitful
discussions and general help.

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 Part II
Teaching About Biological Invasions
and Threats to Biodiversity
Science and Education at the Centre
for Invasion Biology
Sarah J. Davies, G. John Measey, Dorette du Plessis
and David M. Richardson

Abstract
South Africa has severe problems caused by biological invasions in terrestrial,
freshwater and marine ecosystems, and a long history of managing biological
invasions. However, appreciation and systematic study of the problems
associated with invasive species are relatively recent. In 2004, the Centre for
Invasion Biology (CIB) was established as one of the first six national Centres of
Excellence funded by the South African government. The aim of the DST-NRF
Centres of Excellence is to concentrate existing capacity and resources to enable
researchers to collaborate across disciplines on long-term projects that are locally
relevant and internationally competitive. Understanding the biological and
ecological underpinnings of invasions is crucial, but much emphasis is placed on
understanding the ‘human dimensions’ of invasions, and on seeking solutions
for current problems, and techniques for preventing new invasions. Education is
a critical component of this knowledge-building process, and the CIB infuses
education for sustainable development into all of its activities. The Centre
conducts education and outreach at the secondary school, under-graduate,
post-graduate and post-doctoral levels, and in the workplace to develop capacity
at all levels. The Centre’s flagship outreach programme, Iimbovane, aims to
increase environmental literacy and inspire secondary school learners to take up
scientific careers through facilitating field and laboratory work that is embedded
in the life science curriculum; the programme focuses on under-resourced
schools. At tertiary level, the under-graduate training course in invasion biology
presented at Stellenbosch University provides an introduction to the exciting and
important field of invasion science for final-year Bachelor degree students.
A distributed network of researchers located in universities and research

S.J. Davies (&)
G. John Measey
D. du Plessis
D.M. Richardson

Centre for Invasion Biology, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, Private
Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa
e-mail: sdavies@sun.ac.za

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 93

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_7
94 S.J. Davies et al.

institutions around South Africa also trains 50–60 post-graduate students, and
hosts ten to twelve post-doctoral researchers each year, through whom much of
the Centre’s research is conducted. In the working world, members are involved
both in citizen science programmes on invasive species and in collaborative
work with partner organisations which implement invasive species management
programmes, provide employment opportunities for graduates of the Centre, and
form a source of working (part-time) graduate students.

1 Introduction

Biological invasions are a substantial component of global change and are widely
recognized as a major and growing threat to global biodiversity and the sustained
delivery of goods and services from ecosystems (Pyšek and Richardson 2010).
Appreciation and systematic study of the problems associated with invasive species
are relatively recent, however. The study of invasions originally focussed on bio-
logical and ecological issues, and invasions were widely seen as a grand natural
experiment in biogeography to gain insights into the determinants of range limits
and factors that control membership of communities and ecosystems. Under-
standing these biological and ecological underpinnings of invasions remains cru-
cial, but increasing emphasis is being placed on understanding the ‘human
dimensions’ of invasions, seeking solutions for current problems and techniques for
preventing new invasions. Therefore, in recent decades, most research on invasive
species has sought solutions to the many social, ecological and economic problems
associated with invasions (Richardson et al. 2011).
Many countries, especially the more developed nations, have major programmes
in place to manage biological invasions. These are typically multi-faceted and
multi-level initiatives that seek to reduce the extent and impacts of currently
invasive species, while simultaneously implementing measures to reduce the
chance of new invasions. The initiation and growth of such programmes has
contributed to the rapid growth of invasion science, which is currently one of the
most popular and vibrant sub-disciplines of ecology and environmental manage-
ment worldwide. Thousands of scientific papers are published on aspects of bio-
logical invasions every year and the field now has a growing number of specialist
journals and features prominently in the programmes of academic conferences
worldwide (Richardson 2011). As with climate change and other complex envi-
ronmental problems, there is a crucial need to raise awareness of all aspects of the
process, and to highlight options for management among the public.
South Africa has severe problems with biological invasions in its terrestrial,
freshwater and marine ecosystems, but is also one of the countries with the longest
history of managing biological invasions. Despite many challenges typical of
developing countries, South Africa has invested substantially in infrastructure and
capacity development for addressing problems associated with biological invasions.
Science and Education at the Centre for Invasion Biology 95

In 2004, the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology (the Centre for
Invasion Biology; hereafter the CIB or ‘the Centre’) was launched—one of the
country’s first six national Centres of Excellence as part of a programme funded by
the national government to concentrate existing capacity and resources to enable
researchers to collaborate across disciplines on long-term projects that are locally
relevant and internationally competitive (van Wilgen et al. 2014).
The CIB is a distributed network of researchers, students and partners managed
from a primary hub at Stellenbosch University, with a secondary hub of researchers
and support staff at the University of Pretoria. The aim of the Pretoria (or ‘north-
ern’) hub is to coordinate activities of the northern partners where necessary to
complete particular projects, and to support long-term biodiversity research in that
area. In addition to the two hubs, CIB researchers are staff members of a range of
academic and other research-oriented organisations and the network as a whole
covers more than ten academic institutions and all of the country’s provinces which
have a university or large research organisation. This distributed network broadens
the reach of the CIB beyond the higher education institutions, where most research
is generated, and the CIB builds external partnerships to inform decision-makers in
a range of organisations about biological invasions and their social and ecological
impacts. Partners range from conservation agencies (e.g. South African National
Parks, CapeNature), R&D organisations (e.g. the Council for Scientific and
Industrial Research, CSIR) to large municipalities (eThekwini Municipality in
Durban, City of Cape Town), which are users of the information generated. In
addition, the CIB has a productive partnership with the South African National
Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) that allows staff of the two organisations to work
together on a range of activities from student co-supervision to joint implementation
of invasive species legislation.
The aim to engage in research that is locally relevant and internationally com-
petitive in order to enhance the pursuit of research excellence and capacity
development has been augmented since the establishment of the CIB with the aim
of maximising research impact on industry, business and society. The CIB’s key
performance areas (KPAs) include research, education and training, networking,
knowledge brokerage and service provision. These five KPAs represent different
ways of achieving impact in the research sphere—that is, they are elements of the
research impact ‘process’. This chapter will show how the CIB’s key activities go
beyond community involvement to community participation in research itself.
Much of the CIB’s research is conducted through post-graduate students and
post-doctoral associates. Along with research excellence and education and train-
ing, DST-NRF Centres of Excellence are required to undertake networking,
information brokerage and service provision, thereby maximising the impact of the
CIB’s work on different sectors of society and economy.
While the CIB’s internationally competitive research and capacity building
activities address impact at the academic level, the other KPAs are intended to
ensure impact on other areas of society. Networking, information brokerage and
service provision involve working with decision-makers to increase knowledge
about biological invasions and seek to make invasion-related information resources
96 S.J. Davies et al.

Fig. 1 The Centre for Invasion Biology’s key performance areas and major activities contributing
to education

readily available to broader society. Thus, the CIB sees all its key activities as
hinging on education in different sectors (Fig. 1). For example, under its service
provision activities, the CIB provides policy advice and consultancy services at
reasonable cost to decision-makers in government, non-government organisations
(NGOs) and the private sector. The long-term working relationships built between
researchers and these institutions through service provision allow mutual learning to
take place, thereby advancing the field.
Education in schools: The Iimbovane Outreach Project
Biodiversity and the conservation thereof are important for the maintenance of
ecosystem function and delivery of environmental goods such as food and potable
water. However, mounting evidence shows that the rate at which we are losing
biodiversity and degrading ecosystems is unprecedented. One of the strategies that
can help reduce the loss of biodiversity is increased public education and under-
standing of the consequences of biological invasions. While the scientific com-
munity has a reasonable understanding of threats to biodiversity, most South
Africans are not familiar with biodiversity, its loss and the consequences of bio-
logical invasions. If we want the public to support conservation and management
efforts, we must be purposeful in increasing environmental literacy and putting
initiatives in place that educate citizens about the environment. The landscapes
Science and Education at the Centre for Invasion Biology 97

where poorer urban communities are located are often heavily invaded and trans-
formed by invasive alien plants, with virtually no natural indigenous plant diversity
(City of Cape Town 2013). As a result, residents may have no direct contact with
indigenous biodiversity (City of Cape Town 2013; Elmqvist et al. 2013; Miller
2005; Turner et al. 2004).
Only in the last decade has the basic education sector in South Africa become
actively engaged in biodiversity education. Before 2006, biodiversity was not
included in the formal school curriculum. This changed with the National Cur-
riculum Statement for Grade 10–12 Life Sciences which now includes two chapters
dealing with biodiversity, environmental change and the impacts of human activ-
ities on biodiversity. Many educators have had no formal training in the relatively
young fields of biodiversity science and invasion science. Due to a lack of training
in or direct experience with biodiversity, most educators struggle to develop
practical projects in this subject area. Consequently, learners do not get the nec-
essary content knowledge, or accumulate the critical thinking and practical skills
needed to master life science as a subject, and therefore seldom consider taking up a
career in science. With growing class sizes, a lack of access to transport and
financial constraints, educators tend to move away from asking learners to collect
specimens in the field. Instead, learners are told how specimens are collected, rather
than being allowed to explore the process for themselves through direct experience.
In most South African schools, these problems are exacerbated by the lack of access
to scientific equipment such as microscopes and information and communication
technology (ICT). These growing pressures on the delivery of high quality edu-
cation are happening at a time when there is a growing demand for learners with
critical thinking skills who are aware of human impacts on their environment and
the need for sustainable solutions. The Department of Science and Technology’s
Ten-Year Innovation Plan articulates the need for knowledge workers who are
equipped to participate in South Africa’s developing knowledge economy
(Department of Science and Technology 2008).

1.1 Serving the Education Need

The CIB runs an innovative, long-term project, Iimbovane, that combines science
outreach and biodiversity monitoring, as well as ongoing relationships with partner
organisations that contribute to its mandate. The Iimbovane Outreach Project grew
out of the dual challenges to educate society about biodiversity and deepen public
understanding of the consequences of biological invasions. The project provides
support to learners and educators encountering biodiversity science at the secondary
school level. Iimbovane, meaning ‘ants’ in isiXhosa, a widely-spoken South
African language, focuses on ants as a model group for teaching biodiversity and
invasion science. The project uses an experiential learning approach whereby
participants accumulate knowledge and skills through direct involvement with the
model group (ants). Participating learners and educators assist with the collection of
98 S.J. Davies et al.

ant samples and relevant environmental data at monitoring sites in their school
grounds (typically highly disturbed environments) and in matched reference sites in
nearby protected areas. The project uses a simple sampling protocol: arrays of
pitfall traps to collect ant species with matched vegetation samples to collect species
richness and abundance information. An important advantage of this collection
method is the diversity of groups that the learners discover when they remove the
traps after a few days. Seeing the variety of insects encourages learners to ask
questions about biodiversity.
Ants were selected as a focal group because of the group’s high level of diversity
in South Africa and the ease of collecting specimens using pitfall traps and low-cost
equipment, making this protocol repeatable for educators who wish to repeat the
project for teaching purposes. In addition, the project maintains an ant identification
key based on the ant species identified in the project. The identification guide,
together with classroom technology, such as laptop computers, microscopes and
data projectors are handed to each school that participates in the project, making it
possible for learners and educators to see and work with both biological samples
and data using ICT. Project activities with learners take place during school contact
hours, while educators receive training and provide feedback to the project team at
separate workshops. During these workshops the project staff, together with edu-
cators, develop lesson plans and assessment activities that can be used in the
classroom. The activities and products are therefore not an extra-curricular burden
for the educators, but compliment their teaching.

1.2 Educational Advantages of Iimbovane

The value of education projects such as the Iimbovane Outreach Project lies mainly
in their contribution to science and biodiversity education at school level. The
project improves educator capacity in the field of biodiversity; educators benefit
from project workshops by gaining in-depth knowledge on biodiversity, environ-
mental change and human impacts, curriculum areas that are challenging for them.
Iimbovane Outreach Project support enables them to teach biodiversity in a more
confident and thoughtful manner. The project addresses the formal requirements of
the South African National Curriculum for the Life Sciences, which requires that
learners develop an understanding of science and how it is undertaken and applied
in society. The project consists of a ‘doing’ phase when students carry out the
fieldwork in school grounds and a ‘reflective’ phase during which the data collected
are assimilated and applied (Fig. 2). By providing educational resources to the
educators and working with learners in the field and laboratory, Iimbovane supports
these curriculum aims and engages learners directly with the scientific process. The
learners are thereby exposed directly to science and the scientific process in a real
setting, rather than from textbooks in a classroom setting. Learners also see what
the career of a researcher involves. Most learners participating in the Iimbovane
Science and Education at the Centre for Invasion Biology 99

Fig. 2 The Centre for Invasion Biology’s Iimbovane Outreach Project consists of a ‘doing’ phase
during which participating learners plant pitfall traps to collect ants while interacting with
scientists, followed by a ‘reflective’ phase during which learners analyse and interpret the data they
have collected

Outreach Project do not receive this exposure any other way, at home or in their
communities.
Direct contact with scientists working on the Iimbovane project gives learners a
wider experience and understanding of what it means to practice science (Braschler
2009; Braschler et al. 2010). Scientific fieldwork also provides an opportunity for
learners to work as a team and to work purposefully outdoors, learning to appreciate
the natural world and link theory with observation. Perhaps one of the most sig-
nificant advantages in terms of education and awareness is the learners’ realisation
that areas around their schools are in a poor environmental condition. Learners then
become aware of pollution, habitat destruction and the extent of invasive alien
species in their local environments (Ballouard et al. 2011).
Experiences of participating learners
I really found the field work informative because I saw what hard work it is to collect many
different specimens and to do research. One of my favourite things during the week was the
lab work and the microscope work. Our school does not have many microscopes and we do
not get to work with them often, which are why it was so interesting to work with them last
week. I also want to do forensic science and I love the possibility of just being in a lab and
doing experiments all day. The week was very, very informative and I have learned new
skills because I am not an outdoorsy person but I learned that I can do it and I can survive
the elements and work under different types of conditions. I’ve also learned so many things
in the lab like learning how to identify different insects and use the microscope to do so.
(Learner from Malibu High School)
100 S.J. Davies et al.

I’ve learnt that ants are very important to us even if they’re small and that we must value
biodiversity. (Learner from Vusisizwe Secondary School)
The workshop was extremely helpful - working with actual microscopes was great. The
fieldwork was awesome, as it made me realize how precious those animals are and also how
human activities can affect animals’ habitats. (Learner from Sarepta Secondary School)

Education at tertiary level

Education at tertiary institutions is traditionally delivered in modular units that
encompass broad to specialist themes as students progress through their courses.
A close rapport between course material and cutting-edge research is one that is
strived for in many tertiary education programmes globally. In this respect, a
semester course on invasion science at Stellenbosch University was initiated in
2014. The course was initiated and is delivered annually by members of the CIB’s
research team, typically by four lecturers and several guest lecturers who introduce
a diversity of topics and their specialist knowledge. The course provides an
introduction to the exciting and important field of invasion science for senior
under-graduate (final year Bachelor degree) students.
The employment sphere
Biological invasions are widely recognised as one of the major threats to both the
conservation of biodiversity and the maintenance of ecosystem services worldwide.
In many parts of the world, the most challenging and time-consuming tasks of land
managers and conservation biologists are those relating to controlling alien species
and preventing impacts, and, increasingly, repairing systems already damaged by
aliens. The interaction between invasions and other drivers of global change creates
fascinating areas for research at many organisational levels, e.g. from genes to
ecosystems. Invasions also represent a major challenge to the goal of sustainable
development, as they affect the operations of a broad swathe of society from rural
communities to major shipping companies. As such, invasion science demands
insights from a wide range of disciplines. Furthermore, as an applied biodiversity
field, invasion biology prepares graduates and young researchers effectively for
employment. Graduates of the CIB work in a range of organisations from univer-
sities to government bodies, and private consultancies to parastatal
biodiversity-focused organisations. Between 2004 and 2014, the CIB produced 211
graduates and supported 37 post-doctoral associates. Of these, most have found
positions within their chosen field or continued to another advanced degree or
post-doctoral position in South Africa or abroad. Alumni work in provincial
environmental departments, national parks and nature reserves, South African and
international universities, environmental observation networks and other research
and policy-making organisations (such as the South African National Biodiversity
Institute) (Table 1).
On-the-job training, or training towards advanced degrees for people already
working full time, is an emerging focus for the education sector in South Africa.
South Africa’s government, through its Ten-Year Innovation Plan, is committed to
producing 6000 PhD graduates per annum by 2025 (Department of Science and
Science and Education at the Centre for Invasion Biology 101

Table 1 Examples of organisations employing recent graduates of the Centre for Invasion
Biology
National government departments (e.g. Department of Environmental Affairs, Department of
Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries)
Provincial nature conservation and land management agencies (e.g. CapeNature)
Local authorities, including metropolitan municipalities such as the City of Cape Town
BirdLife South Africa (an affiliate of BirdLife International)
Blue Science (environmental consultancy focussing on water issues)
Coastal Environmental Services (consultancy focusing on environmental impact assessment)
Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR; a government-sponsored science council
conducting directed and multidisciplinary research, innovation and development)
Fruit Fly Africa (industry-owned service organisation using sterile insect technique for area-wide
fruit fly control)
National Research Foundation (NRF; independent government agency mandated to promote and
support research)
South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC; the national broadcaster of South Africa)
South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON; an environmental observation
network that delivers data for scientific research and informs decision-making)
South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity (SAIAB; a national research facility dedicated to
the study of aquatic biodiversity)
South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI; government agency coordinating
research, monitoring and reporting on the state of biodiversity)
South African National Seed Organization (SANSO; sectoral industry body that represents the
South African seed industry)

Technology 2008). In 2009 South Africa produced 1380 doctoral graduates

(Mouton 2011) indicating that a three- to four-fold increase in graduation rate will
be required to meet the 2025 target. At the same time, many universities are
experiencing a dearth of qualified applicants, and already more than 80 % of South
African PhD students study part time (Mouton 2011). These students are typically
more mature, experienced, and may be active in broader fields that their study itself
addresses; however, they may need refresher courses to enable them to perform in
their degree programme. Although there are significant obstacles to increasing
part-time PhD enrolments in South Africa, including the lack of provision for
part-time registrations in some universities and supervision capacity, efforts are
being made to address these shortcomings (e.g. African Doctoral Academy, http://
www0.sun.ac.za/ada/).
Service provision and networking
The CIB’s managed network affords opportunities to extend our education work
into our partner institutions. There are three main ways in which the CIB brings
education into the working day of our partners: (a) through issue-based work-
shops (Novoa et al. 2015), (b) through field-work and research collabora-
tions (Measey et al. 2014), and (c) through formal registration for post-graduate
degrees.
102 S.J. Davies et al.

Stakeholder workshops are a powerful tool for understanding the perceptions of

the broad array of role players who are involved with invasive species problems.
These meetings regularly include individuals from our partner network, as well as
private land owners and lobby groups, and can contribute to developing research
programmes and management strategies to address ‘conflict species’—invasive
organisms that are both beneficial and detrimental. Many alien species are
conflict-generating, as they were introduced for a particular use and then established
self-sustaining and expanding populations beyond the area of introduction, where
they may have both positive and negative impacts. For example, South Africa has a
major problem with invasive alien trees, many of which were introduced and
widely disseminated as forestry plants, ornamentals or amenity trees (van Wilgen
and Richardson 2012). The CIB has held several workshops to bring stakeholders
together to seek the best solutions for dealing with conflict invasive tree species and
other groups of organisms, such as cacti used in ornamental horticulture. These
workshops have proved to be opportunities for stakeholders to share their values
and experiences, and measurable changes of attitude have been documented (e.g.
Novoa et al. 2015).
Workshops are also rich environments for ascertaining the level of under-
standing that participants have of invasive species and invaded systems, and
therefore to set the agenda for ideas that need to be taught, identify common
misconceptions and highlight communication gaps. For example, invasive mesquite
(Prosopis) species and their hybrids were was thought to be widely used by farmers
and rural dwellers in South Africa for fuel and as building material, until workshop
discussions showed that mesquite is in fact considered to be inferior for these
purposes (see Shackleton et al. 2015). In this respect, workshops are a learning
experience for all involved, although at the outset it is not easy to predict who will
be the educated or the educators. However, it is usually the case that all participants
leave a workshop with an appreciation of invasive species from another standpoint.
The detection of a new species of invasive frog in a national park in 2010 (Fogell
et al. 2013; Measey and Davies 2011) led to the development of a control pro-
gramme and its inclusion in SANParks’ Annual Plan of Operations (de Villiers
et al. 2015). Control activities are now carried out by national park staff with the
assistance of interns from local universities and under the guidance of CIB
researchers. These activities take place annually over three days. The briefing for
the field operation is carried out jointly by CIB and SANParks staff and includes
information on the cause of the invasion, as well as an explanation behind the
management decision and control programme. At least one intern usually takes the
subject on as a project that will count toward a formal part of his or her degree. The
outcome of these interactions with partner institutions has led to a better under-
standing of common invasive species problems, as well as increasing the support
for invasion biology research in these organisations, and registration of members of
staff for part-time degrees.
Currently, around 10 % of CIB post-graduate students also work for partner
organisations. Although the student-supervisor role is formalised within the uni-
versity context, links between higher education institutions and their partner
Science and Education at the Centre for Invasion Biology 103

organisations provide many opportunities for co-supervision of students by scientist

and managers working outside academia, as well as exchange of information
between the CIB and the partner institute. In some cases this has resulted in
three-way partnerships between the CIB and two partner organisations, with pos-
itive results for all parties. Because post-graduate degrees typically take two to three
years, the graduates often stay in their former positions, and there is often a
long-term positive feedback toward supervising more students and strengthening
ties between partners and the CIB.
The role that citizen science can play in science education
Citizen science, or the involvement of citizens in research, has grown exponentially
in the last fifteen years. While public involvement in science has well-established
roots, the ease of connection between scientists and the public (i.e. via the internet)
and the widespread digitisation of media have opened up significant opportunities
for scientists and participating citizens alike (e.g. Silvertown 2009). Principally,
citizen science has enabled data to be collected on a scale that was previously
unfeasible at the regional, continental or even global scale (Bonney et al. 2009).
South Africa has produced a number of regional atlas projects covering the region
(South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland) which have citizen science as a key part of
data collection (e.g. Bates et al. 2014; Mecenero et al. 2013; Minter et al. 2004).
The CIB has been a key participant in several of these projects, which have
established South Africa as a global hotspot of citizen science. These projects have,
in turn, called for more information on the distribution of invasive species in South
Africa to be collected, and have generated important data about the distribution and
dispersal of alien species. Citizen science has also been of great importance in
generating data for invasion biologists in the USA (Crall et al. 2010).
Finding ways to engage efficiently with large numbers of contributors is par-
ticularly important in citizen science projects because engaging on an individual
level would be expensive and onerous. One solution relies on crowd-sourcing to
provide feedback as well as enhance the roles of citizens and scientists alike (Sil-
vertown et al. 2015). A common way of soliciting information from citizen sci-
entists is to call for the submission of electronic photographs of organisms or
landscapes such as on iSpot (http://www.ispotnature.org/communities/southern-
africa), but the identification of these photographs is difficult and tedious.
Crowd-sourcing appears to be an excellent solution, and 80–90 % of identifications
can be made through this form of social network. In addition, the original con-
tributor receives feedback on his/her original submission, together with comments
from experts in the network. The citizen scientist can then use the identification
information to learn more about the distribution and biology of the organism of
interest. He or she may in turn become an expert in identification of this or other
taxa. Silvertown et al. (2013) offer some important considerations for those plan-
ning to employ citizen science towards a project, including the clarity of learning
objectives and target audience, the project duration and legacy, as well as the
scientific rationale behind the project.
104 S.J. Davies et al.

Many citizen science projects have specific education targets built into their
design (Silvertown 2009). Citizens are encouraged to engage not only in data col-
lection, but to build their knowledge with tests and quizzes. For example, partici-
pants in the North American amphibian monitoring program had to learn the calls of
native frog species in their area of North America. They then had to pass an online
test in order to take part as a data-collecting member of the project. Data from this
project have since been used to answer hypothesis-driven questions concerning the
conservation of amphibians in the eastern USA (Cosentino et al. 2014).

Acknowledgements This work was funded by the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion
Biology, and by donations from Rand Merchant Bank Fund and AfriSam. The Western Cape
Education Department hosts and supports the work of the Iimbovane Outreach Project in schools.
The authors are grateful to Mrs C.M. Momberg, CIB for collating data on the CIB’s performance.

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Engaging Society to Fight Invasive
Alien Plants in Portugal—One
of the Main Threats to Biodiversity
Elizabete Marchante and Hélia Marchante

Abstract
Invasive alien species (IAS) are a major threat to biodiversity all over the world
and Portugal is no exception. The problem is so serious that such species are
recognized by the Portuguese legislation since 1999 which includes 32 species
of invasive animal and plants. Nevertheless, a large proportion of the population
is still unaware of the problem. Considering that citizens represent a vector of
introduction and spread of IAS and, on the other hand, can play a major role in
helping to prevent and control IAS, this lack of awareness can be largely
detrimental. In an attempt to reduce this gap, and aiming to contribute for a more
sustainable environment and society, researchers from CFE/UC and from
ESAC/IPC have been raising public awareness and engaging the public with the
IAS problem, namely with invasive plants. Since 2003, several strategies have
been used, including the website invasoras.pt which aims to aggregate several
elements of these strategies. The most recent version of the website is online
since 2013 and includes as core element a citizen science platform that aims to
engage the public countrywide, voluntarily, to report sightings of invasive
plants. Publications about invasive plants in Portugal, including a field guide and
other printed materials, workshops and social media have been used to engage
the public with the WebMapping platform. Additionally, field-work projects for
university students and training courses for professionals dealing with alien
plants and for school teachers have been organized. In this chapter, the different
strategies implemented and the results of an effort to evaluate the effectiveness

E. Marchante
H. Marchante (&)

Department of Life Sciences, Centre for Functional Ecology,
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: hmarchante@gmail.com
H. Marchante
Department of Environment, Escola Superior Agrária,
Instituto Politécnico de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 107

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_8
108 E. Marchante and H. Marchante

and outreach of these various approaches are presented. Overall, awareness

about IAS is increasing amongst the Portuguese population, with citizens more
educated about the problem and contributing more to the prevention and control
of IAS, but much more work is needed. The challenge to reach publics other
than the peers or professionals related to the topic is still daunting.

1 Invasive Plants as a Threat to the Biodiversity

Worldwide

Biological invasions mediated by human activities change ecosystems worldwide,

with escalating impacts, at ecological (e.g., elimination of native species and dis-
ruption of plant communities), economic and human-health (e.g. major threats to
agriculture, forestry production or fishing) levels (Gaertner et al. 2009; Jäger et al.
2009; Marchante et al. 2008a, 2015a; Mazza et al. 2014; Pejchar and Mooney 2010;
Pyšek and Richardson 2010; Vilà et al. 2010).The origins of biological invasions
are lost in time with some authors pointing to Late Devonian (Stigall 2010).
Nevertheless, it has increased consistently under human-mediation, reaching a peak
in the second half of the 20th century (Pyšek and Richardson 2010) when it gained
“formal” recognition with the pioneering work of Elton (1958), often considered as
the “father of Invasion Biology” (Richardson and Pysek 2008). Numerous scien-
tists, politicians and Global Organizations (European Parliament and Council [EPC]
2014; Invasive Species Specialist Group/International Union for Conservation of
Nature [ISSG/IUCN] 2008; Ministério do Ambiente 1999; Pyšek and Richardson
2010) recognize that invasive alien species (IAS; it is important to stress that not all
the alien species, but only the ones that become invasive, see Table 1 for defini-
tions) damage ecosystem services, disrupt human well-being and are amongst one
of the main causes of biodiversity decline. Ecosystem services are significantly
affected by invasive species, include supporting (e.g., alteration of succession of
plant communities and soil and nutrient cycling), provisioning (e.g., threats to
native species, alteration of genetic resources), regulating (e.g., changing pollina-
tion services and fire regimes) and cultural services (e.g., effects on ecotourism,
changes in perception of landscape) (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [MEA]
2005; Vilà et al. 2010). The alterations that are promoted at one trophic level have
frequent repercussions into several other trophic levels amplifying even more the
impacts of IAS (Carvalheiro et al. 2010). Humans have a key role in most of the
processes of invasion, either as facilitators or opponents contributing to manage
them, and as such being aware of the problem is essential.
IAS are found amongst all living organisms, including plants, animals and
microorganisms (Elton 1958; Perrings et al. 2010). The present chapter focuses on
different approaches implemented to raise awareness about invasive plants amongst
the Portuguese population, but some brief reference to other invasive organisms in
Portugal are included.
Engaging Society to Fight Invasive Alien Plants in Portugal … 109

Table 1 Main concepts and definitions used in plant invasion biology

Concept Definition
Exotic, alien, aloctonous, Plant taxa whose presence in a given area is due to
non-native, non-indigenous introduction, intentional or accidental, as a result of human
activity
Casual, occasional escape, Subset of alien plants that may flourish, and even
transient reproduces occasionally in an area, but which do not form
self-replacing populations, and which rely on repeated
introductions to persist
Naturalized, sub-spontaneous Subset of alien plant that reproduce consistently and
sustain populations over many life cycles without direct
intervention by humans (or in spite of human
intervention); often recruit offspring freely, usually close to
adult plants, and do not necessarily spread into natural,
semi-natural or human-made ecosystems
Invasive, environmental weed Subset of naturalized plants that produce reproductive
offspring’s, often in very large numbers, at considerable
distances from parent plants (approximate scales: >100 m;
<50 years for taxa spreading by seeds and other
propagules; >6 m/3 years for taxa spreading by roots,
rhizomes, stolons, or creeping stems), and thus have the
potential to spread over a considerable area; frequently
adversely affecting native biodiversity and/or ecosystem
functioning
Source Richardson et al. (2000)

2 Brief Overview of Invasive Alien Species in Portugal

There are over 940 alien species in Portugal (excluding species merely
cultivated/domesticated), comprising terrestrial animals (>245) and plants (>670),
aquatic animals (2) and plants (7) and fungi (16) (values updated after DAISIEteam
2008). Amongst these, a part is considered invasive, perceived as widespread and as
causing major negative impacts (Anastácio et al. 2005; Hellmann et al. 2011;
Marchante et al. 2014; Sousa et al. 2008) with 32 species of plants and animals
being legally listed as invasive (Decreto-Lei n.º 565/99, 21 December) and as such
forbidden to use. However, the list of species needs to be updated as several more
recent IAS have not yet been included.
The more widespread and injurious invasive animals in Portugal include species
such as the Louisiana crayfish (Procambarus clarkii), the pinewood nematode
(Bursaphelenchus xylophilus), the Asian clam (Corbicula fluminea), the red Palm
Weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) or the pond slider (Trachemys scripta)
(Anastácio et al. 2005; Naves et al. 2006; Sousa et al. 2008).
Invasive plants are far more numerous than animals (Marchante et al. 2014) and
when compared with central/northern European countries include more tree species
(DAISIEteam 2008), which often results in more extreme changes at the landscape
110 E. Marchante and H. Marchante

level. Over 670 alien plant species (including only casuals, naturalized and inva-
sive) are considered to be introduced in Portugal mainland, being rather well
characterized regarding introduction time and pathways, native range and taxonomy
(Almeida and Freitas 2012; Almeida 1999; Marchante et al. 2014). Their native
ranges include regions all around the world, with over 220 species originating from
the Americas’, over 270 from Eurasia and Mediterranean region, and 70 from
Africa; Australasia despite being the native range of fewer species (35; Almeida
1999; Almeida and Freitas 2006; Almeida and Freitas 2012) is home to a sub-
stantial proportion of the most problematic ones, such as Acacia and Hakea species
(Marchante et al. 2014).
Almost 50 % of the alien plant species were introduced as ornamentals, with
agri/horticulture also accounting for a substantial number of introductions. These
pathways are still “active” with new species being introduced every year. About 1/6
of the species were accidentally introduced, which corresponds to numerous cases
of agricultural weeds whose seeds were acquired unintentionally with crop seeds
(Almeida and Freitas 2000).
Amongst the vast taxonomic diversity (110 families) of alien plant species
present in the country, several families are absent from the Portuguese native flora
(e.g. Oxalidaceae, Proteaceae, Pittosporaceae) and many species (ca. 25 %) are
grouped into a few large families—Asteraceae, Fabaceae and Poaceae (Almeida
and Freitas 2006). Alien plant species occur in a wide range of habitats with some
of the more anthropogenic and disturbed habitats having more species (>300)
(Almeida 1999), reflecting the pattern of distribution predicted for Europe (Chytrý
et al. 2009). Accordingly, the areas of the territory that have registered the intro-
duction of most alien plant species are the heavily populated coastal areas, namely
Estremadura (>330 species), Beira Litoral (>250 species) and Douro Litoral (>200
species), confirming the strong human factor associated with IAS problems. Nev-
ertheless, many species are also present in other habitats, including in coastal sand
dunes (48 species) and margins of inland water bodies (70 species) (Aguiar et al.
2007; Marchante et al. 2014).
The attribution of an invasive status to alien species is neither consensual, nor
completely objective or static in time. Most alien species occur as either naturalized
or casuals but presently with no invasive behavior (though some with risk of
becoming invasive, Marchante et al. unpublished) and about 15 % of these alien
species show invasive behavior at least in some areas. Based on field observations
and consultation to experts, Marchante et al. (2014) considered 103 invasive (47) or
potentially invasive species (24 casuals and 32 naturalized, see Table 1), based on
present behavior in Portuguese territory. Of these, 29 are considered invasive by
law, including most of the more problematic species, e.g., Acacia dealbata, Acacia
longifolia, Ailanthus altissima, Carpobrotus edulis, Eichhornia crassipes or Hakea
sericea (Fig. 1); other species not yet listed as invasive in the legislation (e.g.,
Cortaderia selloana), already reveal a large distribution along the country
(Marchante et al. 2014).
Engaging Society to Fight Invasive Alien Plants in Portugal … 111

Acacia dealbata Acacia longifolia Carpobrotus edulis Cortaderia selloana

Eichhornia crassipes Ipomoea acuminata Hakea sericea Ailanthus altissima

Fig. 1 Some of the worst invasive plant species in Portugal

Considering the number and the significant negative impacts of IAS, citizens
need to be aware of the problem and conscientious that their action, either as a
professional of areas dealing with alien and invasive plants or as an anonymous
citizen, may be contributing to disperse the species but also to mitigate the impacts.

3 The Importance of Public Awareness and Engagement

as Key Components to Deal with Invasive Plants
in a More Sustainable Way

Preventing the introduction or further spread of species with high risk of becoming
invasive is one of the most cost-effective management strategies (Pyšek and
Richardson 2010). Several actions are considered in prevention, such as border
interception of potentially problematic species, pathway and vector management,
legislative frameworks and public awareness. Public awareness and education are
often considered an important part of prevention but they should also be seen as
essential to other phases of management (Wittenberg and Cock 2001). Awareness
activities should be planned to target technicians and stakeholders but also the
public in general who is an important vectors of introduction and spread of IAS
(Ruiz and Carlton 2003), and may additionally play an important pro-active role in
controlling the species. A well informed public may adopt a more responsible
attitude (e.g., selecting native or non-problematic alien species, being aware of
introduction pathways and excluding them, adopting measures to avoid being an
“accidental vector” for spread of seeds) and become active (e.g., contributing to
early detection programs, participating in citizen science programs with these
species, controlling species in private lands) in the management of the species, with
significant repercussions for mitigation of the problem. Awareness activities need to
educate about environmental and economic risks involved with IAS, laws and
112 E. Marchante and H. Marchante

regulations to prevent introductions of alien species (e.g., reasons for the restric-
tions, regulatory actions), species recognition and, additionally, propose easy,
practical options that can help with management of IAS. Appealing printed mate-
rials, video presentations, talks, workshops, interactive games, use of social net-
works and hands on activities are all promising approaches (Marchante et al. 2010;
Wittenberg and Cock 2001).

4 Strategies Used to Raise Public Awareness About IAS

in Portugal

Short after starting to work with invasive species, a team of researchers from
CFE/UC and ESAC/IPC realized the great lack of knowledge about IAS in Por-
tugal. In order to fill this gap, diverse activities were undertaken since 2001
including workshops, training and field work events, public talks, development of
printed materials, websites, etc. The different strategies implemented are described
below and their outreach and effectiveness discussed.

4.1 Invasoras.Pt—Website on Invasive Plants in Portugal

Aims: to make available information about invasive plant species in Portugal,

where they are and how can they be contained; to engage the public with the theme
and publicize awareness activities and news about IAS; to make available infor-
mation that can serve as reference for social networks and different approaches.
Description: in 2003 a website was developed and made available; this was the
first website in Portugal with information about invasive alien plants at the country
level. Later, in 2013, a new version of the website was developed (invasoras.pt)
with a new approach—besides the static information about species (factsheets to
facilitate the recognition of the species) it includes more dynamic and editorial style
contents, comprising also connections to social media networks (https://www.
facebook.com/InvasorasPt and https://twitter.com/Invasoraspt) and a citizen science
platform for WebMapping of IAS in Portugal (Marchante et al. 2015b). The website
in bilingual (Portuguese and English) and contacts are available for users to consult
experts about invasive plants. The Facebook and Twitter pages work mostly as
distribution channel of the website and WebMapping platform. The contents
shared/published include, among others, weekly posts with alerts for the species
which are easier to spot at that period and always links to the WebMapping
platform.
Results and evaluation: the new website is available from March 2013 and in
two and half later more than 106,000 visitors have accessed it (almost 500,000
pageviews); these values can be added to the more than 135,000 visitors of the
previous website (Table 2). Although a large percentage of visitors are from Por-
tugal and Portuguese speaking countries (almost 90 %), users from over 70
Engaging Society to Fight Invasive Alien Plants in Portugal … 113

Table 2 Approaches used to raise public awareness about invasive plants in Portugal by a team
from CFE/UC and ESAC/IPC
Type of Target public Public Time frame Costs (€)c
activity/methodology reacheda
Web-page invasoras. General public >240,000 Available since 17,000
pt 2003: new edition
from 2013
Field-work projects University students; >300 15 annual editions 30,000
professionals mainly of since 2003 (1 week
environmental, forestry and each)
biological sciences
Training courses
Identification and Technical publics dealing 340 3 editions: 2005, 4700
control of IAPb with IAPb 2006 and 2007
(25 h each) + 12 in
2015 (7 h each)
Biological invasions Schoolteachers 50 2 editions: 2009 1200
and environmental (25 h) and 2014
education (4 h)
Printed documents
Plant species Technical publics dealing >3500 Available since 6400
technical profiles with IAPb 2005 (out of print)
(also available
online)
Invasive plants field General public >6700 Available since 25,000
guide (also available 2009: new edition
online) 2014
Postcards to color 8–12 years old >2000 Available since 2500
2009 (out of print)
Bookmarks General public >25,000 Available since 3500
collection 2009
Other initiatives
Thematic workshops Mainly students, but also the >850 >20, since 2008 5000
general public
Science and nature General public and students >2000 >10, since 2008 –
forums and fairs
Talks General public, students, >5000 >100, since 2007 –
horticultural trade,
conservation experts,
foresters, etc.
Social media: General public >5200 Since march 2013 –
Facebook
Sub-total (not considering the >50,000
web page) (*0.5 %
Portuguese
population)
total >290,000 91400
a
Approximate numbers: bIAP invasive alien plants: csome values are rough estimates based on man-days
to develop the activities, though such values were not in most of the cases, specially allocated to fund
these tasks
114 E. Marchante and H. Marchante

countries have visited the page (plus another 80 with <10 visitors). Numerous
people and institutions collaborate at the WebMapping platform (described below)
and use the page e-mail address to request technical assistance on control
methodologies and species identification, as well as to ask for collaboration in
public awareness activities and environmental education sessions. These collabo-
rations and contacts validate the website as an effective awareness tool. Almost
30 % of the visitors return to the site and the bounce rate is around 40 % which are
good indicators that the website is working correctly. The Facebook page gathers
over 5200 “likes”.

4.2 Webmapping Platform to Geolocate Invasive Plants

in Portugal

Aims: engage citizens to submit geolocation records of invasive plants, contributing

proactively in the creation of geolocation dataset covering the national territory,
including mainland and Archipelagos of Madeira and Azores. It also aims to engage
the citizens with invasive plants problem.
Description: The WebMapping platform is available at the website invasoras.pt,
since March 2013, and includes a Web App and a smartphone App (for Android
devices, freely available at Google Play), which gradually build-up an online map
of invasive plants (Fig. 2); it includes 46 invasive plants. Although the target public
is all citizens, frequently unaware of the problem, experts and stakeholders are also
targeted. The smartphone App includes simple factsheets of the invasive plants and
shows images. The Web App easily access much more information included at the
website namely more detailed factsheets. After acquiring the skill to recognize the
invasive plants included on the platform, contributors can spot them and add the
records to the WebMapping platform. Validation of the sightings is done at the
back-office, by team members, and only after that the records are made available on
the map. The map uses Google Maps interface and makes available the last 500

Fig. 2 WebMapping platform to map invasive plants in Portugal (a) map available at invasoras.pt
with the last 500 sightings; (b) map available at GoogleFusion with all sightings
Engaging Society to Fight Invasive Alien Plants in Portugal … 115

sighting at Invasoras.pt, in order not to limit site speed; all validated sightings are
visible on a Google Fusion Table, linked to the WebMapping platform, which
allows free download of all data.
Results and evaluation: A total of 816 registered members (243 active) submitted
6785 geolocation records, using either the Web App (3467) or the smartphone App
(3318); of these 93 % were validated, with the Web Map showing, by the end of
September 2015, 6281 validated sightings. Over 75 % of the sightings validated
were fully completed, i.e., included the compulsory and the optional information,
suggesting that contributors are not conditioned by the quantity of information
required. The number of validated sightings per month was varied from almost 900
(July 2013) to values between 50 and 100 (December 2013–March 2014). The
peaks with over 500 sightings/month, registered in June–August 2013 and March
2015, correspond, respectively, to the participation of a few users particularly
active, and a stronger effort on a raising awareness campaigns (through Facebook
and Invasoras.pt) when some of the most expressive invasive plants in Portugal
(Acacia spp.) were in flower.

4.3 Fieldwork Projects About Invasive Plants

Aims: to increase awareness amongst university students and young (or not so
young) professionals, mostly from areas related to environmental, forestry and
biological sciences, namely through training and collaboration on control of inva-
sive plants in Conservation Areas.
Description: the projects include different approaches to engage the target public:
(1) participation in control of invasive plant species, e.g., Acacia longifolia, A.
dealbata, A. melanoxylon, Cortaderia selloana, Tradescantia fluminensis and
Carpobrotus edulis, (2) brief training about IAS and Nature Conservation, and
(3) small projects involving invasive plants, namely scientific experiments and
public awareness activities for the general public and schools. The philosophy
behind these projects is to strongly engage the target public with the theme, through
learning about IAS, hands-on activities to control invasive plants and creation of a
healthy and fun working/learning environment. In 2003, when the first project was
organized, this type of project was quite innovative in Portugal and the public was
outstandingly receptive and enthusiastic. Although activities are planned for 20
volunteers each year, the number of applicants has been always much higher,
reaching more than 80 in several editions. These projects are developed in summer
vacations, for one week, with volunteer groups sharing accommodation, meals,
learning, working and leisure time.
Results and evaluation: Since 2003, 15 field-work projects were organized in
seven places in Portugal (one per year), including Conservation Areas and other
invaded areas involving over 340 volunteers, who contributed to the control of eight
invasive plant species. These projects are very effective and successful in training
people and raising awareness, especially among university students and young
116 E. Marchante and H. Marchante

professionals. Additionally, they showed to be engaging: after participating, several

volunteers became involved in invasive species projects, and some of them now
work professionally with this subject. Furthermore, it has been a good way to
encourage the staff of Conservation Areas and to publicize their work on the
management and control of invasive plants.
In 2013 a questionnaire was sent to the previous field-work projects participants
and to non-participants as well (240 questionnaires sent to each group) in order to
better quantify the effectiveness of this approach. 40 % of participants and 32 % of
non-participants answered the questionnaire. Briefly, the results showed that: (1) the
level of knowledge about IAS is higher in people that attended the field-work
projects (Fig. 3a); (2) participants are more motivated to participate/organize
activities or work with IAS (Fig. 3b); (3) in general, more people heard about IAS
from participants than from non-participants (Fig. 3c); and (4) participants identify
correctly more IAS (Fig. 3d). Finally, participants consider themselves as having
changed behaviors and attitudes regarding the problem.

Fig. 3 Answer to the questionnaire sent to participants and non-participants in field-works

projects: (a) percentage of correct answers when respondents were questioned about different
topics related to IAS; (b) percentage of respondents participating in control actions; (c) number of
people who heard about IAS from the respondents; (d) percentage of correct identification of some
of the worst invasive plants in Portugal
Engaging Society to Fight Invasive Alien Plants in Portugal … 117

4.4 Training on Invasive Plants Identification and Control

Aims: to provide tools to capacitate the trainees to (1) identify and manage invasive
plants present in Portugal (technical courses for professionals dealing with alien and
invasive plants) and (2) develop educational projects and activities about invasive
species (courses for school teachers).
Description: the courses involved theoretical and practical sessions, and field
trips to areas invaded by different species. Three courses (25 h each) about iden-
tification and control of invasive plants were organized in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and
12 shorter ones (7 h) in 2014 and 2015. The target publics were technicians from
municipalities and nursery industry, conservation and forestry experts, researchers,
and other technical staff who deal with alien and invasive species. In 2009 and 2014
a different course was offered to school teachers, as they are in a privileged position
to disseminate information among young people. The program was adapted from
the technical course focusing more on the theory behind biological invasions and
considering environmental education projects and activities that could be developed
and used in school classes.
Results and evaluation: ca. 340 technicians and 50 teachers attended the courses.
This approach has proved to be very effective in changing attitudes. Some tech-
nicians have actively integrated the knowledge gained in the courses in their regular
activities, namely in programs to control invasive species or excluding invasive
species from their lists of working species. Some of the teachers developed pro-
grams to be applied in their schools and as a consequence many students have heard
about this theme and many have been involved in hands-on activities.

4.5 Printed Documents About Invasive Plants

Aims: to develop printed documents that can be used to raise awareness about
invasive plants.
Description: the different activities organized and the contact with the public
highlighted the need of printed documentation about invasive plants that could both
support hand-on activities and also be available as sources of information for
specific target-audiences. To fill this gap, different documents were produced, tar-
geting different publics: (1) Plant species technical profiles (2005)—about identi-
fication and control of the 29 plant species considered invasive by the Portuguese
law, plus three other species with invasive behavior (Marchante et al. 2005). The
target-public was the technical staff dealing with invasive plants, and the plant
species technical profiles were made available both online and printed; the printed
version was distributed to professionals working with alien plants and private and
public entities responsible for the management of areas invaded by alien plants;
(2) Invasive plants field guide (2008 and 2014): in 2008 the first field guide of
invasive alien plants in continental Portugal was published (Marchante et al.
2008b). In 2014 this was updated incorporating a risk assessment for every species
118 E. Marchante and H. Marchante

and enlarged to include more species and invasive plants from Azores and Madeira
(Marchante et al. 2014). More than 80 plants species were included (over 100 in the
2nd edition), including invasive plants and other with invasive potential (casuals
and naturalized). The guide includes an introduction to biological invasions and
invasive plant species; (3) Booklet with postcards to color (2008): although IAS can
be a theme somewhat complex to young children, it is important to raise awareness
from an early age. A small booklet with 13 postcards (some of the worst invasive
plant species in Portugal) was developed targeting school children. It included a
fixed part (to keep, with simple information) and postcards to detach which are
drawings of invasive plants; the reverse is an ordinary postcard—the idea is that
each child can learn a bit about invasive plants, personalize the card, coloring it, and
write a message to friends and family about IAS, working as vectors of the
information. Postcards were initially made for children from 8 to 12 years old, but
worked also fine with younger as well as older students; (4) Bookmarks collection
(2008): 13 bookmarks were made on a selection of some of the worst invasive
plants in Portugal. Each bookmark includes simple information about invasive
plants in general, information about a specific invasive plant and the link of the
website where more information and contacts can be looked after. These are tar-
geted to the general public, and used for different publics and activities. The aim
was to have available a simple, appealing (and cheap) publication that can be given
to everyone.
Results and evaluation: the technical profiles about invasive plants are available
in a platform where it is the fifth most downloaded document amongst several
thousand, with almost 3000 downloads since July 2007; the printed version (500
copies) is out-of-print. Frequent requests for the printed version and consultation
concerning control of different invasive plant species are received. Two thousand
free copies of the 1st field guide were printed and are now out-of-print; the
reviews/criticisms to this first edition were very good and the new edition has
incorporated them. A total of 4750 copies were printed of the 2nd edition of the
field guide and copies may be requested at Invasoras.pt. Both editions (on paper)
were distributed, mainly under direct request, to several official entities and people
interested in the theme, reaching very distinct publics; it was also distributed to
public and school libraries, being available to people all over the country. The first
edition is available for download at https://pombalina.uc.pt/ and the second edition
is available at this site and also at issuu.com (http://issuu.com/plantasinvasoras).
The bookmarks were (still are) mostly distributed to entities dedicated to science
communication and environmental education but also to conservation areas, schools
and the general public in nature and science festivals and other events. Postcards
were mainly used with school children and activities organized for this specific
public. As much as possible, the printed documents were used together with dif-
ferent initiatives organized in order for them to be understood in context.
Engaging Society to Fight Invasive Alien Plants in Portugal … 119

4.6 Other Activities

Aims: to raise awareness about invasive plants and to communicate results of

research projects to different publics.
Description: thematic workshops were organized, mainly targeting school stu-
dents, including different activities, such as short talks, hands-on activities for the
control of invasive plants, interactive games and invasive plant identification games
(Schreck et al. 2013). Further dissemination of information about invasive plants
was attained through participation in several environmental conferences, forums,
conference and talks, etc., targeting very diverse publics: the general public, school
children and students, university students, foresters, horticultural trade, conserva-
tion experts, ENGOs, etc.
Results and evaluation: since 2007, more than 100 talks were given, 20 work-
shops and hands-on activities were carried out, and several science and nature
forums and fairs for different publics were joined. The contexts and publics of these
initiatives were very diverse. As a result, over the past few years and all over the
country many citizens became aware about invasive plants. Effectiveness of the
workshops organized for schools was accessed through questionnaires sent to
schools, one year later, targeting students who attended the workshop as well as a
control group who did not attend it. Results showed that, after one year, the par-
ticipants in the workshop knew significantly more about invasive species and
recognized more invasive plant species than non-participant students (Schreck et al.
2013).

5 Final Considerations

After more than 12 years communicating about invasive alien plants in Portugal,
our perception is that awareness about biological invasions has increased, although
lack of awareness is still a substantial reality. There is still a lot to be done and
reaching the unaware citizens, outside the scientific or technical world, is particu-
larly difficult. Nevertheless, information on IAS is nowadays more frequent in the
media and many people and institutions have contributed, and are committed to
continue, to raise public awareness. The diversified methodologies and strategies
used by the team of CFE/UC and ESAC/IPC are slowly contributing to change
mentalities and attitudes, making the public better educated on the topics of inva-
sive plants and biological invasions. This public can then have an important role in
the prevention, early-detection and control of invasive species.
Our perception is that approaches including hands-on (e.g., field-work projects)
or interactive activities (e.g., WebMapping platform or Facebook) and that involve
the participants for a longer time are more engaging and efficient in raising
awareness about invasive plants (Schreck et al. 2013). The estimated number of
people reached by the different activities/approaches is higher than 290,000 (or
>50,000 if the webpage is exclude, Table 2). However, the main contribution to
120 E. Marchante and H. Marchante

this number is the website, which effectively contributes to raise awareness and
provides information, but which is probably less effective in making people
changing their attitudes about alien and invasive plants than other activities.
Evaluation of effectiveness is not always easy and as such a stronger effort and
investment needs to be made in order to better evaluate the activities/approaches
used to communicate on IAS. Nevertheless, funding for communication is often
scarce and so it is important that it can be used in the most efficient way, targeting
approaches that are more effective in changing attitudes and engaging the public
with this subject. The collaboration of experts on communication is also of utmost
importance if a well-coordinated and effective campaign is to be promoted.
We are committed to this challenge of engaging the public with IAS and will
continue to do so along with our research activities. For that, we are planning to
diversify activities in the field, establishing protocols with local and regional
administrative agencies, implementing new tools on the website and initiating a
pilot early-detection program.

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 Part III
Engaging Society in Biodiversity
Conservation and Sustainability
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two
Communication Strategies for Public
Engagement in the Azores
Isabel R. Amorim, Ana Moura Arroz, Rita São Marcos, Paulo A.
V. Borges and Rosalina Gabriel

Abstract
Two initiatives to raise biodiversity awareness towards Azorean endemic
species, an outdoor exhibition Açorianos há milhões de anos (Azoreans for
millions of years) and a web contest to name insects Chama-lhe Nomes! (Pick a
Name!), are presented in this chapter. Both communicational strategies targeted
non-traditional audiences, relied on the Portuguese and Azorean cultural identity
and on anthropic verisimilitude of situations involving insects. The context,
principles, assumptions and multidisciplinary approach involved in the devel-
opment of the public awareness activities were presented in detail in chapter
“Bugs and Society I: Raising Awareness About Endemic Biodiversity”. Apart
from having symbolically occupied the urban public domain, the outdoor
exhibition triggered positive reactions in more than three-quarters of the
observers, prompting them to seek more information about the insects, to want to
see them alive, to photograph them, etc. On the other hand, the web contest
attributed common names to 12 endemic species of insects and motivated over
one hundred people to carefully consider their photos and descriptions, engaging
in sheer naturalistic pleasure. Less favourable were the post-observation

Isabel R. Amorim and Ana Moura Arroz—contributed equally to this work.

I.R. Amorim (&)
P.A.V. Borges
R. Gabriel

Departamento de Ciências Agrárias, cE3c—Centre for Ecology,
Evolution and Environmental Changes/Azorean Biodiversity Group
and Universidade dos Açores, 9700-042 Angra do Heroísmo, Açores, Portugal
e-mail: isabel.ma.rosario@uac.pt
A.M. Arroz (&)
R. São Marcos
Departamento de Ciências da Educação, cE3c—Centre for Ecology, Evolution
and Environmental Changes/Azorean Biodiversity Group and Universidade dos Açores,
9700-042 Angra do Heroísmo, Açores, Portugal
e-mail: ana.mm.arroz@uac.pt

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 125

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_9
126 I.R. Amorim et al.

recognition indicators of urban exposure, since only less than one-third of the
interviewees correctly identified the insect’ group represented on the banner or
could place the origin of the animal. Nevertheless, the means assigned to the
evaluation of the intervention were not enough to undertake a full assessment of
the impacts produced in the knowledge, attitudes and behaviours of viewers and
users. Still, the resonance in the media was considerable, in terms of the number
of news stories and the diversity of vehicles and audiences reached at regional
(outdoor exhibition) and national levels (web contest). Communication devices
like the ones presented are expected to raise biodiversity awareness and
empower people regarding its preservation in the Azores. Moreover, the critical
analysis of these initiatives is expected to provide guidelines that maximise the
transferability of communication strategies to other social settings.

1 Introductory Note

Biodiversity loss is one of the most neglected environmental risks, with a low level of
priority among public concern (Cardinale et al. 2012). Thus, in order to raise awareness
to the problem of endemic biodiversity disappearance, this issue was framed in the light
of risk governance (Arroz et al. 2016, this book), using insects from the Azores, the
taxonomic group with the highest number of endemic species in the archipelago.
This chapter presents two of the activities that were part of the Azorean inter-
vention Bugs and Society, and discusses their results. The activities differed con-
siderably, namely on the: (i) degree of involvement of the target population—to
inform versus to involve; (ii) audiences—city dwellers versus Facebook users;
(iii) proposed tasks—to appreciate/contemplate versus naming insects; and
(iv) grammars used—outdoor banners vs. an online contest. However, the same
principles and purposes underlie both activities, which also rely on immaterial
values that characterise the Portuguese/Azorean identity as a strategic option to
bridge the gap between insects and humans.
The specific goals of this work were to: (i) design communicational devices to
promote endemic biodiversity, framed by indigenous ethnoenthomology and by the
Azorean and Portuguese core identities; (ii) present the process and evaluate the results
of two communication activities in mainstreaming biodiversity; and (iii) provide
guidelines about the message design, the regulation and the evaluation of communi-
cation strategies in order to maximise its transferability to other social contexts.

2 Raising Public Awareness: The Exhibition Açorianos há

Milhões de Anos—Azoreans for Millions of Years

2.1 Communication Goals and Strategies

To raise public awareness regarding conservation biodiversity, an urban outdoor

exhibition was conceived to catch city dwellers’ attention while going about their
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 127

daily activities. Because insects represent a big portion of the species that can only
be found in the Azores, but are among islanders least favourite organisms (Gabriel
et al. 2007, 2009, 2012a,b), endemic insects were the protagonists of this initiative.
Besides providing accurate scientific information on the particular species, the
exhibition sought to defy the dominant representations about insects in order to:
– draw attention to the existence of species that can only be found in the Azores;
– raise awareness among local citizens for the need to protect endemic species; and
– bring these species to the city, giving the general population a chance to see
them, as these insects are difficult to observe in their natural habitat.
This initiative aimed to spark curiosity, promote interest and incite casual con-
versations, bringing insects into the public arena, thus facilitating an invisible (latent)
participation of the people (sensu Pasquino’s system of political participation, 2002).
The communication strategy draws on previous research on the perspectives of
Azoreans on insects (Gabriel et al. 2007, 2009, 2012b). Those studies revealed that
people were unaware of the fact that several of the species that exist in the archi-
pelago can only be found there, felt aversion (dislike) towards insects because they
are disgusting, a nuisance, scary, useless, ugly and irrelevant, and were not very
concerned about insect conservation.
To deconstruct this negative public opinion on insects, several team brain-
storming meetings were held in order to prepare a briefing for communication
designers to produce the copy for this specific initiative (Box 1), bearing in mind
that the purpose, the function and the legitimation criteria of communicating sci-
ence are unlike the ones of making science (Dahlstrom 2014).

Box 1: Excerpt of the designers briefing describing positive attributes of

the selected insect species Key ideas to convey concerning the selected
Azorean endemic insect species:
1. They are unique and only exist in the Azores;
2. They are special, all having important ecosystem functions (insects are
useful):
a. Pollination—guarantee the survival of most plant species, assuring
seed and fruit production;
b. Regulation of natural populations—by feeding on other organisms
(predation and/or herbivory) insects control those populations, pre-
venting them from attaining pest status (e.g., other insects, other
groups of arthropods, plants);
c. Forest structure—insects feed on living and dead plants, shaping the
landscape;
d. Decomposition and nutrient cycling—insects are responsible for fast
cycling of nutrients, particularly in forest ecosystems; without them, a
huge amount of nutrients would remain unavailable for other organisms;
e. Food source—many other animals feed on insects.
128 I.R. Amorim et al.

3. They are true Azoreans, they were on the islands long before Portuguese
settlers arrived in the 15th century: they have been around for millions of
years;
4. They are “under siege” on the islands and their existence depends on the
conservation of their natural habitats (native Azorean forest), which cur-
rently is reduced to about 2.5 % of its original area. Extinction is forever;
once they disappear from the Azores, unique biological diversity has been
definitely erased from Earth;
5. They may and should be celebrated for their eccentric and idiosyncratic
beauty;
6. They are not a threat! These insects are not dangerous, not poisonous, not
disease vectors and would not invade our homes; conversely, their exis-
tence is threatened by human-mediated habitat destruction;
7. They are also animals. When compared to other animals (e.g., birds,
mammals) insects attract very little attention and are less valued; insects
are the aesthetically challenged Mother Nature’s “ugly ducklings”!

The operationalised strategy (Table 1) involved, in terms of iconic and symbolic

forms of representation, the creation of hyper-realistic depictions of endemic
insects, exploiting the capability of extreme macrophotography, in order to make
unavoidably visible what is naturally tiny and socially ignored. The extreme
magnification revealed traits in a larger than life format, otherwise impossible to see
with the naked eye. The change of scale resonated, along the lines of modern
expressionism, with ugliness coming from the depth of what is alien to human
experience, disgusting, unsettling… (Fortuna 2009, p. 193), somewhat near to the
notions of the ugly/sublime described by Kant (Kuplen 2015).
The “portrait” was the visual grammar chosen for the banners, to draw the
observer’s attention to “a face”, which was intended to foster human empathy with
the living beings represented (Merleau-Ponty 1945). Additionally, the unusualness
of the images inspired an alternation of the perception of the figure and ground
(sensu Gestalt) and between studium and punctum—the structural elements of a
picture (Barthes 1980). The former element refers to the generalised interest,
pleasure or concern one might take in a photo (Iversen 1994), sparking interest and
curiosity. The latter corresponds to a unique detail, “jumping out of the photo”,
coming across the studium, grounded by the individual experience of the observer:
it may be the eccentric feathery look of the scales, a peculiarly shaped tongue or the
prognathism of the mandible, or some other personally meaningful detail.
The weirdness and, in some cases, the latent threat of the images mirror the
perceptions of the population towards insects. The logic behind the communication
strategy was to take advantage of those dominant public perspectives and, using the
copy developed by the designers, catapult the exact opposite message in order to
deconstruct and demystify current views on insects. This deconstruction of mental
Table 1 Message design used for the deconstruction of the negative public opinion on insects and for the promotion of Azorean endemic species in the
outdoor exhibition Açorianos há milhões de anos—Azoreans for millions of years
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication …

Macro photographs: Javier Torrent; other photographs: Enésima Mendonça, except H. azorina azorina (Martin Gascoigne-Pees), A. fortunata azorica (Axel
Hausmann) and T. borgesi (Paulo A. V. Borges)
129
130 I.R. Amorim et al.

images and false beliefs was further reinforced by discursive analogies that decoded
complex scientific concepts and by creative highlights of the importance of insects
in the ecosystem (specific functions), therefore raising awareness for the need to
protect them.
The purpose of using Portuguese royal cognomen for the insects was to foster a
link between them and historical figures inhabiting the Portuguese cultural imagi-
nary as well as to attribute an easily recognised social role to each one. Using
historical references also tends to take people into the past, and although dealing
with very different time scales, this facilitates the acknowledgement that the
depicted endemic species have been in the Azores for a very long time: millions of
years.
Finally, a “stamp” was used on the insect photographs to “certify” the scientific
veracity of the conveyed information: geographic exclusivity—“only found in the
Azores”; risk of extinction—“in the last 500 years, 97 % of these species natural
habitats were destroyed”, and natural heritage relevance—“a treasure in peril”. This
“certification stamp” summarises some of the conservation arguments most valued
by biology experts.
The strategic options that guided the conceptual and argumentative logic used
for the (de)construction of negative social perspectives on insects resulted in the
urban outdoor exhibition Azoreans for millions of years (Arroz et al. 2016).

2.2 Insect Banners on the City Streets of Angra do Heroísmo:

Claiming Territory in the Public Arena

The outdoor exhibition Azoreans for millions of years comprised two sets of large
banners (4 m × 2.75 m) representing six insect species endemic to the Azores
(Table 1; Fig. 1; Arroz et al. 2013a; Gabriel et al. 2016), which are poorly known
and lack common names, but have important roles for proper ecosystem
functioning.
Streets were deliberately occupied with giant photographs (focus stacking of
extreme macro photos) of these species. Instead of hosting a biodiversity exhibition
in a traditional science venue, the exhibition was moved outdoors into the streets,
claiming a public territory for these endemic species that may face the risk of
extinction in the near future. This was no ordinary territory, it was the historical
centre of Angra do Heroísmo city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, i.e., neglected
natural heritage was displayed side by side with widely acknowledged built her-
itage. Furthermore, bringing these sui generis insects into the city allowed people to
become acquainted with some elements of the unique Azorean natural heritage,
both the particular species on display and the threatened habitats where they could
be found (native forest and caves).
The 12 banners were strategically displayed on white building walls along the
main streets of Angra do Heroísmo (Arroz et al. 2013b), as to create an endemic
insect discovery path across the city. The exhibition was on display from April until
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 131

Fig. 1 Communication device—banner—for raising public awareness of the Azorean endemic

moth Ascotis fortunata azorica, Pinker, 1971

June 2013. Other urban areas, within and outside of the Azores, have since showed
interest in hosting Azoreans for millions of years.

2.3 Outdoor Exhibition Evaluation

To assess public response to the outdoor exhibition Azoreans for millions of years
in the city of Angra do Heroísmo, an audience study was undertaken during the
three weeks that followed the opening of the exhibition (3rd April 2013), as planned
in the logic model (Tables 2, 3 and 4; Arroz et al. 2012a).
According to the observations made by six trained field assistants, 5752 people
walked by the banners during 219 observation periods of 10 minutes (14 days, 9–
17 h), an average of 26 (±6) persons per period. When compared with the number
of visitors of the Science Centre of Angra do Heroísmo1 for the same month
(n = 302; unpublished data), this is an impressive figure and validates the option of
using the streets as a vehicle for science communication.
On average, 3.0 % (174) of the observed people explicitly showed some kind of
reaction to the insect banners, 41 of these city dwellers were approached, and
37 agreed to be interviewed. All interviewees were residents of Terceira Island and
the sample was balanced in terms of sex (20 women), age group (17 under 25,
1
Science Centre of Angra do Heroísmo—CCAH—http://ccah-oaa.blogspot.pt
132 I.R. Amorim et al.

Table 2 Evaluating the Knowledge dimension of the outdoor exhibition Açorianos há milhões de
anos (Azoreans for millions of years): Analytic model and main results
Sub-dimension indicator Question or item Main results
Previous information
Knowledge of endemic 16. List animals that only People naming endemic
fauna occur in the Azores. animals: 7 (18.9 %)—the birds:
Buteo buteo rothschildi (Swann,
1919) and Pyrrhula murina
(Godman, 1866)
17. What about insects? Do People naming endemic insects:
you know any? Which 1 (2.7 %)—“certain butterflies”
one(s)?
Relevance of insects in 18. In your opinion, is it Yes: 0 (0.0 %); No: 33
the ecosystem possible to live without (89.2 %); DNK/NA: 4 (10.8 %)
insects?
Understanding the information
Representation of the 4. What do you think these Correct: 13 (35.1 %)
purpose of the exhibition banners are all about? (Conservation of species: 7;
Information about endemic
biodiversity: 5; nature
conservation: 1); Incomplete: 8
(21.6 %) (Information about
biodiversity: 7; Information
about nature: 1); Incorrect: 6
(16.2 %) (Alert to pests: 3;
others: 3); DNK/NA: 8 (21.6 %)
Highlights: identify 5. What caught your Image: 28 (75.7 %); Scale: 4
attention? (10.8 %); Text: 3 (8.1 %);
DNK/NA: 2 (5.4 %)
Highlights: reason 6. Why? Hyperrealism and
beauty/ugliness: 6 each
(16.2 %); colour and scale and
unusual: 4 each (10.8 %);
novelty: 2 (5.4 %); location and
sensation: 1 each (2.7 %);
DNK/NA: 9 (24.3 %)
Recognition of information
Acknowledgement of the 1. Have you noticed the Yes: 37 (90.2 %); No: 4 (9.8 %)
outdoor banners large banner on the wall
that you just walked by?
Selection and 7a. The BRAVE is… a Correct: 9 (24.3 %); incorrect:
identification of a butterfly; a mosquito; a 23 (62.2 %); DNK/NA: 5
previously seen banner moth; a spider (13.5 %)
Ability to recall the 7b. The BRAVE exists only Correct: 11 (29.7 %); Incorrect:
distribution range of the in: Europe; Portugal; the 14 (37.8 %); DNK/NA: 12
insect Azores; the Portuguese (32.4 %)
islands
(continued)
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 133

Table 2 (continued)
Sub-dimension indicator Question or item Main results
Ability to recount— 3. What have you just seen? Insect: 32 (86.5 %); DNK/NA:
freely reproduce the 5 (13.5 %)
intervention (banner or
exhibition)
Self-evaluation of the impact of the initiative
Perceived knowledge 29. Do you think this No affect: 8 (21.6 %); Minor
acquisition initiative was able to affect: 5 (13.5 %); Neutral: 16
teach you something? (43.2 %); Moderate affect: 5
(13.5 %); Major affect: 0
(0.0 %); DNK/NA: 3 (8.1 %)
DKN do not know; NA no answer

Table 3 Evaluating the Engagement dimension of the outdoor exhibition Açorianos há milhões
de anos (Azoreans for millions of years): Analytic model and main results
Sub-dimension Question or item or parameter Main results
indicator
Attractiveness
Number of passers-by Record of the number of Number of people passing by the
passers-by that walked by the banners every hour—average:
banners 158; max: 402; min: 6
Estimated by 219 observation
periods of 10 min each, in
14 days [April 4–30, 2013], from
9 to 17 h
Number of passers-by Record of the number of People reacting: 174/5752
that observed the passers-by that observed (stopped (3.0 %) (Glances: 148 [85.1 %];
banners and/or looked) the banners Admires: 14 [8.0 %]; Does
something: 12 [6.9 %])
(Observation periods as above)
Assessment of the 8. Did you appreciate what you Not at all: 0 (0.0 %); Yes, to some
degree of attractiveness just saw? extent: 2 (5.4 %); Neutral: 19
(51.4 %); Yes, to a large extent:
13 (35.1 %); Yes, to a very great
extent: 2 (5.4 %); DNK/NA: 1
(2.7 %)
First impressions 2. What were the first words that Persons answering: 35 (94.6 %);
came into your mind when you DNK/NA: 2 (5.4 %)
looked at it? 1st; 2nd; …; nth Total of words: 56; Number of
word different words: 35; Words per
interviewee—average: 1.5; max:
4; Most common word:
Insect (10; 27.0 %)
(continued)
134 I.R. Amorim et al.

Table 3 (continued)
Sub-dimension Question or item or parameter Main results
indicator
Representation of the 9a. For you, this banner is: ugly Level 1: 0 (0.0 %); Level 2: 2
effect of the exhibition 1-2-3-4-5 beautiful (5.4 %); Level 3: 9 (24.3 %);
(emotional responses) Level 4: 3 (8.1 %); Level 5: 4
(10.1 %); DNK/NA: 19 (51.4 %)
9b. For you, this banner is: Level 1: 1 (2.7 %); Level 2: 1
useless 1-2-3-4-5 useful (2.7 %); Level 3: 6 (16.2 %);
Level 4: 1 (2.7 %); Level 5: 7
(18.9 %); DNK/NA: 21 (56.8 %)
9c. For you, this banner is: Level 1: 1 (2.7 %); Level 2: 4
repugnant 1-2-3-4-5 attractive (10.8 %); Level 3: 11 (29.7 %);
Level 4: 5 (13.5 %); Level 5: 5
(13.5 %); DNK/NA: 11 (29.7 %)
9d. For you, this banner is: Level 1: 2 (5.4 %); Level 2: 2
difficult 1-2-3-4-5 simple (5.4 %); Level 3: 4 (10.8 %);
Level 4: 5 (13.5 %); Level 5: 4
(10.8 %); DNK/NA: 20 (54.1 %)
9e. For you, this banner is: Level 1: 2 (5.4 %); Level 2: 2
alarming 1-2-3-4-5 soothing (5.4 %); Level 3: 2 (5.4 %);
Level 4: 9 (24.3 %); Level 5: 3
(8.1 %); DNK/NA: 19 (51.4 %)
Interest
Number of banners 11. Is this the first banner of the Yes: 15 (40.5 %); No: 21
seen exhibition that you see? (56.8 %); DNK/NA: 1 (2.7 %)
12. Which ones have you seen so All banners were mentioned; max
far? number of banners mentioned:
4/6; min: 0
Repercussions 13. Have you heard about this? Yes: 10 (27.0 %); No: 25
(67.6 %); DNK/NA: 2 (5.4 %)
Source of information 14. If you have heard about the Television: 0 (0.0 %); Radio: 0
exhibition, how did you learn (0.0 %); Newspapers: 3 (8.1 %);
about it? Family and/or Friends: 3 (8.1 %);
Magazines: 0 (0.0 %); Internet: 3
(8.1 %); Others: 1 (2.7 %)
Reason for observing 15. You looked at this banner You walked by and noticed it: 32
because… (86.5 %); You came here on
purpose to look at it: 2 (5.4 %);
You searched the city for banners:
1 (2.7 %); DNK/NA: 2 (5.4 %)
Intention to extend the 10. Now that you have looked at Know more about the insect: 11
experience beyond the this banner, you feel like you (29.7 %); Talk about the banner:
viewing time want to… 9 (24.3 %); Look at a live
specimen of this insect: 3 (8.1 %);
Take a picture and Look for other
banners: 2 each (5.4 %); Do
nothing in particular: 7 (18.9 %);
DNK/NA: 1 (2.7 %)
(continued)
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 135

Table 3 (continued)
Sub-dimension Question or item or parameter Main results
indicator
References on general Number of news Broadcasted: 3 tv + 1 radio;
and specialized media Press: 7 regional + 1 national;
Online: 16 sites; Science
divulgation: 2 articles; Others: 1
(ART)
DKN do not know; NA no answer; max maximum; min minimum

Table 4 Evaluating the Attitudes dimension of the outdoor exhibition Açorianos há milhões de
anos (Azoreans for millions of years): Analytic model and main results
Sub-dimension Question or item Main results
indicator
Attitudes towards insects
Biophilia 20. Do you like any particular Yes: 15 (40.5 %); No: 19
insects? (51.4 %); DNK/NA: 3 (8.1 %)
21. Which one(s)? Butterflies: 10 (27.0 %); Bees,
Flies, Mosquitos, Crickets and
Mantises: 1 each (2.7 %); All
species: 2 (5.4 %)
22. Why/Why not? Like insects 16 (43.2 %)—
Beautiful: 4; Cute and
Interesting: 3 each; Useful: 2;
Liking all animals: 2; Other
reasons: 2; DNK/NA: 0
Dislike insects: 18 (48.6 %)—
Ugly: 4; Disgusting: 2; Dirty: 1;
Other: 2; DNK/NA: 9
Biophobia 23. Are there any insects that you Yes: 28 (75.7 %); No: 4
do not like? (10.8 %); DNK/NA: 5 (13.5 %)
24. Which one(s)? Cockroaches: 8 (21.6 %);
Mosquitos: 5 (5.4 %); Flies: 4
(10.8 %); Bees and Butterflies
and Termites: 1 each (2.7 %).
Other (non-insects): 6 (16.2 %)
25. Why/Why not? Disgusting: 6 (16.2 %); Scary: 5
(13.5 %); Dangerous: 4
(10.8 %); Annoying and Bad 2
each (5.4 %); Destructive and
Dirty and Uninteresting: 1 each
(2.7 %); Other: 2; DNK/NA: 12
(32.4 %)
Importance of protecting endemic species
Perceived 19. How do you think that species No affect: 0 (0.0 %); Minor
seriousness of extinction will affect life on the affect: 1 (2.7 %); Neutral: 3
biodiversity loss planet? (8.1 %); Moderate affect: 23
(62.2 %); Major affect: 7
(18.9 %); DNK/NA: 3 (8.1 %)
(continued)
136 I.R. Amorim et al.

Table 4 (continued)
Sub-dimension Question or item Main results
indicator
Degree of support 26. Do you find important to protect Not important: 0 (0.0 %);
animals and plants that only Slightly important: 0 (0.0 %);
exist in the Azores? Neither important nor
unimportant: 3 (8.1 %);
Important: 29 (78.4 %); Very
important: 3 (8.1 %)
Priority level 27. How much of the Azorean No budget (0 %): 1 (2.7 %);
assigned to nature government budget for the Low budget (20 %): 8 (21.6 %);
conservation environment do you think Medium-low budget (40 %): 10
should be invested in protecting (27.0 %); Medium-high budget
species that only exist in the 60 %: 3 (8.1 %); High budget
Azores? (80 %): 3 (8.1 %); Total budget
(100 %): 1 (2.7 %); DNK/NA:
11 (29.7 %)
Self-evaluation of impacts
Degree of 28. Has this initiative changed your No affect: 7 (18.9 %); Minor
attitudinal change opinion on the need to protect affect: 3 (8.1 %); Neutral: 17
due to the insects that only exist in the (45.9 %); Moderate affect: 7
exhibition Azores? (18.9 %); Major affect: 1
(2.7 %); DNK/NA: 2 (5.4 %)
DKN do not know; NA no answer

11 between 25 and 45, and 13 over 45 years old), educational attainment (18 did
not finished high school; 22 did, and 1 had a university degree) and area of resi-
dence (18 urban); additionally, six persons had experience with environmental
organisations. As regards cultural habits (adapted from Virtanen 2007), more than
half of the interviewees had not been to a museum (54.1 %), exhibition (64.9 %),
theatre (67.6 %) or archaeological site (83.8 %) during the previous year and going
to music events, the cinema and natural parks were the only cultural activities that
more than a quarter of the people had performed regularly (three times or more)
during that period. Concerning biological interests, most interviewees recognised
that extinction of species is a serious problem (81.0 %), and that animals and plants
that only exist in the Azores should be protected (86.5 %), but less than half
(40.5 %) liked at least one insect (Table 4). About a quarter of the interviewees
(27.0 %) already knew that the exhibition was up and running before being inter-
viewed, mostly through their families, newspapers and the internet (Table 4).
About a third of the interviewees (35.1 %) correctly identified the main purpose
of Azoreans for million years (e.g. inform about endemic biodiversity and con-
servation of species) while a fifth (21.6 %) answered in a vague, imprecise way
(e.g. information about biodiversity and nature) and the remaining either failed to
identify the purpose (16.2 %) or did not answer this question (21.6 %) (Table 2).
The large majority of people (75.7 %) were drawn to the image. For most, the
punctum was the portrayed insect, but the unusualness, the colours and the lettering
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 137

also attracted the attention of many. A minority mentioned the text—particularly

the kings’ cognomen—and the size of the banners (Table 2). The reasons invoked
to explain the attraction to specific banner elements mainly included hyperrealism
and beauty/ugliness of the insects, colour, scale of the banner/insect and unusual-
ness (e.g., shape of the insect’s antenna) (Table 2).
Knowledge on Azorean endemic animals was rather limited. A few persons
mentioned the common buzzard of the Azores (10.8 %) and the Azorean bullfinch
(8.1 %)—both birds. When asked about endemic insects, a single person (2.7 %)
acknowledged “some butterflies”. Nevertheless, insects were recognized as very
relevant in the ecosystems (89.2 %) (Table 2). The majority of people (86.5 %)
recognized that they had just seen an insect and 29.7 % rightly stated that the
species were originally from the Azores while 24.3 % correctly identified the kind
of insect portrayed (beetle, butterfly, moth, etc.) (Table 2). These results are actu-
ally better than the self-efficacy report of the interviewees, since only 13.5 %
acknowledged moderate/major affect from the exhibition.
Less than half of the interviewees (40.5 %) stated that they appreciated the
exhibition to a large/very large extent, while about half of them (51.4 %) adopted a
neutral position, which reveals a large zone of indifference or latitude of
non-commitment (Table 3). The self-recognised impact of the exhibition in their
attitudes towards conservation of endemic insects was suboptimal with about
one-fifth (21.6 %) recognising that it had contributed to change their attitude
(Table 4). The silver lining came when people were asked about what they would
do after having seen the banners. A large majority (78.4 %) expressed interest either
in the insects (e.g. learning more about them, seeing them alive), or the exhibition
(e.g. in talking about it, photographing the banners) (Table 3).
The verbalisation of “what comes to mind” after looking at the banners resulted
in 56 words (35 different; average of 1.5) (Table 3). The word “insect”, besides
being the most frequent, it was always the first mentioned. Another word always
among the first to be mentioned was “alien”, although with a much lower frequency
(8.1 %). The expectation that first impressions would relate to the beauty and
function of the insects was not supported, as people used a more descriptive
approach in this question.
To investigate the feelings evoked by the exhibition, a semantic differential of
five pairs of qualities was used: ugly/beautiful; useless/useful; repugnant/attractive;
difficult/simple; and alarming/soothing. The overall impression towards the banners
was diversified, with the qualities directly associated with the portrayed insect,
“beauty” and “attractiveness”, producing the highest neutral responses (Table 3).
Different banners elicited different reactions from the public. The moth, Ascotis
fortunata azorica (Fig. 1), was considered attractive by all viewers and this was
also the favourite insect of the contest put forward by the Campus alive blog2 users,
although moths were never referred to as the most-liked insects (neither in this
study nor in the preliminary study with 223 persons from Terceira Island; unpub-
lished). Conversely, the butterfly Hipparchia azorina azorina (Table 1) was the

2
Campus alive—Há Vida no Campus—http://havidanocampus.blogspot.pt
138 I.R. Amorim et al.

least associated with favourable qualities, which is interesting since butterflies

generally rate high on public preferences and, in this particular study, were men-
tioned by 10 persons (27.0 %) as their favourite insects (Table 4). It is suspected
that the fact that only the hairy head of Hipparchia was portrayed in the banner may
have worked against this species. Having no wings in the picture, one of butterflies’
most distinctive features may have clashed with the idea of “beauty” and “cuteness”
that are invoked by most people to justify their butterfly preference among insects
(Table 4). Although the insect Hemerobius azoricus was not deemed beautiful or
attractive, the banner was considered the most soothing. This was possibly due to
the greenish hue of the picture background, while, in the other banners, it was
black, grey or brown.
The impact evaluation of the exhibition on public knowledge and attitudes
towards endemism, insects and nature was planned, and a preliminary study
engaging 223 persons living in Terceira Island was made prior to the launching of
the exhibition. Nevertheless, only 37 people were interviewed during the exhibition
and, thus, no substantive conclusions could be drawn on what impact the exhibition
may have had on Azorean people concerning endemic insect species.
At the time the exhibition was launched, a press release was sent out to the
media to promote and explain the exhibition to people living in or visiting Angra do
Heroísmo. As a result, Azoreans for millions of years was featured on three tele-
vision news programmes (both regional and national RTP), the radio (local), seven
newspapers (local) and 16 online sites, including the Science Centre of Angra do
Heroísmo (CCAH3), the Portuguese Society of Entomology (SPEN4), and the
Portuguese Ministry for Education and Science (programme Mundo na Escola5)
websites. A newspaper reference (Lima 2013), used the Azoreans for millions of
years exhibition to draw attention to the meagre public funds allocated to termite
control in the Azores; he entitled his piece A Desgraçada (The Unfortunate), using
the same cognomen rationale used in the exhibition. Other unforeseen results were
the many instances where people, mainly tourists, inquired at the local tourism
office and city hall about the outdoor insect exhibition. They sought general
information on the exhibition, but also had specific questions regarding particular
banners/species. To address this need, bilingual (Portuguese and English) infor-
mative A2 size posters were produced to be displayed at the science centre, tourism
office and city hall in Angra do Heroísmo, which included the following sections:
(i) What is this exhibition all about?; (ii) What to find on each banner?; (iii) Why
insects?; (iv) Why in the city?; (v) When and where to visit the exhibition?; and
(vi) Authorship and acknowledgements. Equally positive was the response to an
online reference to the exhibition on the international forum “skyscraper”, which
received 838 messages and 573 likes. Finally, the exhibition Azoreans for millions
of years also caught the attention of biologists, and two articles were published in
different journals devoted to science divulgation: Gaspar et al. (2014) in Ecologi@
3
CCAH—http://ccah-oaa.blogspot.pt
4
SPEN—https://www.facebook.com/sociedadeportuguesadeentomologia/
5
Mundo na Escola—https://www.facebook.com/MundoNaEscola/
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 139

—the journal of Portuguese Ecological Society, and Rego et al. (2015) in Ide@—
the journal of the Sociedad Entomologica Aragonesa. In both articles, the exhibi-
tion was presented as a creative way to promote and celebrate natural heritage and
endemic insects, in particular.

3 Promoting Public Participation: The Creative Naming

of Endemic Insects on Facebook—Chama-lhe
Nomes! (Pick a Name!)

3.1 Specific Aims and Strategy

To take advantage of the fact that digital media provide a far-reaching means of
mass communication and are particularly effective among young people (Press and
Livingstone 2006), a communicational device was developed as part of the Azorean
Bugs and Society intervention using the free online social networking service
Facebook. In particular, this activity aimed to: (i) raise awareness of the biodiversity
found in the Azores, namely insects; (ii) make people aware of the fact that the
particular species portrayed only exist in the Azores; and (iii) engage people in
biodiversity conservation.
Since “people care about what they know” (Balmford et al. 2002, p. 2367b), it is
important, although not enough, to share knowledge on conservation initiatives.
Besides people being unaware of the existence of most insect species, and
disliking most of the ones they know, another factor contributing to this insect
blindness is the fact that the majority of them lack common names. For example, for
the 50 fly species that are restricted to the Azores, there are only four common
names (mosca, mosca-da-fruta, mosca-do-vinagre, mosquito) and for all of the 429
fly species that occur in the Azores (Borges et al. 2010), only eight have common
names.
However, why is it so important to have a name? The act of naming provides an
identity to the entity being named. Often, a person’s name is the first thing others
learn about an individual, and people lacking a name are not socially recognised
(Armstrong and Fontaine 1989). Concomitantly, the opportunity to name an entity
represents a form of empowerment for the namer. For example, in the Book of
Genesis (2: 19b), when Adam was given the chance to name animals: “brought
them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a
living creature, that was its name”. Furthermore, the act of naming also shapes the
perception of the namer (Armstrong and Fontaine 1989) and, for this activity,
people were challenged to abstract salient traits of each insect species from the
information provided, to name them.
This communication activity was set on an identity framework, which aimed to
bring people and insects closer together in an effort to foster public engagement in
insect conservation. Table 5 summarises the message design process, including
underlying arguments and tactics adopted.
 140

Table 5 Message design (imagery and text) to raise awareness of 12 Azorean endemic insect species in the Facebook page Chama-lhe Nomes!—Pick a
Name! contest.

Photographs: Enésima Mendonça, except Tipula macaronesica (Paulo A. V. Borges)

I.R. Amorim et al.

*More detailed information concerning each species was provided on the Facebook page, outside the ID card
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 141

Animal anthropomorphisation facilitates how people relate to animals and

develop empathy towards them, which is crucial to promoting concern for species
and, therefore, has the potential to become a powerful tool for biological conservation
(Root-Bernstein et al. 2013). In order to take advantage of this fact, identity cards
were assigned to 12 Azorean endemic insect species (Table 5—Argument Identity).
Following the rationale of serious games (e.g. Ritterfeld et al. 2009), the ID cards
were created to be used in a fun contest intended to promote the public acquaintance
with local endemic species, i.e. while providing entertainment, the primary goal of the
Facebook contest Pick a Name! was to raise awareness of insect species that only
occur in the Azores. The ID cards contained the species photograph, scientific name,
and biological and ecological information, and were designed to resemble official
identity cards. The “official look” of the ID cards, the colour scheme used (Azorean
flag colours) and the emphasis on geographic exclusivity, were all part of the strategy
used to narrow the gap between people and insects and to foster a sense of respon-
sibility towards the “safe keeping” of these species.
In the Pick a Name! contest, participants were challenged to propose common
names for 12 insect species and the advertised prize for the people suggesting the
“winning” common names was to have their own names associated with the Natural
History of the Azores. Public recognition, for both insects and participants, was,
therefore, at the centre of the strategy used. As mentioned earlier, the opportunity to
name an entity is a privilege and, in biological sciences, it is up to the taxonomist
describing a new species to decide on the specific epithet that follows the genus
name. Although taxonomists must follow nomenclature rules, they have consid-
erable freedom in the choice of scientific names, some being more descriptive (e.g.,
Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758), and others more imaginative (e.g., Ytu brutus
(Spangler, 1980)—beetle). It is also common to have species named after the region
where they occur (e.g., Nyctalus azoreum (Thomas, 1901)—bat endemic to the
Azores) and, more recently, to have species named in recognition of individual or
corporate benefactors in exchange for conservation and/or research funding (e.g.,
GoldenPalace.com monkey, Callicebus aureipalatii Wallace, Gómez, Felton, &
Felton, 2006) (Tree Foundation6). Numerous species have also been named after
personalities (e.g., Scaptia beyonceae Lessard, 2011—horse-fly named after the
singer Beyoncé; Prethopalpus attenboroughi Baehr & Harvey, 2012—spider
named after Sir David Attenborough) and fictional characters (e.g., many species
named after the work of J. Tolkien7), which has proven to be very successful in
drawing attention to the particular species.
Pick a Name! gave the general public the power to name endemic insects that
lacked a common name. The goal of this contest was to empower both the namer
and the named: the former could aspire to have his/her name linked to the natural
history of the Azores and the latter would no longer remain anonymous. In order to
be able to suggest a common name, participants had to devote time to “study” the
ID cards and extra information provided for each species, and, based on the species

6
http://treefoundation.org/2013/10/13/name-a-species-save-a-forest-new-tardigrade-species/
7
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Species_named_after_Tolkien’s_works
142 I.R. Amorim et al.

traits, to think of an appropriate name. The expectation was that the time partici-
pants spent on each species would increase biodiversity awareness and scientific
literacy, and would ultimately promote individual responsibility towards biodi-
versity conservation.
To draw attention to this initiative, the online contest was given a double
entendre name—Chama-lhe Nomes! (Pick a Name!): the name describes, simul-
taneously, the activity of naming, but also refers to name-calling, a widely held,
although socially disapproved behaviour.

3.2 Naming an Insect: An Engaging Initiative

The Azorean Biodiversity Group (University of the Azores) launched the contest
Pick a Name! on the Facebook page Chama-lhe Nomes! (www.facebook.com/
Chama.lhe.Nomes; Amorim et al. 2013), where 12 endemic insects—part of the
unique biological heritage of the Azores—lacking common names were showcased
in an appealing and interactive format. As mentioned above, each species was
assigned an ID card including a photograph, scientific name and concise infor-
mation on species morphology, habitats and behaviour, using language appropriate
to the general public (Table 5). From July to December 2012, creative Facebook
users with a knack for names were challenged to come up with appropriate common
names for those 12 insect species that only occur in the Azores, based on the species
information provided (image and text).
A scientific committee (the authors of this chapter) selected the most appropriate
common names for each species, which were posted on the Facebook page Chama-
lhe Nomes! (Pick a Name!), along with the names of the “winning” participants that
suggested them. Similarly to scientific names that are followed by the name of the
taxonomist that described the species, the common name adopted for each of the 12
insect species is followed by the name of the participant. This information will soon
also be featured in the updated version of the online Azorean Biodiversity Portal
(http://azoresbioportal.uac.pt/; Borges et al. 2010b). The criteria to choose the
“winning” common names included creativity and non-error inducing (e.g., not to
assign the common name ant to a wasp, just because it may look like one),
regardless of the frequency of the suggested names.
Prior to the Pick a Name! online contest with endemic insects, a “small trial” was
organised with bryophytes, where members of the Azorean Biodiversity Group were
challenged to suggest common names for species that occur in the Azores. One of
the most successful names “fragrant snakeskin liverwort” (Azorean Biodiversity
Portal—azoresbioportal.uac.pt) was adopted for the species Conocephalum conicum
(L.) Dumort., since it describes both the scent and the look of the plant. This trial
showed the great engagement potential of the initiative, since several people were
eager to participate, as well as its learning potential, because it was necessary to
apprehend the most striking features of the species in order to be able to suggest
common names that are easy to recognise the species by and to remember.
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 143

To promote the Pick a Name! online contest, the Azorean Biodiversity Group
advertised this initiative through the Portuguese Guild of Biologists and locally
through environmental organisations and science centres, namely Associação Os
Montanheiros, Museu Carlos Machado, Amigos dos Açores, Centro de Ciência de
Angra do Heroísmo—Observatório do Ambiente and ExpoLab—Centro de Ciência
Viva. Additionally, a press release on this initiative was also distributed to the
media.

3.3 Facebook Contest Evaluation

Bearing in mind the logic model established for the Azorean intervention Bugs and
Society (Arroz et al. 2016) results from this initiative were assessed using Facebook
metrics data and other indicators.
First, the main short-term goal of this initiative—assigning common names to 12
Azorean endemic insects—was a success. The 132 participants suggested 776
common names for the insect species portrayed on the Facebook page Chama-lhe
Nomes! (Pick a name!). Participants suggested names for all insect species,
although some species elicited more names than others did (min = 52; max = 89),
with a slight decrease in the number of names suggested from the first to the last
species presented in the contest.
Another indicator of this initiative’s success was site traffic statistics showing
that, from July to December 2012, a daily average of 438 new visitors interacted
with the Facebook page Chama-lhe nomes! (Pick a Name!), with the maximum
number of people that saw any content associated with the page per day reaching
almost 22,000 people. Moreover, 35 science and environmental online sites visited
and/or promoted the Facebook page. This online contest caught the attention of
several media, resulting in several interviews, magazine and newspaper articles
(N = 20), and mentions on national and regional TV and radio stations (N = 5),
which, in turn, reinforced the interest in this initiative (Fig. 2). For instance, after
the LUSA news agency released a piece on the Pick a Name! contest on October
29th, the number of names submitted peaked.
The visibility attained by this initiative was crucial to draw attention to insects in
general, but most importantly, to species that only occur in the Azores, and ulti-
mately, to the conservation of Azorean biodiversity.
In addition to the data analysis concerning Facebook page visitors and audiences
reached through the media, it is also important to consider the actual names pro-
posed by the participants. According to Gurung (2003), in order to name insects,
taxonomists mostly focus on morphological criteria, while non-specialists (e.g., the
Tharu) privilege other norms, such as locomotion and human impact. The 12 insect
species selected for this initiative did not have autochthonous known names, were
small and inhabited recondite native forests—so, the probability that people had
seen them before was, at best, very low. Consequently, participants’ efforts to come
up with an adequate name for each creature were, as expected, predominantly based
144 I.R. Amorim et al.

Fig. 2 Number of names suggested, from July to December 2012, to the online contest launched
on the Facebook page Chama-lhe Nomes! (Pick a Name!)

on the information provided on Facebook (95.1 %): the proposed names could be
traced either to the photograph alone (12.0 %), to text alone (51.2 %) or to both
together (31.2 %), although these proportions differed among species.
Not only did participants use the information provided on the ID cards (88.1 %),
but they also attributed great importance to the information provided in additional
text (50.4 %). Criteria used to name the species included, colours (4.5 %), range
distribution (27.6 %), resemblance to other animals (27.3 %), relation/resemblance
to plants (18.5 %), geology (3.3 %), and others that were difficult to categorise.
Also very interesting is the fact that, for some species, namely, Callacales droueti,
Pinalitus oromii or Atheta dryochares, the same common name, or slight variations
of it, were proposed by several participants.
The Pick a Name! contest involved few financial costs, as message design was
performed by the Azorean Biodiversity Group multidisciplinary research team
using photographs and scientific information already available in the research
group, although it mobilised a great number of collaborators. A straightforward
conclusion that can be drawn is that a low budget activity, even without tangible
rewards for the participants, can be appealing to many people. Initiatives like this
have, therefore, a great potential to increase people’s awareness of biodiversity and
may be used to engage citizens in the conservation of a main asset of a region’s
natural heritage—its endemic species.

4 Discussion

4.1 Using Scola’s Brutti, Sporchi e Cattivi of Biodiversity

to Promote Nature Conservation

Two initiatives of the Azorean intervention Bugs and Society were presented in this
chapter based on the principles and strategies proposed by Arroz et al. (2016). The
main goal was to raise public awareness to nature conservation, using the
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 145

taxonomic group with the highest number of unique species in the Azores, but
which, like elsewhere, has been traditionally ignored—insects.
The use of the community cultural ethos (values, icons) as a unifying factor was
expected to be of great heuristic value for raising awareness of biodiversity loss,
particularly regarding the loss of biodiversity unique to the Azores. However, to
identify the values, knowledge and practise that define being Portuguese and
Azorean was an elusive task, hindering the communication approach. Currently,
which of the following is the most successful at embodying Portuguese national
identity: D. Sebastião?8 Egas Moniz?9 Cristiano Ronaldo?10 In the outdoor exhi-
bition Azoreans for millions of years, kings’ cognomens and the functions insects
play in the ecosystems were used to narrow the gap between people and these
animals. However, few people (5.4 %) mentioned either of those references, and
the most relevant elements of the messages conveyed on the banners turned out to
be the insect photographs (imagery power of macro-photography) and the reference
to the taxonomic group of each insect. It seems, therefore, that message strategies,
languages and vehicles must be diversified in order to deconstruct different people’s
resistances using arguments contingent to different target groups.
However, which specific resistances need to be deconstructed? Nature, biodi-
versity or endemicity conservation were among the concerns verbalised by people
interviewed regarding the outdoor exhibition, and were reflected in the common
names suggested for the Pick a Name! online contest. Additionally, when specifi-
cally questioned on the importance of protecting species that only exist in the
Azores and on the resources that should be allocated for conservation, nine out of
10 interviewees answered that it was very or extremely important to protect
endemic species, and roughly half answered that 40 % or more of the Azorean
budget for the environment should be invested in the conservation of those species.
Nevertheless, because insects are among the least likeable creatures, both at local
(Gabriel et al. 2012a) and global levels (e.g., Gurung 2003), all “good intentions”
seem to vanish when these are the species in need of protection. In fact, social
representations of insects are dynamic and vary according to the individuals’ sit-
uation, education level and worldview (Amorozo et al. 2002). Besides, the bigger
fauna, and especially animals that bear resemblances to humans, receive more
attention compared to insects (Batt 2009). Moreover, there is a trend for people to
favour exotic over local fauna (Ballouard et al. 2011). A good example of this
phenomenon relates to the flagship species that lead conservation efforts (e.g.,
pandas, tigers), where most of the funding comes from people that live on a dif-
ferent continent and have never seen, and most likely will never see, them in the
wild.
For the insect species portrayed in the Azorean intervention, Bugs and Society,
neither the fact that they only exist in the Azores nor the geographic proximity with

8
The Desired—Portuguese people have mythically longed for this King, who disappeared in the
battle of Alcácer Quibir (1578), to end national crises.
9
Laureate of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1949.
10
In 2015, he was awarded his fourth Golden Boot as Europe’s leading football goal scorer.
146 I.R. Amorim et al.

the target public succeeded in promoting biophilia: the local population does not
seem to value nor care more for these species just because they are endemic and
exist in the same (island) territory.
Certainly contributing to the bad reputation of insects are people’s own expe-
riences with some of the most common insects (e.g., Japanese beetle, termite, flee,
fly, cockroach): they destroy crops and buildings, sting, bite and spread diseases.
Over time, humans have evolutionarily and culturally learned to avoid insects
(Lockwood 2013; Butler 1991; Curtis 2013), despite the fact that the great majority
of insects lives in native habitats, with very little chance of direct interactions with
humans, and that insects are crucial for ecosystem functioning and human survival,
i.e., “If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos” (Wilson
2006, p. 33).
Another example of the lack of popularity that insects enjoy among the general
public is reflected by the existence of fewer insect enthusiasts’ websites, with fewer
followers, compared to other taxonomic groups’ websites. For example, the
Facebook page of the largest insect conservation society in Europe—Butterfly
Conservation—has 75,678 likes11 compared to the 606,514 likes on the bird ori-
ented—The National Audubon Society—page.
To change the overall aloofness and reluctance to acknowledge the problem of
biodiversity loss, in particular, the loss of endemic species, and even more
specifically, the loss of insect species, is, therefore, a challenging task. This chal-
lenge may be even more difficult in Portugal where scientific literacy is low
compared to other European countries (EC 2010), and where people’s perceived
distance to nature (local “recreational or green areas”) is higher compared to other
European countries (PT-19.7 % vs. EU27-12.5 %) and even to Nordic Countries
(3.5 %), where the climate is much more severe (Eurofound 2013).
Two communication activities dealing with the complexity of biodiversity loss
have been described in this chapter. These activities differed in terms of engage-
ment—to inform (outdoor exhibition—Azoreans for millions of years) and to
involve (Facebook contest—Pick a Name!)—and used distinct languages and tac-
tics, but shared common principles, and were designed to target groups not nec-
essarily engaged with science and/or nature, and used Azorean endemic insects as
the protagonist.
It is important, however, to reflect upon the decision of having used insects as
the taxonomic group to raise awareness of biodiversity. To halt biodiversity loss
and to foster empathy towards invertebrates are important goals, but the decision of
combining both might have hindered the ultimate goal of nature conservation. For
example, some nature advocates may have such a strong dislike for insects that they
are not receptive to an intervention, which, although intended to promote endemic
biodiversity, is based on those organisms.
There are a couple of local LIFE programmes (LIFE Priolo12; Gil et al. 2016),
where the actions towards protecting specific target species, or groups of species

11
December 10th 2015.
12
http://life-priolo.spea.pt/en/
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 147

(birds in both cases), have positively impacted the conservation of other species
within the same ecological community and are examples of successful nature
conservation endeavours in the Azores. Should then other, more charismatic
organisms, and not insects—the brutti sporchi e cattivi of biodiversity—be used to
communicate about the insidious threats of biodiversity loss?
The use of non-insect species was not an option for this particular intervention,
as it was developed within a research project addressing insect speciation on
islands13. Further, because insects are, in fact, the group with the highest number of
species that can only be found in the Azores. Additionally, the research team was
eager to embrace the challenge of promoting unsightly species.

4.2 The Importance of Evaluating Outputs and Outcomes

Unfortunately, instances where science communication interventions were system-

atically evaluated are more the exception than the rule. There are a few examples in
Portugal (Campos et al. 2009; Delicado 2010; Delicado et al. 2013; Ceríaco and
Marques 2013; Schreck Reis et al. 2013), and the work edited by Filippoupoliti (2010)
is an international reference.
However, even in studies where the evaluation of results and impacts are clearly
stated as goals, data is sometimes missing, superficial, and subjective (Part 3
“Activating evaluation tactics” in Filippoupoliti 2010, pp. 298–571) or does not
support the inferences made by the communicator:
Nevertheless, the curators believe (though no summative evaluation or audience study was
carried out) the majority of visitors did enjoy the exhibition and that the main problem was
the inability to attract the public, rather than visitors’ dissatisfaction with the visit (Delicado
2010, p. 479).

There are also situations where the evaluation of communication activities was
assigned to independent parties (e.g., Connolly 2010; Sneider 2010; White 2010);
however, in these cases, the formative evaluation of the initiatives tends to give less
relevance to communication results compared to the overall achievements of the
intervention within which the communication initiative was developed. Examples
of best practise (e.g., Connolly 2010; Magill 2010; Schreck Reis et al. 2013) show
that evaluation, either when part of all stages of the intervention, or at least present
at one of the stages (e.g., Fox and Phillips 2010; White 2010), is extremely
important in valuing the work developed, in the monitoring and management of
future interventions and in supporting decisions concerning mobilised resources.
When a communication strategy is conceived to include evaluation, from con-
ception to implementation, it does not imply that outputs should become the only
indicators by which to assess the success of the intervention. Even though outputs,
as well as outcomes, are very useful to analyse, to discuss and to promote the

13
What can the Macaronesian islands teach us about speciation? Acase study of Tarphius beetles
and Hipparchia butterflies. FCT-PTDC/BIA-BEC-104571/2008.
148 I.R. Amorim et al.

quality of the work being developed, allowing for changes in the way people reflect
on what is being done and how it is being done, the relevance of an intervention
extends well beyond those (Korn 2008).
The Azorean Bugs and Society intervention was planned and evaluated
according to a logic model (Arroz et al. 2016), which has proven quite productive,
both during the conception stage of the intervention—by allowing for the clear
definition of goals, target groups and intervention processes—as well as during the
gathering and analysis of outputs and outcomes, that occurred at different periods in
time. The Logic Model requires high creativity in proposing expected indicators
and strategies to evaluate, which implies a diversification of outcomes concerning
knowledge, attitudes and behaviours, and it demands the consideration of outputs
such as public participation and satisfaction. Nevertheless, this evaluation model is
quite time and resource consuming and requires trained personnel for data
collection.
Given the few studies concerning nature conservation interventions that evaluate
their initiatives, there is no solid baseline upon which to compare the results of Bugs
and Society, and it is very difficult to infer the impact of its results. There are,
however, two exceptions in the Azores. The SOS Térmitas14 (Termites SOS)
intervention, dealt with a risk that directly affected citizens’ built heritage, and had
less than 10 % participation among the people that lived in areas affected by
termites (Arroz et al. 2012a, b). The well-known SOS Cagarro15 (Corys’s shear-
water SOS) campaign promoted by the Azorean government since 1995 and
publicly evaluated since 2006, shares some indicators concerning the number of
people involved in bird rescues (DRA 2014), and although rescues doubled in five
years (2009–2013), this represents an increase of just 120 participants in all of the
nine Azorean islands. In conclusion, the participation level in the Azores is
remarkably low, regardless of institutional support or the fact that the risk may
concern personal property. Based on this data, the initial expectations for the Bugs
and Society intervention regarding participation were clearly overly optimistic. For
example, it was expected that more than half of the people that walked by the insect
banners of the Azorean for millions of years outdoor exhibition would have
appreciated the initiative and apprehended that the species on display were Azorean
endemics. However, only 35.1 % of the interviewees liked the exhibition and only
29.7 % realised that the showcased insect species only existed in the Azores
(previous sections).
The evaluation of the intervention Bugs and Society revealed both strengths and
weaknesses. The research team, as mentioned above, had unrealistic expectations
concerning the results, but there were also unexpected boons, such as the initiative
Pick a Name! making the front page of a major Portuguese newspaper or being
incorporated into a comic sketch in a popular TV talk show.

14
https://www.facebook.com/sos.termitas; http://sostermitas.angra.uac.pt
15
http://www.azores.gov.pt/gra/dram-soscagarro
Bugs and Society II: Testing Two Communication … 149

4.3 Ideas Worth Sharing

Some of the learning experiences and knowledge gathered during the Bugs and
Society intervention are transferable to other situations, particularly in what con-
cerns suitability, multidisciplinarity, accountability and extensiveness (Arroz et al.
2016).
Suitability
– Context matters: it is crucial for risk communication to take into account local
idiosyncrasies, stakeholders, resistances, and assets, and to be able to establish a
trust and credibility bond between communicators and target groups;
– The mandatory initial steps in any risk communication endeavour are to
understand community attitudes and practises, which requires conducting pre-
vious research on the specific target group perspectives and social representa-
tions, and to conduct a front-end evaluation that will guide message design; and
– The compromise between science communicators and target groups, regarding
their cultural capital and references, is complex and dynamic, and it requires
continuous mutual assimilation and adjustment. Message design cannot be
undermined by neither academic erudition nor “populism”—the final product
must inform and educate without being perceived as condescending.
Multidisciplinarity
– Because both form and content are key elements in communication design, the
diversity of epistemological profiles within the Azorean Biodiversity Group
research team was critical to achieving the expected outputs.
Accountability
– Regulatory processes and efficiency/effectiveness evaluations must be incor-
porated into all science and risk communication endeavours, despite indepen-
dent external evaluation;
– Evaluation results should be shared to enhance the ability to improve future
interventions;
– Evaluation must be continuous and extend in time in order to assess short-,
medium- and long-term impacts of a communication initiative; and
– Evaluation procedures must be extremely sensitive in order to detect subtle
changes in peoples’ reactions to the message being conveyed and in behaviours
towards risk.
Extensiveness
– The impact of a communication intervention can be amplified by developing
declinations of the main activities, as long as the different tactics and languages
used are congruent, i.e. developed within a common strategy to achieve the
proposed goals;
150 I.R. Amorim et al.

– Mass media channels are relevant for the success of a communication inter-
vention. Investing in a media marketing strategy (e.g., newspapers, magazines,
TV, radio, internet) that covers key moments of the intervention is important to
spark interest among the targeted group, as a positive correlation has been
established between presence on social media and public participation;
– Communicators should foster strong bonds with all intervention partners in
order to engage partners in promoting the intervention;
– Communicators should invest in a repository that will aggregate the collective
memory of the processes, products and impacts of the intervention over time
(e.g., book, website);
– Exploring non-traditional vehicles to communicate about science has proven
successful to reach a wider and more diverse target groups; and
– The public engaging potential of an initiative is not necessarily dictated by its
budget (e.g., Facebook contest Pick a Name!).
An obvious conclusion from all that was presented in this chapter (and also,
Arroz et al. 2016) is that a tremendous amount of work is needed to successfully
tackle wicked problems, namely biodiversity loss. Finally, although the intervention
Bugs and Society might not have accomplished all of its initial goals, it was cer-
tainly a step towards engaging people to think about these issues, particularly
regarding a group of unsightly species that only occur in the remote archipelago of
the Azores.

Acknowledgments We would like to thank several persons and institutions without which this
work would not have been possible. FUNDING: Project PTDC/BIA-BEC/104571/2008 (FCT,
Portugal), Project ATLANTISMAR—M2.1.2/I/027/2011 (DRCT, Azores), IRA was funded by
Portuguese National Funds MCTES/FCT Portugal fellowship SFRH/BPD/102804/2014; PART-
NERS: University of the Azores (UAç), Os Montanheiros, Amigos dos Açores (AA), Sociedade
Portuguesa de Entomologia (SPEN), Ordem dos Biólogos (OB), Museu Carlos Machado (MCM),
Expo-Lab Lagoa - Açores, Câmara Municipal de Angra do Heroísmo (CCAH), Associação
Regional de Turismo (ART), Secretaria Regional do Ambiente e do Mar (SRAM), Ecoteca da
Terceira and the owners of private buildings and managers of public institutions that made the
outdoor exhibition possible; PHOTOGRAPHERS: J. Torrent (JT), E. Mendonça (EM), PAV
Borges (PAVB), Axel Hausmann (AH) and M Gascoigne-Pees (MGP); PARTICIPANTS and
COLLEAGUES: all the participants in pilot-studies, surveys and interviews, people involved in
logistics and colleagues from the Azorean Biodiversity Group, especially C. Gaspar, for fruitful
discussions and general help.

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Communicating Biodiversity
Conservation Research Through
Dialogue and Mutual Learning in Rural
and Indigenous Communities
Isabel Ruiz-Mallén

Abstract
Dialogue and mutual learning between civil society and researchers involved in
natural resource management have been increasingly advocated as a means of
improving public understanding of science, biodiversity conservation, and local
well-being. In rural areas in developing countries, however, science communi-
cation and environmental education strategies for disseminating biodiversity
conservation research have traditionally used methods based on top-down,
one-way approaches that have limited local engagement in research and
undermined feedback generation between local people and researchers. This
chapter examines a participatory process of developing a communication
strategy for an environmental conservation research project in Southeastern
Mexico. By analyzing data from interviews and focus groups with stakeholders
from six rural and indigenous communities, opportunities and challenges on how
to collaboratively plan a communication strategy aiming to both disseminate the
research and foster mutual learning are identified and discussed. Such
participatory approach increases the social relevance of the research and
improves both research results and dissemination products.

I. Ruiz-Mallén (&)
Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3), Universitat Oberta de Catalunya,
Barcelona, Spain
e-mail: iruiz_mallen@uoc.edu
I. Ruiz-Mallén
Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA),
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 155

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_10
156 I. Ruiz-Mallén

1 Introduction

Mainstream trends in education and communication for biodiversity conservation

have been traditionally dominated by the information -or knowledge—deficit
model. Such model assumes that lay people are receivers of limited or oversim-
plified information on environmental issues leading to misconceptions and unsus-
tainable attitudes that can only be overcome by providing correct knowledge
(Bickford et al. 2012). This model is thus based on the assumption that providing
meaningful information will rise environmental awareness and lead to
pro-environmental behaviors. The interconnectedness between knowledge, atti-
tudes, and behavior at both individual and collective level in practice, however, is
built in a more complex way than through a linear relationship. It is shaped by a
myriad of psychological and socio-economic factors, such as motivations, values,
emotions, institutional rules and norms, political and economic interests, and cul-
tural traits (Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002; Sturgis and Allum 2004). Adopting a
simplistic approach that neglects the influence of such internal and external factors
in the public understanding of science is the reason why many conventional
environmental communication strategies and education programs, which are only
based on delivering information and knowledge, become ineffective in building
transformative capacity and producing long-term behavioral changes (Schultz 2002;
Jiménez et al. 2014).
New approaches for environmental education and communication advocate for
more inclusionary tools and reflective processes to deal with the above mentioned
limitations. This is the case of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). ESD
requires participatory methodologies for motivating and empowering people to take
action more consciously (UNESCO 2015). Such approach not only promotes
knowledge acquisition on an specific topic (e.g., biodiversity conservation), but
transversal skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration in
decision-making through the promotion of communication and education strategies
encouraging deliberation among different actors involved in sustainability pro-
cesses. The current European Union research strategy (2014–2020) framed in the
Responsible Research and Innovation approach (RRI) also advocates for promoting
dialogue and mutual learning between scientists and civil society as the strategy to
improve public understanding of science and foster people capacity to make
informed decisions that contribute to a more democratic society (Sutcliffe 2011).
RRI has a commitment with science education, sustainability, inclusiveness and
diversity, and reflexivity.
In the fields of conservation research, and specifically when working with
indigenous and rural communities in developing countries, a call for dialogue and
mutual learning between local people and scientists has been encouraged through
the use of participatory research methods to both enrich the scientific practice and
contribute to biodiversity conservation and social well-being (Berkes et al. 2006).
Even though communities’ participation and voice is becoming more relevant and
an increasing number of conservation researchers and practitioners advocate for
Communicating Biodiversity Conservation Research … 157

involving them in the research process and decision-making (Castillo et al. 2006;
Rist et al. 2011), scientists conducting research in this field rather include inclusive
tools in their communication strategy. Communication strategies are generally
based on the production of scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals and com-
munications in conferences. These actions are recognized as scientific activities by
the academic evaluation system and, consequently, are useful in promoting and
consolidating researchers’ academic careers.
Differently, education and communication actions addressed to non-academic
audiences do not contribute to researchers’ career and consequently are not a pri-
ority for them. Researchers habitually experience constrained research agendas,
narrow training in communication and education skills, and lack of recognition and
funding for conducting outreach activities (Torres-Albero et al. 2011). They cannot
invest enough time to involve local actors in planning communication tools.
Resulting actions and materials are thus decontextualized from local actors’ reality,
needs, interests, and concerns, negatively influencing their motivation for learning
and taking consciously action (Ruiz-Mallén et al. 2014). How to develop and
embed a process of dialogue and mutual understanding in the design of a com-
munication strategy still remains a challenge.
This chapter examines a participatory process of collaboratively developing a
communication strategy for a biodiversity conservation research project in South-
eastern rural Mexico between researchers and local stakeholders. In doing that, the
chapter discusses the opportunities and challenges of planning and implementing
participatory communication and education actions in the field of natural resource
management and conservation research for both research and conservation goals.
Creating dialogue and enhancing mutual learning are highlighted as two main
principles to enhance the societal impact of scientific communication.

2 A Mexican Experience of Participatory Communication

The case presented here is framed within a two-year research project conducted by a
Mexican-European consortium of six universities and one non-governmental orga-
nization (NGO) in six rural and indigenous communities living in or around protected
areas in Southeastern Mexico (CONSERVCOM, funded by the Fondo de Coop-
eración Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología UE-Mexico FONCICYT 94395). The
aim of the CONSERVCOM project was to understand how forest management and
conservation is influenced by three types of conservation initiatives with different
scenarios of local participation in decision-making. First, government-managed
protected areas, such as biosphere reserves and national parks where communities
have no power in decision-making. Second, indigenous peoples’ and community
conserved territories and areas (ICCA), such as ecotourism projects and community
conservation areas, which are areas managed by and for communities. Third, Pay-
ments for Ecosystem Services programs (PES) implemented in areas held by com-
munities who follow rules designed by the national government.
158 I. Ruiz-Mallén

Participant communities are located in the states of Veracruz, Oaxaca, Cam-

peche, and Quintana Roo (Table 1). Five of them are placed within or around a
government-managed protected area, three of them are managing ICCAs and other
three are involved in PES. Land tenure is communal in five of them; the other one is
an indigenous community of small-landowners whose members maintain custom-
ary institutions based on collective decision-making over natural resource man-
agement (i.e., assemblies).
The CONSERVCOM project used an interdisciplinary methodological approach
to identify and analyze social-ecological factors and processes influencing the
effectiveness of conservation initiatives, such as land use and land cover change,
livelihoods, local engagement in decision-making and management, and local
knowledge, perceptions and attitudes towards conservation (Reyes-García et al.
2013; Méndez-López et al. 2014; Ruiz-Mallén et al. 2014).

Table 1 Main socio-economic characteristics of the participant communities and conservation

initiatives
Community Land Ethnicity Population Main Conservation initiatives
(state) tenure activity
Tonalaco Communal Mestizo 1202 Forestry Cofre de Perote
(Veracruz) national park
Payment for ecosystem
services
Santa Cruz Communal Chinantec 452 Subsistence Community-based
Tepetotutla agriculture conservation area La
(Oaxaca) tierra del faisan
(ecotourism)
Payment for ecosystem
services
Xmaben Communal Yucatec-Mayan 1300 Subsistence Calakmul biosphere
(Campeche) agriculture reserve
Payment for ecosystem
services
La Mancolona Private Tzeltal 432 Subsistence Calakmul biosphere
(Campeche) agriculture reserve
Community-based
conservation area La
Raiz del Futuro
Felipe Carrillo Communal Yucatec-Mayan 25,744 Services Sian Ka’an biosphere
Puerto reserve
(Quintana Roo) Community-based
conservation areas
Much Kanan Ka’ax
(ecotourism) and La
Sabana
Payment for ecosystem
services
Chunyaxché Communal Yucatec-Mayan 920 Subsistence Sian Ka’an biosphere
(Quintana Roo) agriculture reserve
Communicating Biodiversity Conservation Research … 159

The CONSERVCOM methodology also included a communication strategy to

be developed from the beginning of the project. Such strategy was divided
according to the target audiences into academic and non-academic communication
plans. The academic communication plan was addressed to researchers, practi-
tioners, and other experts working in the fields of biodiversity conservation and
rural development. The CONSERVCOM research team elaborated a list of com-
munication tools to reach this audience, e.g., website, peer-reviewed publications,
thesis, and conferences. Some of these tools were also included in the non-academic
communication plan, which aimed to reach involved stakeholders in management
decision-making of the studied conservation initiatives (i.e., local communities,
NGOs, protected area managers, policy makers). More specifically, and differently
from the vast majority of communication strategies related to research projects, the
CONSERVCOM communication plan addressed to a non-academic audience also
included a myriad of interactive tools that were agreed and developed between local
communities and researchers, such as exhibitions and environmental education
programs. In what follows, I examine how such non-academic communication
strategy was decided and developed through a participatory research approach.

3 Three Stages in the Participatory Process

for Developing a Communication Strategy

To participatory build the non-academic communication strategy within the

CONSERVCOM project, the methodology was structured in three stages according
to the following objectives: (1) Understanding of the communication context,
(2) Fostering interaction and exchange, and (3) Validating the tools. Each stage and
objective was guided by a research question as shown in Fig. 1.
Free, prior, and informed consent from the local authorities of the six commu-
nities was obtained through verbal or written collaboration agreements between
them and the project team in order to conduct the research and disseminate the
results.

Fig. 1 Methodological approach used to develop the participatory communication strategy

160 I. Ruiz-Mallén

3.1 Stage 1: Understanding of the Communication Context

Prior to develop any communication strategy aiming to disseminate the results of a

research on biodiversity conservation to non-academic audiences, including local
communities, it is necessary to identify and understand the ways of knowledge
transmission usually employed by local people to get informed on natural resource
management and conservation issues in and outside their communities. On this
basis, an ethnographic study based on participant observation and interviews was
conducted in each selected community to explore how and where information and
knowledge on natural resource management and conservation issues were trans-
mitted at local level. A total of 130 adults previously identified as key informants
were asked on the places where such information was disseminated in their com-
munities (e.g., community meetings, schools, church) and who were involved in the
process of knowledge transmission (including actors, social groups, and institu-
tions). Such information was collected by four trained researchers, who were
assisted by local translators when participants did not speak Spanish but the
indigenous language (i.e., Tzeltal, Maya-Yucatec, Chinantec). As a result, a
description of stakeholders and spaces of communication was obtained in each
community, which allowed for further identifying appropriated tools to commu-
nicate the project results (Table 2).
In general, local informants identified the local authority, community groups,
associations of local producers, and NGOs as key actors in disseminating infor-
mation on local natural resource management and conservation issues within the
local context. Informants from those communities with ecotourism cooperatives or
managing a community-based conservation area for ecotourism also mentioned
ecotourism guides as key actors in such dissemination process. Interestingly, bio-
sphere reserves and natural parks were not mentioned as spaces of communication
or learning in any of the cases. Although five participant communities were located
within or around protected areas, local people did not use to visit such areas due to
lack of transportation facilities, but also because of their lack of involvement in
managing these areas that are exclusively administrated by the government
(Ruiz-Mallén et al. 2014). Local communities’ lack of recognition of nearby pro-
tected areas as spaces of communication questioned the mainstream dissemination
approach of organizing environmental education and communication activities in
national parks and biosphere reserves. Consequently, and to ensure the effective-
ness of the CONSERVCOM communication strategy to disseminate the research
results to non-academic audiences, this kind of activities were not included in the
communication plan.

3.2 Stage 2: Fostering Interaction and Exchange

Once the stakeholders and spaces of communication for the transmission of

information and knowledge on biodiversity conservation were characterized in each
Communicating Biodiversity Conservation Research … 161

Table 2 Stakeholders and spaces of communication in selected communities

Communities Stakeholders Spaces
Felipe Carrillo Local authority Community
Puerto Regional and federal government meetings
Local cattle ranching and beekeepers associations School
Local and regional NGOs House of culture
International agencies (PNUD) Churches
Academics
Chunyaxché Local authority Community
Federal government meetings
Ecotourism cooperatives School
Regional NGO Church
International agencies (PNUD)
La Mancolona Local authority Community
Regional and federal government meetings
Ecotourism guides Ecotourism area
Local cattle ranching, beekeepers and agroforestry Tree nursery
associations School
Regional NGO Municipality
Churches
Xmaben Local authority Community
Regional and federal government meetings
Local cattle ranching and beekeepers associations School
Local NGO Municipality
Churches
Santa Cruz Local authority Community
Tepetotutla Federal government meetings
Ecotourism guides Ecotourism area
Local beekeepers and agroforestry associations School
International agencies (MIE) Church
Academics
Local and regional NGOs
Tonalaco Local authority and community groups (water, Community
cleaning, etc.) meetings
Federal government School
Local fishing and farming associations Church
Academics

community, CONSERVCOM researchers fostered a process of dialogue with

communities in order to identify and discuss preferred mechanisms and tools to
disseminate the research results. A series of focus groups were conducted during
organized exchange meetings between the six selected communities in two of them:
(1) Xmaben, Campeche, with the participation of three communities also located in
the Yucatan Peninsula (Felipe Carrillo Puerto, Chunyaxché, and Mancolona), and
(2) Santa Cruz Tepetotutla in Oaxaca with participants from Tonalaco, Veracruz.
A total of 49 people participated in both meetings (21 in Xmaben and 28 in
Tepetotutla). Each community agreed those community members attending them.
162 I. Ruiz-Mallén

During the six focus groups, participants of each community were invited to
discuss with researchers on the contents of the CONSERVCOM project that could
be of potential interest and the reasons for and ways of disseminating such contents
(e.g., radio, internet, educational materials, community meetings). In each focus
group, the dialogue was moderated by a facilitator and based on prior knowledge
about the communication context in each community.
In general, focus groups participants identified three types of audiences: (1) local
adults, (2) local children, and (3) people abroad (Table 3). They shared a common
interest to disseminate the CONSERVCOM project findings on both social and
ecological community aspects enforcing biodiversity conservation at local level,
such as the history of the community, land use and cover change, and traditional
knowledge on the diversity and uses of plants and animals. They also highlighted
the need of increasing local people’s awareness on cultural practices related to
conservation and strengthening communities’ environmental values. Suggested
dissemination tools targeted to local people mostly consisted of low-cost materials
such as school drawing exhibitions, posters, and ecological itineraries. They also
included some tools that are not usually suggested by researchers, such as songs and
radio spots.
A more expensive but relevant tool identified by focus group participants was an
itinerant exhibition about the project findings to be implemented, in an interactive
way, in participant communities. In each village, people attending the exhibition
could write or record messages and leave handicrafts to be shared with members of
other communities.
Furthermore, participants highlighted the need of disseminating the results on
their livelihoods, local ecological knowledge, and sustainable management activi-
ties beyond their communities to advertise their productive activities and handi-
crafts and to enhance their image as “rural people who take care of nature”.
Including such information in the project website and elaborating leaflets and
videos were agreed as actions to potentially communicate such information to broad
audiences.
From the final list of agreed communication tools, the research team selected
nine of them according to the availability of financial resources and personnel to
implement the actions in each community (additional funding was granted by the
Programa de Cooperación Inter-Universitaria e Investigación Científica of
the Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperación A/023406/09 and
A/030044/10, and the Fundació Autònoma Solidària-UAB). These tools were:
(1) land-use change maps of each community, (2) itinerant exhibition among
communities, (3) drawings exhibition at schools, (4) website with local productive
activities, (5) environmental education program on the ecotourism project of Felipe
Carrillo Puerto, (6) calendars of the Sian Ka’an biosphere reserve, (7) illustrated
leaflets, (8) national forum on community conservation and (9) video on the
exchange meetings. A research team member was assigned to be responsible for
elaborating the material or conducting the activity corresponding to each tool.
Communicating Biodiversity Conservation Research … 163

Table 3 Communication contents and tools agreed by communities and researchers

Audience Content Tools Communities
Local Land-use change map of the community Poster All
adults History, biodiversity and conservation Book All
projects
History, biodiversity and conservation Itinerant exhibition All
projects from other communities involved
in conservation
Why conservation is important Radio program and Mancolona
spots
Local History, biodiversity, and conservation Illustrated book All
children projects
History, biodiversity and conservation Itinerant exhibition All
projects from other communities involved with pictures and
in conservation drawings
Children’s perception of their community Drawings exhibition at Felipe
the school Carrillo
Puerto,
Chunyaxche
Sian Ka’an biosphere reserve biodiversity Environmental Felipe
and management education program and Carrillo
calendar Puerto,
Chunyaxche
Importance of biodiversity School presentation Mancolona
and song
Forest management practices and activities Illustrated school Tonalaco
notebooks
Biodiversity and traditional knowledge on Itineraries in the Santa Cruz
plants and animals uses community-based Tepetotutla
conservation area
People Ecotourism project and local associations Website All
abroad of producers activities and products
History, biodiversity conservation and Illustrated leaflet All
management and traditional ecological
knowledge of the community
Community-based conservation projects Workshop All
and activities
Exchange meetings between communities Video All
Sustainable management of community Posters Tonalaco
forests and fire prevention
Community values Articles in newspapers Santa Cruz
Tepetotutla
164 I. Ruiz-Mallén

3.3 Stage 3: Validating the Tools

In order to check the appropriateness of the designed communication tools

according to local people’s expectations, a consultation process for validation was
conducted with representatives of local communities who attended the national
forum on community conservation at the end of the research project. The forum
took place in the city of Campeche with 99 participants, 16 of them were local
people, 42 academics, 33 NGOs and eight government representatives.
As mentioned above, the forum was planned as a communication tool to dis-
seminate the CONSERVCOM project findings to the academia, NGOs, and gov-
ernment institutions working on biodiversity conservation and community-based
natural resource management as well as to members of selected communities. In order
to take advantage of this communication tool, community representatives attending
the workshop were invited to validate the content of those tools that were already
designed at that moment: land-use change maps, the video, and illustrated leaflets.
The validation process allowed researchers to identify misunderstandings in the
description of research results that were further amended in order to ensure that the
information provided was concise. For example, a community member realized that
one of the historical events included in the leaflet of his community was wrongly
dated, whereas a member of another community noted that a picture included in the
corresponding leaflet showed a group of women who were not from the commu-
nity. Moreover, local people validation of the dissemination materials also allowed
for obtaining information that complemented the research. For instance, members
from one of the communities realized that the land use change map of their com-
munity did not include an area of PES, which had not been identified in a previous
research fieldwork, thus giving the CONSERVCOM researchers the opportunity of
amending the analysis.
The forum itself was evaluated by using a participatory assessment mural. This
method is based on a 4-point Likert scale but implemented collectively (Güell
2004). Around 60 % of workshop participants were involved in the validation that
was voluntary. Participants were overall satisfied with the forum. More than 90 %
of them acknowledged that the event achieved their expectations of sharing
experiences on community-based conservation, and only four people highlighted
that their ideas were not discussed (Table 4).
The validation of the environmental education program of the ecotourism project
in the community of Felipe Carrillo Puerto followed a different process. This
communication tool was collaboratively designed between community members
working on the local ecotourism project and an undergraduate student who further
assessed the implementation of this program with local secondary students (Fig. 2).
The program was well received by the students. It increased students’ knowledge
on flora and fauna species of the reserve, their uses, and sustainable forest man-
agement practices. The evaluation of the program also showed its value as an
environmental education tool that addressed local people’s interests in enhancing
young people’s awareness on conservation issues (Gonzalez-Ventosa 2011).
Communicating Biodiversity Conservation Research … 165

Table 4 Results of the participatory evaluation of the final workshop

Statement Number of Totally Agreed Disagreed Totally
answers agreed disagreed
I only came to listen 56 7.1 10.7 26.8 55.4
I came to work on new experiences 60 55.0 33.3 11.7 0
I came to share experiences 64 46.9 39.1 9.4 4.6
My ideas have been discussed 62 22.9 70.9 6.2 0
Now I know more about community 66 27.3 60.6 12.1 0
conservation
Now we have new proposals to 68 38.2 39.7 22.1 0
improve community conservation
The workshop has facilitated the 69 52.2 40.6 7.2 0
exchange of experiences

Fig. 2 Community member conducting the environmental education program to secondary

students in Felipe Carrillo Puerto (Picture by I. Gonzalez-Ventosa)

Unfortunately, it was not possible to validate other communication tools (i.e.,

calendar, itinerant exhibition) with the corresponding community members due to
lack of time and resources in the latest stage of the research project.
166 I. Ruiz-Mallén

4 Concluding Remarks

The participatory experience presented here shows that involving local communi-
ties as active actors in planning and developing communication and education tools
and actions not only contributes to enhance the impact of the resultant communi-
cation strategy in terms of improving public understanding of science and the
societal impact of the research itself, but also can enhance the relevance of the
research and validate the analysis.
The communication strategy developed within the CONSERVCOM project
received feedback from local people, engaged them and other stakeholders in a
dialogue about the past, present, and future of the relationship between their
communities and their environment, and generated new knowledge on the effec-
tiveness of natural resource management strategies for biological conservation
through fostering mutual learning. Specifically, community meetings exchange for
discussing the contents and tools to be used for the dissemination between CON-
SERVCOM researchers and local communities are clear examples of types of
actions that can be conducted to generate dialogue and deliberation.
In addition, mutual learning between local communities and CONSERVCOM
researchers during the final forum was relevant to identify research gaps in data
collection. Community members’ collaboration in research also empowered them
as knowledgeable actors who could be able to contribute to the research process.
Moreover, dialogue could also be enhanced by integrating communication and
education actions as an inherent part of the research proposal, which may allow for
achieving institutional and financial support. Such approach includes stakeholders’
visions, values, and interests in the research process, and thus implies a clear
political choice (Rist et al. 2011). It may also require extra time and financial and
personnel resources. But making such efforts might allow for avoiding potential
conflicts on further management decisions since local stakeholders are aware of and
actively involved in the whole research process since the beginning.
Creating spaces for dialogue and deliberation and promoting mutual learning
thus emerge as main principles to enhance the impact of scientific communication.
Developing such participatory process, of course, involves certain challenges. Rural
and indigenous communities are not homogeneous units, but constructed around
power relationships that may shape access to information and the ability to act on it.
Researchers should promote equality in community members’ involvement in the
design of the communication strategy to grant priority to the interests and concerns
of the most vulnerable groups. Other challenges are related to communication
barriers, lack of resources, and limited time for developing participatory commu-
nication because of the schedule of research projects. As the experience of the
CONSERVCOM project has shown, however, such challenges can be overcome if
anticipated. The described participatory approach can thus be used and adapted by
researchers working in the field of natural resource management and conservation
who are interested in emphasizing the interaction with stakeholders for the benefit
of both science and society.
Communicating Biodiversity Conservation Research … 167

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Education for Sustainability
in the Context of Community Forestry
Rita Serra, Patrícia Ferreira, Iryna Skulska, Mayrén Alavez-Vargas,
Anailton Salgado, João Arriscado Nunes and Raúl Garcia-Barrios

Abstract
Community forestry in Portugal is emerging as a promising form of multifunc-
tional forestry that combines scientific and technical knowledge with the
participation of the local residents in decision-making. These forests are
governed by collective property arrangements (baldios) based on millenarian
traditional usufruct rights of a local community of commoners (compartes).
Participation is open to all the new residents regardless of their gender, activity
or status. However, during the 20th century the connection between the
commoners and the commons was severely disrupted by the Forest Services by
compulsory afforesting the lands with tree species unknown to the local
populations and provoking the decline of collective agro-pastoral practices,
which was most severe close to urban areas. We describe our experience with a
community of compartes that recently gained back control of its common lands
and initiated a project to revitalize a degraded forest in the mountains after four
decades of co-management with the State. We also detail the specificities and
challenges that in the context of community forestry are crucial for the residents
to authentically construct and take part in a commons land narrative, and the
educational activities we have jointly developed to activate meaningful
engagement in collective practices, intergenerational responsibility and active
citizenship.

R. Serra (&)
P. Ferreira
I. Skulska
M. Alavez-Vargas
A. Salgado
J.A. Nunes

Centro de Estudos Sociais, Universidade de Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: miscara@gmail.com
R. Garcia-Barrios
Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias, UNAM, Cuernavaca, Mexico

A. Salgado
Universidade da Floresta, Cruzeiro do Sul, Acre, Brazil

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 169

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_11
170 R. Serra et al.

1 Introduction

Community forests are a global phenomenon that re-emerged during the 20th cen-
tury since the 80s after two centuries of strong repression by nation-states (Bullock
and Hanna 2012). Traditionally, community forests were multifunctional spaces that
served the needs of local populations which had usufruct rights to collect firewood,
bushland, mushrooms, berries and a multitude of non-wood forest products. How-
ever, the emergence of modern silviculture during the 18th century simplified the
forest to maximize the production of wood, forests were placed under the direct rule
of the state and the local communities were dispossessed from their common lands
(Scott 1998). This triggered violent conflicts between the state and local populations
and the impoverishment of the people whose subsistence was based on forest
livelihoods (Peluso 1992). During the 20th century, nation-states were severely
criticized for their intents to control the society through top-down approaches that
frequently failed to improve the human condition (R. García-Barrios and L. Gar-
cía-Barrios 2008). During the 80s, nation-states adopted neoliberal policies that
handed over the pretensions to control society to the market forces, and were met
with fierce opposition by social movements all over the globe (Klein 2007).
A number of diverse and heterogeneous actors from civil society struggled for an
alternative reform of the institutions of the state to strengthen civil participation in
decision-making as a way to reduce inequalities and increase social and environ-
mental justice (Santos 2006). It was in this context that local struggles over the
common lands intersected with national and international struggles to increase local
control over natural resources. The devolution of common lands and forests to local
communities earned the support of global organizations such as FAO and was
backed by studies from the scientific community that affirmed the capacity of local
actors to sustainably manage natural resources without state intervention (Ostrom
1990). Although initially community forests were considered a phenomenon pri-
marily found in developing countries, recent studies are revealing its true global
dimension by recognizing the experiences of North America and Europe (Bullock
and Hanna 2012).
As the result of many intersecting processes and heterogeneous constructions
(Taylor 2010), community forests generate high but diverse expectations of
achieving environmental, economic and social benefits. The word community
evokes warm feelings of social actors “doing the right thing” working for the
common good. Jeffery Burley, of the Oxford Forestry Institute, described it as
“more or less equivalent and reflect Abraham Lincoln’s view of democracy—
government of the people, by the people, for the people” (Sarre 1994). However,
when it comes to define what community forestry is, the word community plays no
role at all. The definition of FAO1 makes no assumptions on the nature of the

1
Community forestry was initially defined by FAO as, “any situation which intimately involves
local people in a forestry activity. It embraces a spectrum of situations ranging from woodlots in
areas which are short of wood and other forest products for local needs, through the growing of
trees at the farm level to provide cash crops and the processing of forest products at the household,
Education for Sustainability in the Context of Community … 171

institutional arrangements or social relationships behind “the people” governing

them, taking a pragmatic stand that good forest governance can come in all shapes
and formats. Nevertheless, empirically grounded studies revealed that this stand is
socially naïve. Defining community is crucial to guide instruments and policies that
can actually make community forest projects thrive and reconnect the forest
ecosystem management with the people’s well-being (Flint et al. 2008). For the
authors just cited, community emerges through communication and interaction
among people who care about each other and about the place they live in. It is a
phenomenon that arises through the concerted actions of residents of a local society
who come to share values, concerns, interests, and actions that are expressed in
prevailing local narratives. Community is marked by its multiple and often
conflicting perspectives, but when the conditions are right—where there is common
space, shared way of life, and collective actions, local citizens are able to overcome
differences and special interests to recognize the common good. This interactional
approach draws attention to forces that block or retard the emergence of the
interactional community in particular settlements that keep communities in a neo-
tenic condition (García-Barrios and Serra, in press) that allows them to persist and
even reproduce but prevents them from achieving institutional maturity and purpose
authenticity. Without such shared resources, the bottom-up processes essential to
involving local people in decision-making are stymied and community-based ini-
tiatives cannot occur. Communities are neither permanent nor immutable: they last
as long as the people in an area continue to care about each other and the place, and
express this caring in the actions they take to enhance general well-being.
In Portugal mountain places are constantly faced with the migration of young
people for urban areas in search for jobs. Locally available quality jobs are crucial
to provide an income and support lively communities. By increasing the depen-
dency of the population on forest resources, more people may come to recognize
community forests as a common good and accept the responsibility to manage
them. This implies keeping community forests as spaces capable of supporting not
only leisure activities but a livelihood, deepening the connection between the for-
ests and local people. This is particularly relevant in times of economic crisis as the
one we are living in the Eurozone. One of the possible ways to achieve this
objective is through community forest enterprises (CFE). The model of CFEs is
quite successful in Mexico, and aims to place commercially-oriented companies
under the control of the commoners to finance common good purposes, especially
social care services to the population (Tejera-Hernández and García-Barrios 2008).
Experiences of CFEs also exist in Europe in regions with a strong culture of
autonomy as the Trento Valley, in Italy (Jeanrenaud 2001), and may mitigate the
social damages caused by the current demise of the State to provide social care
services at the local level. However, CFEs require a great increase of the

(Footnote 1 continued)
artisan or small industry level to generate income, to the activities of forest dwelling communities”
(http://www.fao.org/docrep/u5610e/u5610e04.htm).
172 R. Serra et al.

commoners’ responsibilities closing off the possibility for oscillatory movements of

getting in and out of participation.
In this chapter, the authors’ argument goes as follows: (1) the processes sup-
porting the ongoing formation of place-oriented communities were interrupted;
(2) community forestry have a potential to prompt anew the formation of com-
munities, but only under the right conditions; (3) educational approaches oriented to
the commons can sparkle social interactions and the sustainability of community
forest initiatives.

2 Community Forests in Portugal

In Portugal, community forests are the result of common lands that were com-
pulsory afforested by the State Forest Services during the Estado Novo dictatorship
(1926–1974) and devolved to the local populations after the Carnation Revolution
(1974). These common lands are named baldios, a word that is also used as a
depreciating term meaning waste, useless or abandoned space.
Baldios represent close to 12 % of the Portuguese forests. Although the
afforestation of the country was mainly the result of state forest policies, the state
has the lowest proportion of forests in Europe (2 %). Most of the forests are
privately owned (86 %) and managed by industrials or small owners associations.
The Portuguese forest is increasingly market-oriented and Eucalyptus has become
the dominant species.
Baldios occupy an area close to 500 thousand hectares and are localized mainly
in mountain regions (Fig. 1).
At the moment, 1441 baldios are registered in the country, with an average area
of 412 ha. Mountain forests can support multifunctional forests and a plethora of
activities such as recreation, tourism, hunting, fishing and pastoralism, together with
diversified timber and non-timber forest products (Lopes and Cristóvão 2010).
Baldios can be very relevant for mountain economies, and their aggregated eco-
nomic value is estimated at 70 million euros (CNVTC 2010). They are non-profit
institutions that support qualified local jobs, social enterprises and charities.
Baldios are managed by the commoners. The commoners are local residents who
have legally recognized rights to usufruct and to administrate the lands in common.
The community of commoners can decide to manage the lands exclusively or in
co-management with the State. It can also delegate administration to other entities,
such as local parishes or municipalities. Currently, the majority of the baldios are
co-managed with the state (Table 1).
The commoners face huge challenges to organize themselves to manage com-
munity forests. Due to reasons explained in the next section, the processes sup-
porting the ongoing formation of place-oriented communities were interrupted,
separating the people from the forests and blocking the possibility to overcome
local conflicts to give birth to community-based initiatives.
Education for Sustainability in the Context of Community … 173

Fig. 1 Distribution of the

baldios in mainland Portugal
(adapted from the BALADI—
National Federation of
Baldios. Source information
based on the baldios
submitted to the forest regime
with a management plan). The
location of the Vilarinho
case-study in the Lousã
Mountains is indicated

Table 1 Management regimes of baldios

Management regime Number of baldio units1 % of total
Co-management with the State 861 60
Exclusive management by commoners 246 17
Delegation of competences in parishes 334 23
Total 1441 100
1
Data provided by the Institute for the Conservation of Nature and Forests (ICNF) in 2013

3 Disconnecting the People from Old Forests

The process of separating residents from the local community forests lasted over two
centuries. The reason it took so long was that community forests sustained collective
practices indispensable to the domestic economies of rural populations. Tradition-
ally, forests were multifunctional agro-silvo-pastoral systems that provided fertil-
izers, fodder and fuel to subsistence agriculture activities of the peasants and to the
poorest and landless members of the community. Thus, the disconnection of local
174 R. Serra et al.

people from their commons required a breakdown of the collective practices per-
formed in such places. We highlight three fundamental stages in the historical
process: (1) impediment of collective actions in common lands; (2) emergence of
alternative forms of satisfying domestic needs based on exchange; (3) elimination of
traditional needs based on the extinction of subsistence ways of life.
Impediment was achieved by dispossessing local communities of their rights to
the commons through two distinct avenues: privatization and nationalization. Both
were aimed to allocate the resource on the hands of agents with the right resources
and capabilities. In one case the lands were parceled and distributed between the
well-off members of the community at the expense of the poor and landless. In
some places, the individualization of rights to land occurred by granting tree tenure
to the planter (Nunes and Feijó 1990), as was the case with fruit trees, namely
chestnuts and olive trees that are registered until today in the Ministry of Finances.
While tree planting by former commoners was a way to materially support well-off
individual claims to land rights, the afforestation of the common lands by the State
had the same purpose to be acquired by other means (Brouwer 1995). The State
forest services planted fruitless trees intended for wood production which local
communities were unfamiliar with. The new forest regime intended to place the
trees under the care of professionals that followed scientific prescriptions to max-
imize wood production. To the eyes of the State foresters, local populations had to
be excluded from the forest space and traditional uses were forbidden. The
afforestation of the commons by the Estado Novo dictatorship occasionally
prompted violent conflicts between the State and the local populations who were
defending their subsistence way of life.
In some situations, communities found alternative ways to satisfy domestic
needs of fertilizers, fodder and fuel through exchange practices between farmers and
grazers, such as grazing sheep in private lands to fertilize them for agriculture. In
other situations, mass migrations took place, depopulating rural areas in favor of a
concentration in urban areas in Portugal and abroad. The social and economic
transformations gradually extinguished subsistence ways of life to give birth to
commercial agriculture, industrial and service-based economies. When any of these
situations become dominant, the forest becomes a distant landscape; the old col-
lective practices that sustained a shared way of life are turned into folklore or
disappear completely from the memory and local narratives.
However, when the authoritarian Estado Novo regime reached its end through
the military coup which started the Carnation Revolution in 1974, the memory
many mountain communities had of the compulsory and violent afforestation of the
common lands was still fresh. The socialist agenda of the first democratically
elected government intended to emancipate peasants through an agrarian reform.
The devolution of the commons fitted perfectly the agenda and allowed to gain the
support of the peasants up north, where smallholdings were the dominant reality.
Education for Sustainability in the Context of Community … 175

4 Reconnecting the People with New Forests

The devolution of the commons was the first step to restore historical justice to the
local communities dispossessed during the dictatorial regime. For the first time in
history, the commoners (named compartes) gained legal rights to usufruct and
administration of their lands. Rights are held in common by local residents
regardless of their gender, activity or status and are inalienable, non-heritable, and
cease to exist when one leaves the place. The devolution process marked a new
beginning for the common lands, but the restoration of collective practices and
communities had a long path to take (Klein and Stok 1986).
Once a limited group of compartes organized to claim the commons, the forest
services had to return the administration of the lands. However, the State failed to
capacitate the local communities to manage the forests. Whenever old uses were
abandoned, the compartes chose to co-administrate the forests with the State, which
kept control of the forest management decisions without involving the local
residents.
As the connection between the commoners and the forests failed to be restored,
the economic interests of private agents increased. The successive law reforms
opened the way for the residents to delegate administration to other entities (such as
the parishes and councils) and to establish concessions to external agents to explore
the forests and natural resources in the commons (Eucalyptus monocultures,
quarries, windmill farms, etc.). The rents are distributed more or less democratically
to local institutions by the residents participating in the assemblies for solidarity
purposes, infrastructure provision and maintenance and cultural activities.
The experience of the commoners with the co-management and the companies
exploring their natural resources was, in some cases, disastrous. Due to the new
public management reforms since the 80s, the Forest Services were greatly inca-
pacitated to face the emerging problems of forests, such as invasive species, large
fires and pests. It was only after the catastrophic fires of 2003 and 2005 that a
national program was launched to protect the forest against fires, with the actual
participation of the private and community sectors. For the first time, the compartes
were capacitated with technical knowledge and specialized teams of forest workers
co-funded by the State.
The slow recognition that forests can create local jobs and economies and that
poor management can cause environmental damage and risks led some commoners
to manage their forests autonomously. When compartes take into their hands the
responsibility of managing the forests in the long-term, they must face the challenge
of continuously engaging the residents in community forest projects if the man-
agement of forests is to be genuinely community-based.
176 R. Serra et al.

5 Vilarinho, a Case Study

Vilarinho is an ancient settlement (the earliest mention of it in documents dates

back to 1360) located in the Lousã Mountains in Central Portugal (Fig. 1). It was
one of the parishes extinguished during the contested 2013 administrative reform of
the territory. Its population is close to 3000 residents, most of them living in the
town of Lousã. The region is trapped between rural and urban dynamics, and the
landscape of the rural settings is dominated by forestry, as farming is mostly
reduced to smallholdings for family needs (Tavares et al. 2014). In 2012, a group of
Vilarinho commoners initiated the management of close to 1000 ha of community
forests without the intervention of the State. This was the result of a series of
historical intersecting processes.
Vilarinho was among the first mountain communities to reclaim the common
lands afforested by the State in 1976, after the Carnation Revolution. Most of the
forest was composed by plantations of pines and other conifers, such as Douglas-fir.
Without the technical knowledge to manage the forests, they opted for the
co-management regime with the State forest services. However, over the next three
decades, the forest entered into a serious process of degradation due to recurrent
fires, tree diseases, in particular the pine nematode, and the proliferation of invasive
Acacia species. Fires are a real danger to the local populations, and during the
catastrophic fires of 2005, a firefighter who was also a commoner lost his life on
duty.
Dissatisfied with the management of the Forest Services, the managing council
of baldios elected by the assembly of commoners called for several interventions to
prevent the degradation process. These calls were received by the regional
administration of the Services with indifference. Taking advantage of the national
Program for Forest Defense against Fires, the managing council hired a specialized
team of forest fire fighters and aimed to initiate forest recovery. In order to establish
their own management plan, they requested the immediate end of the
co-management regime, which was legally recognized by the court in 2012.
Without delay, the commoners hired a forest engineer full-time to initiate the
revitalization of the forest with professional support. The goal was to produce a
multifunctional forest, capable of supporting multiple goods and activities, such as
timber production, hunting, apiculture and non-timber forest products, together with
mountain sports and leisure activities, while keeping open to the commoners the
collection of firewood, brushes and other traditional uses. Currently, the baldios of
Vilarinho provide other sources of collective income besides the community forest,
namely rents from a wind park and an airfield. However, community forestry is the
single activity that supports local jobs, as it employs 9 workers full-time.
The community forest project implies making considerable investments that will
only be enjoyed by the future generations. There is a permanent tension between
social investments in local associations, in particular for the care of the elderly and
the young and the care of the forest. From the near 3000 residents with legally
recognized rights to usufruct and administrate the baldios, less than 2 % participate
Education for Sustainability in the Context of Community … 177

in the general assemblies. Most of them are not forest users and are unaware of the
existence of the community forests of their form of management and of their rights
and responsibilities as compartes.
We crossed paths with Vilarinho in the scope of the research project SCRAM,2
while we were searching for emergent socio-ecological arrangements and the
revitalization of Portuguese forests. A protocol was established for collaborative
research between the Centre for Social Studies and the Community of compartes
from Vilarinho, aiming to produce resources relevant to the community forestry
context. One of the key issues addressed were educational activities for the com-
partes that could open up spaces for communing and taking part in the ongoing
common lands narrative.

6 Education for the Commons

How can educational activities contribute to community forest projects? This

question must be answered in the wider context of how community forestry may
contribute to the emergence of place-oriented communities, especially when the
processes allowing communities to develop are blocked. According to the inter-
actional approach followed by Flint et al. (2008), communities emerge through the
ongoing communication that takes place between local residents when doing things
together. Through shared actions and ways of life, local residents may come to
share values that allow them to recognize the common good and overcome internal
conflicts. The approach followed by the above mentioned authors is somewhat in
line with the pedagogical creed of the American pragmatist John Dewey, who
understood education as the unconscious process though which individuals grad-
ually come to share the intellectual and moral resources which humanity has suc-
ceeded in getting together (Dewey 1897). Dewey believed this process could only
be prompted by immersing the individuals in problematic social situations that
would stimulate them to act as members of a unit with regard for the welfare of the
group to which they belong. As it is increasingly recognized by academics and
activists (Bollier and Helfrich 2014), the commons are more than material
resources, and the result from the commoning activities of the commoners in their
daily life (Dardot and Laval 2014). In this case the crucial aspect is to know if
community forestry qualifies as an activity residents can actually authentically
participate in, that is, take part in the common lands meaningful narrative, mutually
shaping and being shaped by it (Nunes et al. 2014).

2
SCRAM—Crises, risk management and new socio-ecological arrangements for forests: a
perspective from science and technology studies, hosted by the Centre for Social Studies,
University of Coimbra, Portugal.
178 R. Serra et al.

We took an educational approach considering that residents may authentically

participate in community forests by also engaging in social practices which could
support common meaningful narratives (MacIntyre 1984). We tested the potential
of two distinct practices for reconnecting local residents with the forest ecosystem
management: mushroom picking and forest governance.

7 Communing with Mushrooms

The initial interest of the commoners of Vilarinho in wild mushrooms was to assess
the economic potential of the species flourishing in the common lands. The Por-
tuguese law considers wild mushrooms as property of the landowner, yet open
access is traditionally granted to pick mushrooms for personal consumption.
Mushroom commercialization, however, motivated owners to enforce their right. In
Vilarinho one pine plantation was frequently raided by non-residents for com-
mercial purposes without the consent of the commoners, who aimed to devise a
plan for managing the mycological resources. Additionally, a few commoners had
mushroom picking habits and aimed to know how to prevent mushroom poisonings
and diversify their knowledge on edible species.
The first mushroom-related activity in Vilarinho was a training course in
mushroom biology, ecology and the identification of poisonous and edible species.
The course was attended by all those interested in mushrooms, including com-
moners and non-commoners. Although the potential for commercial exploitation
turned out not to be viable, wild mushroom species provided great opportunities for
storytelling, sharing experiences and sparking the curiosity of the participants about
the diversity of the natural world. As these mushrooms are not domesticated spe-
cies, their emergence is out of our control (Tsing 2012). Mushroom picking is a
seasonal practice that takes people to walk in the woods and wander in search of
hidden treasures among the falling leaves of autumn. Human-mushroom encounters
require the development of an intimate ecological knowledge of the species and the
territory, wandering to find the best places. One must cultivate the virtue of
patience, respect the interspecies relationships and learn the tacit rules to safely
meet again every year.
We took the specificities of the humans-wild mushrooms relationship as an entry
point to develop educational activities related to the governance of baldios. The aim
was to make visible the connections between the emergence of wild mushroom
species and the care of the forest. This implied turning responsible wanderers into
responsible commoners.
The first activity was a mycological walk in the common lands, entitled “baldios
and their friends—a walk to discoveries” that is being repeated yearly. The walk is
open to everybody, but we introduced the difference of compartes and non-com-
partes in signing-up for it. Among the participants were local residents unaware of
the existence of baldios, activists, academics and students supporting the commons,
as well as people searching an escape from urban routines. The participants form a
Education for Sustainability in the Context of Community … 179

heterogeneous group and meet regularly every year. The walk has both structured
and un-structured activities. It has a previously defined trail, an interspecies nar-
rative through the landscape and a meal prepared in the woods. During the walk and
lunch time, informal conversations can take place between the participants,
including the managers and workers of the community forest. The walk was
complemented with a one-week workshop based on an experimental curriculum
that uses the ecology of mushrooms, especially mushroom-tree relationships, to
connect mushrooms with forest management and forest governance.

8 The Mini-Commoners Baldios Governance

The degrading image of baldios as wastelands, spaces abandoned or prone to

conflicts, drives away the people from participating in the governance of baldios,
regardless of its open institutions. The fact that community forestry is an activity
that only makes sense in an intergenerational perspective and that the youngest
generations are unaware of its existence endangers the sustainability of the initia-
tives. This prompted us to devise educational activities for children, related to the
governance of community forests.
A “Summer School for mini-commoners” was created with children in the
age-range 6–12, who were at a daycare center of Vilarinho during the summer
holiday. We established a program in collaboration with the managing council of
the baldios. It included two weeks of activities related to the governance of com-
munity forests. We implemented the school in collaboration with the parish of
Vilarinho and the association holding the daycare center (Association for the
Protection of the Elderly and the Young—ADIC). The experimental pedagogical
approach was based on four intercepting axes: (1) territory; (2) community;
(3) local institutions; (4) communing. The program included outdoor activities such
as (i) a guided visit to the common lands introducing the children to the key forest
resources and management problems; (ii) guided tours to the key beneficiary
institutions of baldios; (iii) interviews with the elderly to recover memories about
common lands; (iv) interviews with the managers of the community forests to learn
about the formal governance structures, administrative positions established by law
and the democratic procedures for collective decision-making. During the summer
school, the children were engaged in joint activities such as musicing the baldios
song and elaborating a mini-dictionary for community forest governance. The
School for mini-commoners aimed to provide quality experiences to connect the
children’s social context with the community forests. Thus, communication with
the families was a constant concern.
The central aspect of the School was the dramatization of an assembly of com-
partes. The preparation of the assembly followed strictly current legal proceedings;
the children chose their roles and elaborated a discussion based on a realistic scenario:
the clear cut of a plantation with pine nematode disease and the decisions on the
species to plant and the social investments necessary to satisfy the needs of the local
180 R. Serra et al.

population. The assembly was attended by the children’s families, who were actual
compartes and participated in the dramatization by voting the decisions.
The Summer school showed a potential for transformative learning among all the
participants, including adults. As stated by Freire (1996), whoever teaches learns in
the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning. The children
were free to raise the questions that adults were too embarrassed to ask. The sight of
the children as future managers of the community forests regardless of their
socio-economic status increased the self-esteem of the families whose children face
learning difficulties in the formal school, leading to public statements like: “after all,
our children are bright”! Simultaneously, the children were saying: “our parents
also need a School for commoners”!

9 Key Reflections and Future Challenges

Modern community forestry presents specific challenges for community engage-

ment. It is an activity that requires a centralized managing structure with profes-
sional support, previously under state control and later under local control, which
must plan the uses of the forest in the long-term. This creates a challenge for those
intimately engaged with the forest, as the community forest project is ultimately
controlled by local residents not engaged in any forest practice.
The approach to use wild mushroom picking as a forest practice is being suc-
cessful in producing communing spaces and responsible wanderers in the forests.
Non-commercial mushroom picking is a leisure activity and a naturalistic delight
that occasionally offers the occasion for a good meal with family and friends.
However, it is not simple to turn responsible wanderers into responsible com-
moners. The opposite argument could indeed be made, that leisure activities in the
forest are an escape from the constraints and responsibilities of daily life. Still,
mycological walks and workshops allow people to meet the community forest
project and have an experience, even if limited, of what communal activities look
like. The fact that mushroom based initiatives are open to locals and non-locals
allowed the establishment of alliances with outsiders that support the community
forest cause and increased the self-esteem of the locals by attracting people from all
over the country to meet their community forest.
The approach to consider forest governance as a practice implies citizens willing
to participate in political life. Unlike mushroom picking, however, politics is not
regarded as a pleasant activity, but one that is reluctantly engaged in.3 By devising
educational activities with children we aimed to democratize politics and make it

3
Yanis Varoufakis, a professor of economics and former Minister of Finance of the Greek
government, claimed that “anyone who wants to be a Minister should be disqualified from that
position”. He considers that politics needs “reluctant politicians” that take administrative roles as a
sacrifice and a genuine act of public service, one enjoy doing only for the altruistic pleasures of
contributing to the community (conference accessible online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=2a3ZJE-mu3I).
Education for Sustainability in the Context of Community … 181

simple. This brought into the light the social embarrassment of most commoners for
being unaware of how the baldios institutions function, as family members were
invited to learn about their rights through a game for children. Both children and
their parents considered the school for the mini-commoners a success and an ini-
tiative that should be repeated over time and replicated in other places. Family
members highlighted the importance of a place-based education for the children to
learn what stays out of school curricula and for engaging in collective activities.
“During the school they formed a group”, a mother told us. Parents could sense
their children flourishing in a different educational setting enriched by outdoor
activities, problematic situations faced in daily life and meeting community role
models engaged in forestry-related professions and practices. However, when we
asked the parents if they intended to participate in the assemblies from now on, their
answer was negative. Parents regraded themselves as a lost generation for virtuous
politics but requested investment in their children to capacitate them to fulfill this
much needed role.
The president of the managing council, the forest engineer and the president of
the Vilarinho parish were restless in their collaboration and support to plan and
implement the mycological activities and the Summer school. The support was
materialized in countless hours preparing and monitoring the activities. Although the
education activities to engage new commoners in community forest governance are
considered very important, they constantly face two interrelated challenges: (1) to
support community forest jobs and (2) to improve common land management.
As we hope to have shown throughout the text, community-forming processes
and the collective appropriation of forests as common goods are highly challenging.
Nevertheless, when the goal is to link good forest management with the commu-
nity’s well-being, one has no other alternative than “to die trying”.
Community forest projects can provide benefits not only for the commoners but
for all of society, through local, sustainable management of resources. Adequate
policies are required, though, to facilitate the emergence of the complex
community-forming processes. In Portugal, the opposite is taking place. Over the
last three years, the austerity policies promoted by the State extinguished the local
parish, closed down the daycare center for children and passed a law that hampers
the devolution process of many community forests. Beyond the challenges it raises
to the field of education for sustainability, the context of community forestry is a
lens that allows us to experience the intersecting processes underlying the envi-
ronmental problems and to imagine responses outside the box.

Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the project
“SCRAM—Crises, risk management and new socio-ecological arrangements for forests: a per-
spective from science and technology studies”, co-funded by COMPETE—Competitiveness
Factors Operational Program (FEDER) and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Tech-
nology—FCT (PTDC/CS-ECS/102041/2008; FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-009236). Anailton Gui-
marães Salgado also acknowledges the FCT for financial support provided by the grant
SFRH/BD/75075/2010. Special thanks go to the professionals and commoners of Vilarinho,
Lousã, especially Eugénia Rodrigues and Luis Trota, for their invaluable support in all the edu-
cational activities developed.
182 R. Serra et al.

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 Part IV
Designing Sustainable Futures
Urban Forest Governance: FUTURE—
The 100,000 Trees Project in the Porto
Metropolitan Area
Marta Pinto, Conceição Almeida, Ana Maria Pereira
and Margarida Silva

Abstract
The Porto Metropolitan Area is a region in northern Portugal with approximately
2000 km2. Almost 16 % of the Portuguese population lives in the area, which is
structured around the municipality of Porto with 16 other municipalities included.
The region is a jigsaw puzzle of urban, agricultural, and forest areas. The Porto
Metropolitan Area Environmental Strategic Plan, a broad participatory regional
planning process conducted from 2003 to 2008, concluded that major challenges
ahead included the improvement of the green infrastructure (forest, riverside
areas, and natural corridors), the need for education and training for sustainabil-
ity, as well as more and better interinstitutional coordination. In order to tackle
these vital regional issues several institutions, partners within the framework of
the Porto Metropolitan Area Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for
Sustainable Development, decided to collaborate in order to design and
implement a flagship project. The FUTURE—the 100,000 trees project in the
Porto Metropolitan Area is the outcome of this process. Its purpose is to create,
restore and care for native urban forests in the region with active involvement of
the main stakeholders (landowners, citizens, local governments, central govern-
ment, companies, non-governmental organisations, and schools, among others).
Our aim is to present the case study of this project describing its context, scale,
institutional framework, actors and partnerships, resources and processes,
highlighting its governance model.

M. Pinto (&)
C. Almeida
A.M. Pereira

Environmental Studies Group, Catholic University of Portugal, Porto, Portugal
e-mail: mspinto@porto.ucp.pt
M. Silva
Laboratório Associado, CBQF—Centro de Biotecnologia E Química Fina, Escola Superior
de Biotecnologia, Universidade Católica Portuguesa/Porto, Apartado 2511, 4202-401 Porto,
Portugal

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 187

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_12
188 M. Pinto et al.

Keywords
Native urban forests
Governance
Planning

1 Introduction

1.1 Urban Forests as Multifunctional Green Infrastructures

In recent years the European urban and peri-urban areas have been systematically
altered by land use change, intensification and fragmentation (Antrop 2004;
Naumann et al. 2011). Consequently, the spatial and functional consistency of
ecosystems and landscapes, the spectrum of ecosystems services, the health and
well-being of resident populations as well as overall territorial resilience have been
markedly reduced (Cardinale et al. 2012; Díaz et al. 2006; Haines-Young and
Potschin 2010; McKinney 2002).
Framed by this plight, green infrastructure creation is in fact an opportunity to
pursue ecological, economic and social benefits through natural and multifunctional
solutions (Mell 2009). This concept encompasses strategically planned networks of
natural and semi-natural areas, in rural and urban zones, designed and managed
with the intent of providing a wide range of ecological services (European Com-
mission [EC] 2013a, b). Urban forests (including trees, parks, gardens, and woods)
(Konijnendijk et al. 2006; Randrup et al. 2005) are key elements (EC 2013a).
The importance of urban forests has been widely studied and the services pro-
vided include at least the following ecological, economic and social dimensions:
– Air quality improvement (McDonald et al. 2007; Nowak and Heisler 2010;
Tiwary et al. 2009);
– Local climate moderation, namely in the heat island effect (Kleerekoper et al.
2012; Oliveira et al. 2011);
– Climate change adaptation (Gill et al. 2007; Norton et al. 2015);
– Carbon sequestration (Caldecott et al. 2015; Rodríguez-Loinaz et al. 2013;
Strohbach et al. 2012);
– Soil conservation and soil water regulation (Armson et al. 2013; European
Environment Agency 2015);
– Beautification of cities, both for residents and tourists (Nowak and Dwyer 2007;
Power 2005; Tyrväinen et al. 2005);
– Stimulation of memory, attention and concentration skills (Berman et al. 2008;
Bratman et al. 2012);
– Stress reduction (Tyrväinen et al. 2005);
– Sleep balance (Astell-Burt et al. 2013);
– Overall sense of well-being (Haluza et al. 2014; Kaplan and Kaplan 1986;
Tsunetsugu et al. 2013).
Urban Forest Governance: FUTURE—The 100,000 Trees Project … 189

Although the Portuguese reality has been little studied, Lisbon’s trees have been
found to offer significant financial return. The capital’s 41,247 trees provide ser-
vices valued at US$8.4 million a year, a positive balance of US$4.48 dollars for
each dollar invested in the trees’ planting and maintenance. Each tree provides US
$6.20 in energy savings, US$0.33 in carbon sink services, US$5.40 in air pollution
retention, US$47.80 in reduced stormwater runoff and US$144.70 in increased real
estate values (Soares et al. 2011).

1.2 Urban Forests as a Governance Issue

Despite its importance, urban forests and their management are still poorly studied.
Understanding of the mechanisms of creation, maintenance, management and
conservation has become imperative. The governance of urban forests—a dynamic
that makes governments, communities, businesses and landowners, among others,
interact in an iterative and co-evolutionary process—is only now just starting to
grow (Bentsen et al. 2010; Jim 2011; Kronenberg 2015; Lawrence et al. 2013;
Schmied and Pillmann 2003).
Among the studies on governance of urban forests, the work by Secco et al.
(2011) stands out. It covered six cases in Italy: at the municipal level (Venice),
regional level (Region Lombardy, Veneto Region) and also at the national level
(development of the strategic framework programme for forests). From a gover-
nance point of view, none represented a genuine transition to an integral model of
collective learning—and the most promising cases (involving local stakeholders
and the introduction of institutional innovations based on collective learning) were
developed at the local or regional levels. In addition, Buttoud et al. (2011) analysed
the barriers to institutional innovations through case studies in Austria, France and
Scotland, concluding that the mercantilist orientation often frustrates multifunc-
tional forest management and respective governance styles.
Young and McPherson (2013) in the United States reviewed the major initiatives
of planting trees at the metropolitan level (New York, NY, Sacramento, CA, Los
Angeles, CA, Houston, TX, Denver, CO and Salt Lake County, UT) from a gov-
ernance point of view and described a dominant role for the public sector in the
implementation of these projects, whether in the form of the vision, planning or
management. According to the authors, those projects demonstrate new types of
government, although not exactly governance innovation. They also highlight that
these projects are not easily institutionalized within the public authorities that lead
them. One reason probably has to do with the many regulatory and organisational
constraints endured by these organisations (Connolly et al. 2013). Alternatively
these authors introduce the concept of “bridge-organisations” as a possible gov-
ernance epicentre: autonomous structures that organize the activities of a cluster of
citizen groups through a centralized interface which coordinate resources (knowl-
edge, finance, etc.) in a balanced adaptive dance with the rest of the stakeholders,
including public authorities.
190 M. Pinto et al.

Similarly, Lawrence et al. (2013) studied several case studies of governance of

urban forests (in Belgium, Italy, Sweden, United Kingdom and Scotland) and
designed a case presentation template easily adapted to distinctive realities (cul-
tures, administrations, geographies and scales) and focusing on its key aspects. The
analysis shows a trend towards more integrated initiatives and involvement of
various parties, though with a leadership usually assumed by local, regional or
central government. The “governance by government” phase has passed but was
not replaced by a “governance without government” (Lawrence et al. 2013).
More recently, a comprehensive quantitative framework was published for the
evaluation of urban forest governance quality through a set of aggregated indicators
that overcome terminology differences, scales and models, expedite comparisons
between different initiatives and significantly strengthen the evolution of this field
of study (Secco et al. 2014). It does require, and builds on, qualitative characteri-
zations as the initial systemizing step. Therefore, in this text, we aim at a first
description of the FUTURE—the 100,000 trees project in the Porto Metropolitan
Area as per the Lawrence et al. (2013) framework, looking ahead to paths of urban
forest governance improvement in this Portuguese region.

2 Methods

For a description of the case study FUTURE—the 100,000 trees project in the Porto
Metropolitan Area, and in order to meet the methodological requirements for case
studies (George and Bennett 2004), the description and analysis of the governance
model proposed by Lawrence et al. (2013) was followed. This framework structures
a description of the mechanisms and processes in a project of urban forest gover-
nance in an accessible, organized and easy to apply manner. It consists of a set of
key dimensions and descriptors that detail the case study both schematically and in
expository form. The main dimensions include:
– Type, scale and context;
– Institutional context (policies, planning and regulations, ownership and access);
– Actors and coalitions (stakeholders, partnerships, power analysis);
– Resources (knowledge and information, funding, delivery mechanisms);
– Processes (discourses, participation and engagement, monitoring and
evaluation).
The first steps of the FUTURE took place in October 2010. Since then the
design, technical coordination and implementation have been the responsibility of
the Catholic University of Portugal throughout. As such the team takes on the role
of the participant observer (Atkinson and Hammersley 1994; Kearns 2000).
Urban Forest Governance: FUTURE—The 100,000 Trees Project … 191

2.1 Case Study

2.1.1 Context
The Porto Metropolitan Area (PMA), a region situated in the north of Portugal, is a
territory with approximately 2000 km2 that comprises 17 municipalities: Arouca,
Espinho, Gondomar, Maia, Matosinhos, Oliveira de Azeméis, Porto, Vila Nova de
Gaia, Paredes, Santa Maria da Feira, Tirso Santo, São João da Madeira, Trofa, Vale
de Cambra, Valongo, Vila do Conde, and Vila Nova de Gaia. This is the country’s
second most populated region: about 1.73 million inhabitants (Instituto Nacional de
Estatística 2014).
Overall, it is a developed area (Carney et al. 2009) and is intensely urbanized.
However, this urbanization is fairly consolidated and limited to just over 20 % of
the area.
Almost 20 % of the PMA is under agricultural use (Área Metropolitana do Porto
n.d.), 41 % encompasses forested areas (Direcção Nacional de Gestão Florestal
2010) and 10 % includes nature conservation expanses (Área Metropolitana do
Porto 2014). However, the PMA territory, rather than spatially planned, evolved as
a complex jigsaw of urban, agricultural and forest patches (Pinto and Silva 2013).
The loss of forest and agricultural cover to urban expansion is ongoing. From 1991
to 2008, urban development spread at the rate of 1.8 ha per day (Grupo de Estudos
Ambientais da Universidade Católica Portuguesa 2006b).
As for forestland, more than 90 % is occupied by intensive industrial mono-
culture of Eucalyptus sp. and Pinus pinaster. Not long ago native forest cover
(Quercus sp., among others) dominated the region. Today, however, it covers a
very fragmented 6 % of the forested territory (Direccao Nacional de Gestao
Florestal 2010), enduring only along riverbanks, ridges and hedgerows (Área
Metropolitana do Porto n.d.).
This brief scenario of the region must be crossed with several important chal-
lenges for urban forests (Área Metropolitana do Porto 2014), which include:
– An obvious absence or underutilization of multifunctional green spaces in the
densest urban areas, as well as their discontinuation in agroforestry areas;
– Major land use fragmentation in the metropolitan area, with a mix of residential
buildings, industry, and agroforestry which generate conflict and risks (such as
fires: “the most forest fire occurrences in the country” [Área Metropolitana do
Porto n.d.]);
– Natural areas of interest for nature conservation efforts scattered throughout the
territory while invasive plants proliferate (Área Metropolitana do Porto n.d.);
– There are 33,000 trees inventoried in the Porto municipality (Câmara Municipal
do Porto n.d.) but there is still a general lack of basic urban forest information in
the region;
– The region also presents major climate change vulnerabilities and shows
demonstrably weak adaptability (Área Metropolitana do Porto 2014). There is
urgency in the application of prevention and adaptation measures (Carney et al.
2009).
192 M. Pinto et al.

2.1.2 Institutional Framework

From a regional governance point of view, a vast institutional fragmentation has
been identified (Área Metropolitana do Porto 2014). In the case of urban forests,
management has been divided among different local governments, central gov-
ernment services, forest landowner associations, and forest corporations.
Local governments are responsible for the management of green areas, urban
trees and publicly managed forestland (amounting to just a small proportion of total
forest area) as well as enforcing legislation regarding privately owned land (for
example, coercing owners into regular shrub clearing). The State Forest Service, on
the other hand, co-manages communally-owned areas and finances forest rangers. It
should be noted that most of the region’s forestland is under private management
and that about 90 % of forest holdings are under five hectares (Instituto da
Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas 2006).
An important basis for new environmental governance models in the region
emerged with the Porto Metropolitan Area Environmental Strategic Plan (PMA-ESP),
a broad and participatory regional planning process conducted between 2003 and
2008 that integrated the contributions of more than 5000 citizens and 200 organisa-
tions and brought to light a shared view of the regional environmental challenges and
solutions. The need for greater collaboration and inter-municipal cooperation in
education and training for sustainability and opportunities for public participation
were the main conclusions identified by the study (Grupo de Estudos Ambientais da
Universidade Católica Portuguesa 2006a, 2008b; Pinto and Silva 2013).
This plan also calls for actions of benefit to urban forests, in which the need for a
new governance model is evident (Grupo de Estudos Ambientais da Universidade
Católica Portuguesa 2008a):
– Creation of ecological corridors and areas with native vegetation as enhancing
elements of biodiversity and forest fire prevention, mainly through the nurturing
of natural regeneration and native species reforestation while involving the
urban population;
– Increased coordination between stakeholders together with the enlisting of forest
landowners and communities at large; implementation of an awareness pro-
gramme involving citizens in concrete native forest promotion initiatives.
This newly found awareness and exposure triggered by the broad participatory
process led to the establishment of the Porto Metropolitan Area Regional Centre of
Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development (CRE.Porto) in line with the
model recommended by the United Nations University-Institute of Advanced
Studies (UNU-IAS 2010). The overarching objective is the creation of social net-
works that facilitate coordinated action and cooperation (with knowledge, trust and
resources) that help move towards sustainability by overcoming the dilemmas of
collective action in multiple arenas.
CRE.Porto was started with an Agreement Contract signed by 30 stakeholders—
mainly local governments, non-governmental organisations, foundations, higher
education institutions and local central government services—committed to making
Urban Forest Governance: FUTURE—The 100,000 Trees Project … 193

a difference in the region: do more with less; share and generate knowledge; build
trust and enroll organisations and citizens in thinking and acting for change.
Operations are to be based on the best knowledge, practices, cooperation, coordi-
nation, resources and participatory methodologies available.
There are two main panels working within CRE.Porto. The first is a forum
representative of local and regional stakeholders—the Executive Board—whose
main functions include outlining joint actions and helping in their implementation.
The second panel is the Coordinating Office. This office makes things happen,
prompts collaboration, manages joint projects, identifies funding sources, prepares
grant applications and organises partner meetings. The Catholic University of
Portugal hosts and staffs this second panel, working closely with the PMA regional
government (Pinto and Silva 2013). The CRE.Porto was formally recognized by
UNU-IAS in 2009.
It was at a meeting of CRE.Porto’s Executive Board that the first ideas for the
FUTURE project came about. Beforehand there had been no metropolitan vision or
global targets for urban forests, just uncoordinated projects at various power levels.
The project was designed with contributions from several partners at various stages
of the planning process, which lasted for nine months. By the end of this period the
methodology and key features were defined and guaranteed so as to enable the
implementation on the ground. The FUTURE became a regional project for the
creation and rehabilitation of native urban forests that simultaneously addresses
three regional challenges:
– improving and expanding the natural capital;
– emphasizing the social capital and facilitating public participation;
– enhancing interinstitutional cooperation, so that the region evolves towards
sustainability.
The goal was set: plant and care for 100,000 new native trees by 2015, in
approximately 100 ha spread throughout the metropolitan territory.
Given the backdrop previously described—an intervention area with varying
regimes of ownership and management—the FUTURE project focuses on urban
areas (parks) and peri-urban areas (forests) managed by local governments,
communally-owned areas subject to the forest regime (and co-managed by the State
Forest Service), and private forestland, while privileging those of particular bio-
diversity value. Interventions meet specific criteria and are subject to the legal
regime applied to afforestation and reforestation actions as defined by the Por-
tuguese Decree-Law 96/2013. The National Forest Strategy, created in 2006, is the
main reference in current forest planning and management.
Most interventions are carried out on land with public or communal manage-
ment. However, through the forest landowners’ associations, private owners have
also been identified whose vision is compatible with the FUTURE’s. An Agreement
Contract binds CRE.Porto, the municipality and the landowner, and responsibilities
are allocated. These include maintenance and site access for volunteers and staff.
194 M. Pinto et al.

2.1.3 Actors and Coalitions

The CRE.Porto Coordinating Office operates as an integrator and facilitator for the
network of partners, experts and volunteers through project planning, implemen-
tation and evaluation. The PMA insured initial project approval and links the
Coordinating Office with decision-makers. Municipalities identify areas, submit
intervention plans and collaborate actively in the preparation of field activities,
providing their own technical and operational teams, forest rangers or external
teams. They are also responsible for post-intervention maintenance plans and
interfacing with schools, among others. Although with varying degrees of
involvement, all 17 municipalities of the PMA actively participate in the project.
The State Forest Service is a leading partner, providing knowledge at various
project levels. It is also responsible for the intervention plans of the
communally-owned land that they co-manage. In addition, they produce most of the
native trees used.
Three forest landowners’ associations are key partners: ASVA—Associação de
Silvicultores do Vale do Ave, Portucalea—Associação Florestal do Grande Porto
and AFEDV—Associação Florestal do Entre o Douro e Vouga. They identify
landowners, draw up intervention plans, prepare land with forest rangers and
guarantee regular maintenance.
In addition, dozens of other partners contribute directly to the project with
knowledge, human and technical resources, materials and services. The FUTURE
currently has 60 active partners—public and private, government or otherwise.
A total of 164 organisations (associations, schools, companies) have participated
throughout as volunteers in planting and maintenance activities.
In a network this complex it is difficult to clarify who makes every decision.
Some—those determining the economic sustainability of the project—are inevi-
tably taken by policy makers or other organisations that hold financing power.
Technical decisions typically stem from consensus building with partners and
volunteers.
The Coordinating Office regularly and beforehand consults key partners to elicit
viewpoints on specific plans. There is also an open channel with volunteers, whose
views and concerns are heard and recorded. Feedback is reviewed with partners.

2.1.4 Resources
Since its inception the FUTURE received financial support from the municipalities
through an annual membership fee (roughly US$50,000). All other institutions
contribute in kind, through services, and resources, with an estimated total annual
contribution of about US$40,000. During 2014/2015 the project was partially
funded by the European Regional Development Fund Program (about US
$150,000), which led to a major boost in the project. These funds allowed for
investment into soil preparation, seedling maintenance and the creation of a tree
nursery, among other priorities.
Technical information for the tree planting interventions results from the
involvement of local government staff, forest landowners associations’ technical
Urban Forest Governance: FUTURE—The 100,000 Trees Project … 195

teams, State Forest Service personnel, researchers and consultants. CRE.Porto’s

Coordinating Office integrates contributions from the various partners and also
provides know-how. Interventions proposed by any of the partners are analysed and
resources identified. Each activity results from the experience, expertise and points
of view of various people and institutions. Knowledge regarding plant propagation,
monitoring methodology, seed collection, planting technique, plant physiology as
well as ecosystem services information is sought from researchers and other
experts.
From the outset, the FUTURE received native trees from state nurseries, pro-
duced and delivered free of charge under the National Native Tree Stock Initiative
(www.florestacomum.org). The FUTURE’s native tree nursery was set up at the
Porto Municipal Nursery and benefits from the cooperation of the Porto municipal
government (which provides workforce and materials) and the State Forest Service
(granting management know-how). In 2014/2015 over 20,000 native plants from 13
species were produced.
In the field, operational teams (gardeners and forest rangers) perform most of the
land preparation work. A total of 212 technical and operational personnel, from the
various partners, have participated in the project so far. Over the four years (2011–
2015) volunteer input amounted to 30,239 work hours, in a total of 9285 volunteer
participations.
Volunteers are also involved in other more technical aspects of the project, such
as the Geographic Information System.

2.1.5 Processes
The project is a niche in the sense that, through a small regional experiment, the
following two dominant discourses are counteracted: (1) lack of inter-municipal
coordination in creating a resilient alternative to the predominantly monoculture
regime in the forestry sector and (2) generalized discredit of environmental projects,
mainly due to continuity and monitoring failures.
The FUTURE gives emphasis to communication on all its fronts. People are
encouraged to participate and exchange experiences. An example of this is the
annual technician meeting. Two such meetings have been held (2014 and 2015) in
which, in addition to reporting project results, participants can share ideas, critiques,
difficulties, and successes. These meetings include training by higher education
institutions and enable intervention improvements.
Over the years the concern about knowledge sharing with citizens has been taken
into account. Thus training sessions have been organised, free of charge and for
different communities, on plant propagation, identification methods and invasive
plant control, among others. Up until July 2015, 169 training hours were organised
and 460 citizens attended in total.
Specific training was given to operational teams and technical staff involved in
the FUTURE, in particular on the identification, planning and control of invasive
plants—a major challenge for ongoing interventions. A total of 222 people par-
ticipated in the 71 h of training. Planting and maintenance activities also promote
196 M. Pinto et al.

the exchange of knowledge and experiences between partners, volunteers and

experts, resulting in increased mutual understanding and respect.
Actions that involve schools and students have taken place since 2013. In
2014/2015 this covered 52 schools, 130 teachers, and 2439 students (six years old
and onwards). In 2015/16 the “FUTURE Schools’ Network” has 46 institutions
sowing new trees, enhancing school grounds and learning about their natural
heritage.
The project is continuously monitored regarding activities, participants and
results (Pinto and Almeida 2013). An elaborate database was created for this effect,
in tandem with the Geographic Information System.
Results so far show positive growth in number of planting activities, areas
intervened, trees planted, and human involvement. During the first year (2011/12)
11,409 trees were planted, whereas in 2014/15 that number rose to 29,134. Vol-
unteer participations, in the same time frame, increased from 1858 to 3164. Vol-
unteer hours almost doubled, from 5873 to 10,216. Throughout four consecutive
winters a total of 190 ha were planted with 63,571 trees of 40 native species.
Simultaneously, some of the benefits obtained are regularly assessed and shared
(Soares et al. 2011). Looking only at carbon sequestration, air pollutant retention,
and soil water regulation, the trees planted annually provide US$2,990,956 in
ecosystem services.
Intervened areas are monitored regularly with a biostatistical analysis method-
ology that determines the planting success rates. The average survival rate for trees
three to six months after installation is 95 % (Grupo de Estudos Ambientais da
Universidade Católica Portuguesa 2015), dropping to 60 % one to two years after
installation (Grupo de Estudos Ambientais da Universidade Católica Portuguesa
2014, #72).
All reports are public and posted online, as well as sent to partners, experts and
volunteers involved in the FUTURE. The website (www.100milarvores.pt) and
Facebook page (www.facebook.com/100000arvores) are regularly updated. Overall
the project (Table 1) is entirely transparent.

Table 1 The FUTURE project presented as suggested by Lawrence et al. (2013)

Name FUTURE—the 100,000 trees project in the Porto Metropolitan Area,
Portugal
Type Project
Description Regional, inter-municipal project to create, promote and maintain native
urban forests
Scale Porto Metropolitan Area
Context
Trees, forests Parks, natural corridors, woodlands and forestlands
Catchment 1.73 million people
population
(continued)
Urban Forest Governance: FUTURE—The 100,000 Trees Project … 197

Table 1 (continued)
Name FUTURE—the 100,000 trees project in the Porto Metropolitan Area,
Portugal
Institutional framework
Policies Porto Metropolitan Area Environmental Strategic Plan (2003–2008)
National Forest Strategy
Planning and Municipal and regional planning systems
regulations Legal regime applied to afforestation and reforestation actions
National system of classified areas
Ownership Mixed: public (state and local authorities) and private (landowners bound
by agreement)
Access and use Public access to most of the areas—in the case of private property, staff
rights and volunteers are guaranteed access
Actors and coalitions
Primary Porto Metropolitan Area Administration, 17 municipalities, Catholic
stakeholders University of Portugal, State Forest Service, forest landowner’s
associations, forest landowners
Other stakeholders Volunteers, schools, higher education institutions, non-governmental
organizations, State Agriculture and State Environment Regional
Services, Lipor, Serralves Foundation, Metro do Porto
Partnerships CRE.Porto conflates the partnership (Catholic University of Portugal,
PMA, municipalities and other partners); also specific partnerships with
private landowners and businesses
Power analysis CRE.Porto leads the FUTURE, acting as a bridge-organisation between
public authorities and a cluster of citizen groups as well as coordinating
resources in a balanced adaptive dance
Resources
Funding Municipalities, European Commission, foundations and companies
Knowledge Forest management, nature conservation, invasive species control, native
plant species, nursery management, communication, community
involvement
Delivery Trees produced in state nurseries and in the FUTURE’s own nursery;
mechanisms forest rangers and gardeners provide field support; volunteers do most of
the planting; the Coordinating Office brings together actors and resources
Processes
Discourses Calls for inter-municipal coordination in creating a resilient alternative to
the predominant monoculture regime and a reliable community based
territorial intervention
Participation Governmental, non-governmental, public and private organisations
actively participate in planning, implementation and monitoring;
multilateral communication is promoted; citizens are involved in planting
and nurturing as well as finding improvements and helping in their
implementation
Monitoring and Reports published annually with results on activity participation, trees
evaluation planted and area covered
Monitoring report published annually, presenting survival rates for
planting activities
Report on annual meeting of technical staff
198 M. Pinto et al.

3 Conclusions and Future Directions

This description concludes a first exercise in systematizing a southern European

regional urban forest governance initiative as per Lawrence et al. (2013). This
framework demonstrated its usefulness and flexibility with the FUTURE—the
100,000 trees project in the Porto Metropolitan Area and naturally brought out the
distinctive political, social and geographical puzzle that makes it unique as well as
ground-breaking. In parallel, this analysis allowed for an in-depth reflection on the
FUTURE’s governance. The following conclusions seem noteworthy.
The FUTURE dynamics are closely linked to CRE.Porto’s vitality. This broad
network of public and private organisations set up a new governance model that
brings together—and manages—a diverse range of resources. It embodies a more
technical personality and avoids the traps of the conventional governing approach.
The CRE.Porto Coordinating Office’s autonomy allows it to build consensuses
between citizens, local governments and other organisations. As such the Coordi-
nating Office is a bridge-organisation (Young and McPherson 2013) which, in full
compliance with existing laws and regulations, is better able to succeed where
traditional public management has lagged. Scattered resources are brought together,
synergies are promoted and win-win relationships are fostered among partners who
traditionally evolve on parallel tracks.
The onward journey of CRE.Porto and the FUTURE depends on political will,
mostly from local governments who must inject much needed funds to keep the
Coordinating Office going. However, the structure, consistency and results of this
network and project, against a backdrop of power dispersion in the region, guar-
antee a continuity that no single institution is able to ensure. Clear evidence is borne
by the fact that the 2013 municipal elections, which resulted in deep political
changes, elicited no threat to survival. The FUTURE being coordinated by a uni-
versity probably helps insulate it further against the vagaries of political strife.
This is a clear case of “governance with government” (Lawrence et al. 2013;
Secco et al. 2011; Young and McPherson 2013), where the government’s role is not
of leadership but of support.
This distinctive feature may be related to the institutional context in which
FUTURE arose. The FUTURE and CRE.Porto are the tangible results of a long and
complex participatory strategic plan carried out in the region years earlier. The
broad public involvement in defining a common vision, diagnosing the challenges
and identifying the priorities generated a deep knowledge base and endorsed an
unprecedented social capital (of mutual knowledge, trust and shared views). People
from the several organisations that regularly accompanied the development of the
PMA-ESP bonded into a learning community. This community continues to grow
and at the ongoing technical meetings, training sessions and field activities repre-
sent a privileged exchange forum. This important role of collective learning in the
new governance models of urban forests has been already recognized by Secco
et al. (2011).
Urban Forest Governance: FUTURE—The 100,000 Trees Project … 199

Due to the concerted action of this learning community the FUTURE has
developed spin-off projects that were not foreseen initially, such as the production
of native plants or invasive plant control plans. It should be observed that what
some may consider a partial failure—the full 100,000 native trees have not been
planted by 2015—is seen by the FUTURE’s community as an adjustment to the
reality of the region, as the collective body recognised the need of addressing
additional issues.
A new FUTURE analysis, focused on governance quality parameters in accor-
dance with the forest framework laid out by Secco et al. (2011) is now warranted.
From every end, spring ever branching beginnings.

Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank all citizens and organisations involved with the
FUTURE—the 100,000 trees project in the Porto Metropolitan Area. Their work and enthusiasm
towards this common green goal makes all efforts worthwhile.

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Reflexive Research and Education
for Sustainable Development
with Coastal Fishing Communities
in the Azores Islands: A Theatre
for Questions
Alison Laurie Neilson and Irina Castro

Abstract
Sustainable development (SD) is a controversial concept informed by conflictual
narratives which reshape the way we envision the earth, the sea and the stars. Its
integration in international policies and national strategy plans for development
influences the ways we now know the past, our understanding of the present, and
our paths to the future. It influences our lives through policies that regulate daily
practices, such as the European Common Fisheries Policy which focuses its
strategies for SD in trade and education. However, the problems faced by the
ocean require understanding sustainable marine ecosystems through the complex
interactions between ecological, social, economic, and political dimensions.
Analysing the intersection of those dimensions, while respecting peoples’
voices, allowed us to identify how policies and regulations for SD fail, and
opened spaces for an emancipatory reflexive research on SD: responsible,
accountable and transformative. This approach inevitably raised questions of
environmental justice that challenged us to look critically at research and
education norms for SD, as well as question how the deficit-model of research is
built on the assumption that the failures of SD are due to lack of knowledge. In
this chapter we bring together research experience on education and research
practices, overlapping our reflexive and educational practices, with the Azores
archipelago in Portugal as our background, in order to explore other possibilities.
With the help of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed, we explore the
potential of multi-directional learning via aesthetic practices and action-based
research to enable narrative inquiry to engage people in research, and SD policy
development that are environmentally just and sustainable.

A.L. Neilson (&)
I. Castro

Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: aneilson@ces.uc.pt

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 203

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_13
204 A.L. Neilson and I. Castro

1 Introduction

This is an exploration on how research practice fits into the “world” of sustain-
ability and education for sustainability, and how these all connect with policy and
living on the sea we call home. While we explore research, education and
knowledge practices as they relate to coastal fishing communities in the Azores
Islands, Portugal, we invite the reader to consider tough questions about the impacts
of scholarly practices and to reflect on the underlying assumptions and economic
systems which profess to aim for sustainability. Multiple people have been involved
in the research in the Azores of which we refer, but this analytic conversation is
between only the principal researcher, Alison Neilson; and Irina Castro, not part of
the Azorean projects, but who has been working on science-in-society issues and
exploring practices of scientists and scientific controversies.
We started our discussions at the same point, the point of perplexity; we do this
in order to spur learning (Dewey 1938). Perplexity is an inability to comprehend
something or someone: difficult, yet not a frustrating dead-end, rather an oppor-
tunity to imagine what has not happened and the considerations of what is possible
(Boal 2008). Being perplexed is sometimes described as an entangled condition, but
this organic concept from the Brazilian theatre director, himself a perplexed man,
follows the new feminism materialism in the entanglement of matter and meaning
(Barad 2007) sensible to the “cuts” produced by the act of observing, and
self-conscious that the cuts temporarily enacted by our presence include and
exclude processes from our considerations.
For scholars of the new feminist materialism, as well as for practitioners of
Theatre of the Oppressed, the goal is not to get into rigorous analysis of people’s
actions, narratives or representations, but rather to question how the practices of
research and theatre can be more responsible and fair, while accepting that their
actions of transformation are political. We consider how the metanarratives of
knowledge production has colonized peoples and caused great pain, leading us to the
idea that refusing some research questions and foci is “a generative, analytic prac-
tice” (Tuck and Yang 2014, p. 817) which can turn our gaze back upon the power
that allows some people to construct research that begins from implicit ideas that
certain other people are ignorant, immoral or savage. Embracing feminist episte-
mologies and Theatre of the Oppressed practices, we use our perplexity to trouble
the reader into questioning the concepts of sustainability and education, as well as
research practices. We also encourage researchers to take on the identity of resident
aliens (Haraway 1997) and seek to be accountable, responsible, and transformative.
We follow the movement of our perplexity as scientists trained in ecology, as
educators in environmental and science initiatives, and now as disciplinary hybrids
inhabiting the territories of social sciences studying processes of informal educa-
tion, environmental justice, and fishing communities; and knowledge production
and governance modes. We therefore initiate a conversation on research practices
and education for sustainability, defending its materialistic character (a philo-
sophical position which acknowledges the way the real world impacts people but
Reflexive Research and Education for Sustainable Development … 205

also that together they have the ability to change society), in order to help build a
path toward a responsible sustainable development (SD). We discuss aspects of the
real world and how ideas help create this world in which we are embedded. We do
this while being faithful to our previous projects and research teams, to whom we
owe our perplexity.

2 Fishing for Frameworks and Models

2.1 European Fishing Policy—A Beginning

We start with the EU Common Fisheries Policy [CFP] as it is perhaps at the heart of
the issues of our interests, and it allows us to explore the internal contradictions of
the dominant discourses of sustainable development from the most straight-forward
political dimension, its governance. Policies are concrete measures created to rule
and change human practices in order to promote a certain outcome, in this case
sustainability/sustainable development. But as contested abstract concepts (Con-
nelly 2007), it is in policies such as the CFP that we see what sustainability and
sustainable development are in the process of actually creating, which helps in
recognizing the contradictions inherent in definitions. The CFP was first established
in 1970 to create equal access for all countries of the Council of the European
Communities to a free trade area of the oceans, ruled by common principles. Its
association with the then embryonic discourse of sustainable development came
later, although today the two are inseparable. CFP is presented as a set of common
rules for managing European fishing fleets and for conserving fish stocks, making it
difficult for the very different practices of artisanal and industrial fishing to be
regulated for both purposes, an aspect of particular interest for the Azores (Neilson
et al. 2012b).

2.2 Difficult Match: CFP and Sustainable Development

Several authors have critiqued the dual pursuit of competition and sustainability of
the ocean (Khalilian et al. 2010), while identifying the CFP, itself, as part of the
problem preventing sustainability (Mansfield 2011). Approaches to sustainability
based on the assumption that we need better science and technological solutions
have not prevented overfishing. Nor have they been successful in providing equal
access for fishing, which brings us to look for contradictions in the economic
system of production in which SD is being framed. Critics have explored how the
solutions presented by SD are in fact causing the problems and creating specific
patterns of economic and environmental crisis by aggravating social inequality
(Foster 2011; O’Connor 1998).
Although dominate discourses of SD are periodically redefined, a critique of the
ways of production in capitalist economies is still mostly absent from those debates,
which continues to have consequences to the processes of policy decision-making.
206 A.L. Neilson and I. Castro

Perhaps this is not surprising since the concepts of diversity and biodiversity have
also been constructed within the capitalist globalized economic system, resulting in
a misleading understanding of the resilience of natural resources to human practices
of exploitation (Jasanoff and Martello 2004; Mansfield 2011). The issue lies in the
way scientists perceive the knowledge we generate as apolitical. Problems such as
overfishing are not framed as a problem of globalization or as a contradiction of the
capitalist system, but as inevitable tragedies caused by inherent human nature in
relations with property-based conflicts, that will be overcome throughout the
mechanisms of market, or common trade rules (Harding 1968; Mansfield 2011).
This way of thinking affects sustainable development for oceans, forests (see Serra
et al. in this book), and agriculture.
Also absent is recognition that the participatory aspects of CFP appear largely
superficial (Neilson et al. 2012a) even though several models of policy making have
been adopted. Research demonstrates that public participation (Brewer 2013) can
create beneficial policies that elicit a high degree of compliance. However, within
policy-making structures there exists a tension between participatory democracy
and expert authority that has remained fundamentally unchanged for the last four
decades. This involves who is included in the decision-making process, whose
knowledge is valued, and the reality that participation does not always mean an
effective redistribution of power (Ferreira et al. 2012).

2.3 Economic Systems and Sustainable Development

Defined in 1987 by the Brundtland Report as the development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
needs (WCED 1987), SD has become the green discursive umbrella in a globalized
capitalist economy that seeks to construct a common culture and a common edu-
cation. Masquerading as an apolitical concept SD serves both liberal economies
(e.g., USA and UK) which are based on competitive markets, and coordinated
market economies (e.g., Germany and Japan) that base their economic relations in
non-market forms, by creating new fictitious commodities (Hall and Soskice 2001;
Polanyi 2000), such as the Carbon Market (Brockington 2011), and patents (Jessop
2007) which promote new forms of capital accumulation and subsequently deepen
social, gender and race inequalities. SD discourses under the lexicon of manage-
ment proliferate worldwide through, and into institutions, organizations and
decision-making procedures, becoming a moral connector amidst conflicting
practices and contradictory narratives, while promoting management rationalities
and market-based green governance, requiring human performances via trade and
education.
The World Trade Organization [WTO] claims that international trade advances
sustainable development (2011) since it is easier for everyone to access environ-
mental goods, services and technologies and therefore reduce environmental con-
tamination and energy losses, while stimulating the growth and basic income levels
in developing nations. However, this positivist perspective regarding the role of
Reflexive Research and Education for Sustainable Development … 207

trade in addressing environmental problems has been contested (Martinez-Alier

1993; O’Connor 1994). Furthermore, Ropke (1994) has demonstrated that inter-
national trade tends to stimulate economic growth at the costs of environmental
deterioration; hence international trade is part of the problem and not of the
solution.

2.4 Education and Sustainable Development

Sustainable development redefines education from including critical thinking to a

narrower instrumental (and political) mandate to create social change (Jickling
1992). Instead of understanding and respecting different perspectives; habits and
decisions are considered to be in need of becoming “more informed”, privileging
decision-making processes based on science and technology. Since 1987, initiatives
of “Science Engaging Society” have become a priority under the compass of
education for SD. As world-wide initiatives, differences between societies are
expected, however, success has been limited by asymmetric notions of what people
need in order to address their environmental problems (Sterling 2001), as the ini-
tiatives are being strongly influenced by the deficit-model (Dierkes 2000) that sees
people to be in need of education, instead of promoting the integration of their
knowledge into the processes of decision-making. Who educated us? (Marx 1845)
is a vital question based on respecting that humans change, as well as learn from our
circumstances, hence the educator herself must also be educated. One mainstream
argument for education is that overfishing is a problem that impacts all people who
depend directly on the ocean, but this doesn’t take into account the knowledges that
already exist locally. Research in historical practices suggests that humans are
clearly an integral part of ecosystems (Berkes 2004) having co-evolved with
interdependent and affective connections between humans and non-human nature;
“depicting ‘humans’ as the natural enemies of wilderness is thus irrespective of the
millions who have been and continue to be victims of enclosures and ‘improve-
ments’, a never-ending historical process that four decades of global neo-liberal
politics and trade have reinvigorated (Barca 2014).
We regularly see fisheries education with goals to “train fisheries professionals
with the technical knowledge and practical skills” and to “cultivate more envi-
ronmentally knowledgeable citizens” (Crook and Zint 1998), thereby telling us that
the dominant explanation of problems of fishing are based on apolitical under-
standings, and the dominant solutions rely on the neutrality of knowledge and
technologies, which are transmitted one-way from expert to ignorant fisher. This
occurs in the context where the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
pressured nations to repay loans to aid their “development” (Mundy 2005), which
has penalized innovative education (and environmental education cf. Bélanger
2003), and diverse models to demand compliance with a banking (of knowledge)
model of education (Freire 1970). Orellana and Fauteux (2000) suggest that
beginning in the mid-1980s economic concerns pushed environmental education
into education for sustainable development and education for a sustainable future.
208 A.L. Neilson and I. Castro

These discourses also divide researchers from society; and the role of researcher
needs to be critiqued in their relationship to the commodification of scientific
knowledge. The growing logic of new management and market-based knowledge
production are changing the dynamics of universities and research centres to
become increasingly vulnerable, and thus even more subordinated to criteria of
austerity for economic recovery and neoliberal business management models (Huff
2012). Current scientific systems value knowledge that is useful to the production
and distribution of other marketable commodities (Wotherspoon 2012) over those
that promote sustainable just transitions (Barca 2015). Goals for engaging with and
meeting the local needs of people are increasingly being relegated in research grant
proposals, if accepted for inclusion at all, to secondary activity within minor work
packages.

3 Aesthetic Research = Theory in Practice?

We now engage in a conversation to explore our practices to uncover the ways we

might challenge these issues. We are in sync with the diverse economies approach
of Gibson-Graham (2008), namely a “performative ontological project” designed
not only to co-produce knowledge, but also to actively contribute to “novel eco-
nomic performances” and to possible alternative worlds, “in which we enact and
construct rather than resist (or succumb to) economic realities” (p. 615). We remind
ourselves that we too, are embedded and grew up within these same systems we
critique. Metrics of impact and university performance regulations pressure us to
gloss over cracks to present ourselves as “good” researchers who serve up
crack-free knowledge. While discussing how to reveal the cracks, R. Spannring
suggests that we think about the multidimensionality and interrelatedness of the
research process, asking what the process builds on (other scholars; our experi-
ences, concepts, and beliefs; trust in colleagues to share ideas; openness to new
ideas), what does it exclude (other voices, languages, concepts, life worlds) and
how can the difference be productive and generative for our academic and activist
work (personal communication, 24th July 2015).
Alison: The research that I have undertaken in the Azores was not initially
focused on the fishing communities, their sustainable development or the Common
Fisheries Policy. It is important to acknowledge the processes from the initial
narrative inquiry to the engagement with fishing communities. In fact, all
researchers, at least those dependent on external funding, undertake similar jour-
neys in their work: an essential part of the puzzle when exploring the construction
of knowledge, the connection between research, education and sustainable devel-
opment and the political nature of all science scholarship, natural or social.
Research publications rarely expose these details, giving the erroneous idea that
question, sample sizes, and methods described were always what the researchers
had planned and had been under their control from the start. This erasure of history
removes the researcher and all the ways that her social, cultural, political, physical,
Reflexive Research and Education for Sustainable Development … 209

emotional, and spiritual characteristics complicate the primacy of rational

decision-making she has been taught to seek.
Irina: Your reflection on how the rules that govern our activity remove our
organic dimensions from our daily practice of inquiry makes me think about time
and space restraints. The time we are given to perform research affects the sort of
decisions we make, and that time is built by epistemic reconfigurations that address
the requirements of social life reproduction (Harvey 2000). Time for research isn’t
determined by the issues related to the inquiry, but rather with notions of time and
space build in social class power relations, colonial visions and gender bias. This
then pushes us to think that our knowledge and voice are more valuable than others,
and that our role is to transmit that knowledge to other people.

3.1 A Joker in the Middle of the Ocean

Alison: Being in the middle of the deep ocean, the Azores is home to a myriad of
resident and migrating whales supporting a great deal of cetacean research, some of
it connected to the highly visible whale watching tourism, and there is a poignant
history of whaling captured in literature and patrimony. Although I was provoked
by my sense that the former whalers were not being remembered in a fair way, the
dominant narrative seeming to be: ‘our grandfathers were brave but barbarian in
killing whales, thankfully we are more environmentally-friendly’; my focus of
research was to get at the ways that different people think about the ocean. I had
expected there to be differences and I was particularly aware that even my framing
of the research already exposed an important difference. The research project used
the term Cetaceans, meaning all whales and dolphins, while the former whalers
were clear in telling me that they hunted Cachalot, but not other whales. A con-
tradiction exists to the dominant narrative as well. The intense activity around
whale-watching has led some researchers to suggest that the impact on whales was
far less during the period of whale hunting than during the current tourism activity
(Neves 2010).
The research brought out ways that concepts such as respect were conceptual-
ized and operationalized differently between fishers and their families, and tourist
and tour operators. This part of the work also revealed strong and different emo-
tional reactions to the photo of the tail of a whale out of the water. Former whalers
trembled and sometimes shed tears as these images evoked their fear of being in the
midst of a hunt on a wooden boat often smaller than the animal and the memories of
brothers hurt, sometimes killed when the tail of the thrashing animal crashed their
boat. For the tourists, this same photo brought smiles which led to talking about the
beauty of the animal and the peaceful feelings of being on the water near them.
While interviewing and speaking casually with tourists on the street, I was
shocked to notice that Azorean people, especially the fishers, were absent from the
conversations (Neilson et al. 2014). Something, perhaps my fluctuating process of
identifying myself with the tourists while actively resisting that identification for
210 A.L. Neilson and I. Castro

my preferred new identity as an Azorean, left me open to be receptive to change my

underlying thinking (cf. Beausoleil 2014). The open-ended research methods that I
initially chose to try to reduce the effect of my expectations were successful in that
they provided an opportunity for me to hear things that provoked deeper questions
then I had been asking which has drawn me and the world of research into the
research problem.
Irina: Drowning into the research problem is the first step for a Joker in Forum
Theatre sessions. This is the character of the Theatre of the Oppressed that I
embody when I adopt the scientific ethos of reflexive-perplexity of accountability,
responsibility, and transformation. Like the joker in a forum, I search to open the
space for the possibility to re-engage in the debate of sustainable development and
promote a reflexive understanding of socio-ecological problems, by bringing into
my research (or forum) not just the intersection that produced social practices, but
also those that bring the material world into being. The end is discovery not
abstention (Boal 2006). This is the Joker’s neutrality, the responsible act resulting
from having made a choice.

3.2 Reflexive Practice

Alison: My education practice is based on reflexivity (Schön 1983), and the belief
in the inevitability of failure when we try to deal with our own biases by simply
imaging other standpoints (Stone-Mediatore 2003). As a non-native “settler”
Canadian, I have been trying to listen closely to indigenous scholarship in partic-
ular. Smith (1999) who writes about the absence of indigenous approaches to
research, points to the failure of critical theorists to recognize and change their own
oppressive practices. While, there were never indigenous peoples on these islands,
the call to transform practices which continue colonization of peoples is pertinent to
the Azores.
I had begun wondering about the effects of the invisibility of the fishers on other
aspects of island life. At this same time, I was beginning to interact with fishing
communities beyond collecting data. For instance, I shared the stories from my
research interviews via an art workshop for youth done in partnership with a
woman’s fisher association; we also organized a display of stories to show during a
festival, and together we presented this same material for use with school cur-
riculum, as part of a qualification upgrading workshop for teachers across the
islands. Soon afterwards, I was invited to share my research at the Congress of
Azorean Fishers run by fishing cooperatives and associations and later to a gov-
ernment and scientist forum on marine policy. It was at this point that I observed
how the knowledge of fishers was undervalued and perspectives ignored. My
developing collaborations with community leaders and activists in fishing com-
munities across other islands quickly led to us to organise a 4-day forum for fishers
and government and scientists (Neilson et al. 2012a). Shortly afterwards, changes to
the Common Fisheries Policy were being considered, so in collaboration with
researchers and others from the forum, we wrote and submitted a book about the
Reflexive Research and Education for Sustainable Development … 211

CFP and artisanal fishing communities for the European Commission in order to
influence the outcome of the reviews (Neilson et al. 2012b).
Irina: A reflexive practice is also what we are doing here by letting ourselves
into one another’s practice. However, a reflexive sociology poses many challenges
under the modern scientific model of governance. It includes a tension between
being reflexive and the hostile environment of publish or perish paradigm of sci-
ence, the emerging bureaucratization of scientific activities and the contradictory
policy of patents. If it’s true that narrative research has already made important
achievements by turning visible the power relations entangled in scientific prac-
tices, I wonder if it still lacks ways to treat those voices seriously and promote
spaces where they would in fact be heard.
Alison: These processes are also about me being quiet and leaving space, as well
as me facilitating the creation of space so that other voices can be heard. But this is
a worry for me as I consider having the power to create unsafe situations for some
people as these can limit “our ability to access or remain reflective about our own
knowledge, remain receptive to the unfamiliar, and create new responses and
behaviours” (Beausoleil 2014, p. 22). In particular, researchers who are in junior or
more precarious positions of employment may be put in far greater risk than I, in
challenging some research paradigms. Questions of power come into play when I
think about the way my reflexive actions may reflect on the other researchers
involved in the Azorean research who may hold different perspectives on what is
responsible research practice.

4 Research as Aesthetic Place

One of the aims of Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) is to use collective inquiry to
find/define the common question to a certain problem. The other is to transform the
reality that the question addresses. In this final section, we invite the reader to adopt
the critical and aesthetic approach of a TO practitioner, and to abandon all cer-
tainties you may hold about any “scientific methods” in order to adopt the question
that arises from multi-stories presented in people’s narratives. In this way we are
able to find the common questions that are responsible: questions that are not
exhausted in their response but which shared the perplexity of all imagined
answers. In this sense we will not close with certainties but open it into new
possible futures by sharing our narratives.
Irina: It is surprising how often education is still offered as the universal solvent
for problems (Campbell 2006); the scant evidence that suggests the global
expansion of formal schooling as a panacea for unemployment is “one of the most
romantic tales of the century” (Fagerlind and Saha 1983). In capitalist education the
goal is to reproduce the labour force through education and subject people to
political state ideology (Althusser 1971); while in education from a reflexive
socio-ecology, the goal follows Boal’s (2008) construction of an aesthetic space.
Based on both Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) and Rancière (1991)
postulate of equal intelligence, Boal’s aesthetic space embraces solidarity. For
212 A.L. Neilson and I. Castro

a practitioner of the Theatre of the Oppressed the aesthetic space is a place where
the separation between actors and spectators collapses, and where the time barrier is
crossed by the coincidence of this being experienced, simultaneously in the
memory of the past, and in the imagination of the future. There is no pre-existing
space privileged to promote participation, but rather the possibility of an area that
becomes by overlapping reality constructions with imagination produced by the
desire of knowledge and the pleasure of knowing. The aesthetics of the oppressed is
assumed as the place where the artistic method allows acting on the future and
restoring the idea of democracy (Boal 2006). It is the exploitation of sensitive
thought and symbolic thinking, understanding phenomena and the revealing of
hidden forces behind a society of the spectacle (Debord 2000 [1970]) and
oppression. In science, as in theatre and in politics, we are not passive beings, but
active agents of transformation.
Alison: We live in a world of constant motion and are always in flux; seemingly
with limitless potential of the imagination, yet always constrained by the limits in
which our bodies will live and die along with the cycles of birth and death of all life
on earth. It seems to me that we have entered some sort of parallel universe of
opposites, where time and space are limitless and growing, while our imaginations
are shackled in a small cell where capitalism is the only governing system, rational
individualism is the only way to be and private property is the only place to make
our lives. What if we listen to the narrations of the people who have experienced the
phenomenon we study as if they are in a theatre workshopping the ways to express
the overlapping and sometimes conflicting complexities of the multiple perspectives
within the same role? What if we did that while we also workshopped the ways to
express the overlapping and sometimes conflicting complexities of the multiple
perspectives we can hold in the researcher role?

5 An Actor/Fisher in Boal’s Theatre

I could feel waves of great exhilaration and paralyzing fear as my small boat rides
the breaking waves going out to sea. These few minutes may feel like an eternity,
yet, I will only have a few hours to set my fishing lines and return to shore before
night falls. If I decide to travel the 50 km on land to Ponta Delgada from my home
of Ribeira Quente, I must meet with my neighbours for a ride as the cost of fuel is
high to drive alone. We know the route, but the dense fog slows our progress as we
watch for fallen rocks and washed out parts of the mountain roads. When we reach
the meeting, we listen while the limnologist speaks for 40 min about coastal erosion
harming fish habitat, then for another 40 min, another biologist talks about the
status of Mero and that he would like spear-fishers to be able to take them again.
Before the end, someone from the navy tells us about the limitations of the fleet for
patrolling the waters to keep out foreign vessels who are illegally fishing our
waters. This somewhat shorter presentation is buttressed with official words
thanking the President of the Freguesia for organizing this meeting on such short
notice. These public consultations are to develop the National Strategy for the Sea.
Reflexive Research and Education for Sustainable Development … 213

The Regional Director tells us that there are only a few minutes to hear from the
audience before he must leave to catch the last flight to Horta. Epá! Maria was
quite angry that she couldn’t come with me as the baby is still sick and now she will
be doubly annoyed that I didn’t ask about the problem of catching Goraz which are
too small to take to the Lota (constructed from research 2008–2014).
Alison: It is in this world that I seek to be a researcher: someone who listens and
watches and reflects on my relationship to this observing. I am conscious of limits,
having the dual dis/advantage of language differences to be continually reminded of
my observing and that I wear invisible blinders. Not only do I not see everything
when I observe, I cannot see what I am not looking at and alone, I do not know of
what I cannot see.
Irina: All research should be collaborative and I suggest a network metaphor to
(re)conceptualize the researcher, participants and other entities within a larger and
more holistic perspective of research. Otherwise, it can feel like a “world of ‘too
muchness’, information overload, and a surfeit of meaning” (Hoskin and Stoltz
2005, p. 98). There are a limited number of pages in any publication, a limited
number of minutes in any presentation, and a limited number of ideas I can consider
at any one moment. How much space is left for the lived experiences of the people
involved? Compartmentalizing knowledge-making from knowledge and knowers,
using the techniques of empiricism (Richardson 1990), is a way in which some
perspectives get excluded from policy and education.

5.1 An Actor/Researcher in Boal’s Theatre—Scene 1

The first words I hear in Portuguese are little more than a new music: compelling
but mysterious in my lack of comprehension. My eyes begin to uncover stories,
relationships, and feelings. I see welcome on faces as I walk on the cobble stones.
I notice a closed hunch, apparently defending against the wind, a shiver, perhaps in
response to the humid air. But my eyes too are sometimes confused and mislead by
memories of other faces, other storied landscapes. There are so many clues to find,
so many pieces of stories—some screaming at the top of their lungs, others
whispering furtively (research 2008—2010).

5.2 An Actor/Researcher in Boal’s Theatre—Scene 2

I have entered another world, legally, but which feels part invasion, part trap, as
all eyes seem to question if me and my young looking assistant are lost tourists. I sit
on the cold chair trying to take in every detail of the fishing Lota, where the
incoming boats sell their catch. The early morning calm of Ponta Delgada infil-
trates this auction where the only sounds are those of the conveyor belt, the faint
clink of the bidding devices and the occasional whisper some bidders make into cell
phones, checking and clicking. Beautiful colours of glistening scales on delicate
creatures and strong firm bodies of others are easy to imagine alive in the nearby
214 A.L. Neilson and I. Castro

water only hours before. I watch as tray after tray of fish roll past the camera as
numbers swirl on the monitor: name of boat, name of fish, kilograms, price of sale.
My assistant and I look to each other as we simultaneously realize that the numbers
are going down, not up. I will later learn that this is normal for all fish auctions,
unlike auctions for cattle, milk, gold and other valued and rare items which go up
in price during the sale process. But at this moment, I feel sick and in the place of
the fish in the trays of ice, I see the faces of fishers who have told me of their
struggles and I see the boats that I know have been recently repossessed (research
2015).

6 Conclusions

Alison: To learn from people’s narratives, I had to combine a framework of con-

cepts from political economy and ecology, as well as historical changes, and
analyse such narratives in the intersection of their personal history, history and
culture-socio-economic context. This is the basis of a reflexive sociology, a practice
of meaning creation that values the context, and its constant flow of transforma-
tions, of the evolving society. This wasn’t however the only transformation that
confronted me. Adopting a reflexive sociology has also changed me. Once you get
into a structure of inquiry that recaptures you into the research, it is impossible to go
back to the way you were before. Your only choice is to either ignore yourself as an
agent of knowledge production and all the heterogeneous constructions in the way
(Taylor 2010), or start to take yourself seriously. Taking yourself seriously is not to
put yourself in the centre of your research, in self-adulation, but rather accept the
responsibilities of your practices as researcher, by accepting your practice of
meaning creation as a political act of transformation.
Irina: In being reflexive of complicity in monocultures of ideas and the prob-
lems we seek to address, we acknowledge “all our relations” by honouring all the
people who have come before us as well as the other living beings with whom we
share this planet (Kulnieks et al. 2013). We will remember the current and past
practices which take on issues related to motivation rooted in social and cultural
patterns, as well as politics of knowledge with complex histories and inequities
(Sund and Öhman 2014). When we wear the title and prestige of scholar or “ex-
pert”, our reflexive call to seek further learning outside of our fields, universities
and ways of knowing, we create transformative possibilities beyond ourselves. We
need not feel increased stress of deadlines and production by the realization that we
need to engage with extensive fields of thoughts and disciplines in order to be
rigorous in developing a responsible sustainable research practice. This is a
step-by-step process, but only if we give up fighting for the lead, and instead follow
those who perplex us, will we learn how to enjoy the dance.

Acknowledgements The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the project
“Education for active citizenship: Images of participation in marine policy” funded by the Por-
tuguese Foundation for Science and Technology FCT—IF/01084/2013/CP1164/CT0001 and
Reflexive Research and Education for Sustainable Development … 215

“EDUMAR Perspectives about the sea and sea life: Cetaceans and tourism in the Azores, Portugal
and Newfoundland, Canada” funded by the Azorean Regional Director of Science and Technology
DRCT/FRCT—M2.1.2/F/007/2008.

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Public Policies and Education
for Biodiversity: Brazilian Challenges
in a New Global Context
Thiago Lima Klautau de Araújo

Abstract
This chapter aims to analyze Brazilian education and public policies for
environment and biodiversity through three main points of view: (I) legal, by
collecting and reviewing laws and other types of norms; (II) organizational and
administrative, by considering the regulation of the subject through the creation of
agencies, decisions of investments and planning to operate the public environ-
mental policy, through an analysis using Game Theory and Marginalism; and
(III) participation by the population, analyzing their contributions to the
environmental field. This review allows us to understand the possibilities of
environmental education (formal and informal) in the Brazilian context and the
challenges that require a transformation of the present paradigm. To illustrate a
good example of an integrated environmental education system, the Escola Bosque
was chosen, as an internationally awarded initiative for its positive impact on
education for biodiversity and the environment. Finally, new trends and some
possible changes in public policies for environment and environmental education
are suggested.

Keywords



Environmental law Education for biodiversity Public policies Game theory


Brazil

T.L. Klautau de Araújo (&)

Faculty of Economics and Centre for Social Studies,
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: thiagoklautau@gmail.com

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 219

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_14
220 T.L. Klautau de Araújo

1 Introduction

With a significant number of ecosystems, Brazil is considered to be the richest

country in terms of biodiversity, with 25 % of all species existing on the planet
(Kageyama 2009). The Amazon, Pantanal, and Atlantic Forest are three examples
among many others that contain hundreds of thousands of animal and plant species.
These biomes correspond to 49.29, 1.76, and 13.06 % of the Brazilian territory,
respectively (IBGE 2004). For that reason, ecologists from all over the world try to
study Brazil’s diversity before deforestation takes over and eliminates an incalcu-
lable number of those species and others still undiscovered (Fig. 1).
Pressures from the international community and Brazilian society forced the
Brazilian State to change environmental laws and include this subject in the new
Constitution. However, despite the rhetorical advances in those laws, very few—or
none—have become reality. For that reason, Brazilian environmental and

Fig. 1 Brazilian biomes (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística 2004)

Public Policies and Education for Biodiversity … 221

biodiversity policy has failed and many doubts remain about the ways Brazil is
dealing with environmental dilemmas and challenges, as will be seen in this
chapter. Deforestation, for example, is still growing and its consequences are
devastating not only locally, but also globally because it affects living ecosystems
on the planet.
After the “Plano Real” (creation of a new currency and other public policies to
deal with inflation, in 1994) investments in the environmental area increased, but
the results have not lived up to expectations. Currently, with its economic and
political crisis, Brazil is facing problems with its public budget, which lead to
financial cuts, including in environmental policies. At this moment, there is thus a
huge degree of uncertainty about the future.
This chapter provides an analysis based on Brazil’s environmental law system
and its public policies in order to establish a general overview about what has been
done until the present, also identifying new trends for the future. Although the focus
is on environmental and biodiversity education, an effort will be made to under-
stand the functioning of that system as one of the decisive dimensions of public
policies.
In this context, this chapter is organized into five points. The first performs an
analysis of the current legal system and its peculiarities, in order to identify the
changes (or lack of changes) in paradigms. The second questions the efficiency of
environmental public policies in dealing with Brazilian environmental challenges,
particularly deforestation and environmental degradation. The third analyzes the
interactions between environmental agencies and their efficiency using the Game
Theory and Marginalism. The fourth point is a reflection about environmental
education, its role and the means for implementing it. Finally, the last one will
highlight possible ways for adjusting those policies in the near future.

2 Brazilian Environmental Law: A New Perception (?)

The new environmental context that has emerged all over the world in the last four
decades, especially concerning climate change and biodiversity preservation, has
compelled the Brazilian legal system to adapt itself to the new trends. Law 6938/81
and the new Brazilian Constitution (CF/88), enacted on October 5th, 1988, brought
a new perspective to environmental law and to biodiversity. Fauna, flora, and
ecosystems were raised to another level of protection, and from that moment on
they were considered as important to all society and as a common right. Before
these two legal milestones, nature was protected in most cases merely as a thing, as
property of the government. Thus, the protection goal was to save economic
interests and not to conserve nature (Chiuvite 2010). Especially with the CF/88,
popular participation in the process of drafting public policies, laws, surveillance
against pollution (of all kinds), and deforestation began to be taken into account.
From a legal point of view and according to CF/88, art. 225, society, along with the
government, began to be holder of such rights and duties. This constitutional article,
222 T.L. Klautau de Araújo

by the way, is the main environmental law reference in the Constitution. However,
its assumptions were conditioned by the need to create supplementary enabling
regulations, and that is one of the biggest problems with the Brazilian legal system.
The Constitution brought a significant innovation to environmental preservation by
introducing the need for new relations between governments (Federal, States, and
Cities), society, and nature. Even with this new approach, constitutional provisions
could not be applied instantaneously. Just to mention the case of this article (CF/88,
art. 225), its complementary regulation came almost twelve years later, with law
9985/2000. A few years later came MP 2186-16/2001 (substituted by law
13123/2015) and law 11105/2005. Those norms represent the main regulatory
system for the environmental law provided in the Constitution. As it can be seen,
there was a vacuum between the first steps and the possibility of enforcing con-
stitutional rules. Nevertheless, deforestation and environmental degradation have
not been halted during all those years since the new Constitution, and even after this
complex system was implemented, the results in this area reveal that biodiversity in
Brazil is still highly endangered.
Despite all the legislative efforts, the higher number of laws has not been
translated into a more eco-friendly situation in the Brazilian dynamic. As said at the
beginning of this point, since the 1980s the law system has brought a new and
different perception about the environment. But the complexity of the instruments
for conserving fauna, flora, ecosystems, and natural resources is so high that the
results are totally the opposite of the original law’s purposes. Participation by the
community is limited because although citizens can contribute to building a better
way to manage nature in their home areas, in most cases, they lack the technical
knowledge for interacting with the government or for taking legal or out-of-court
action (Klautau de Araújo 2014).
It is important to highlight the fact that the regions in Brazil that own the largest
share of biodiversity are among the poorest and most disconnected from large urban
areas. In those places, populations suffer from lack of schools, health centers,
electricity, roads, piped water, sewerage, sanitation and also internet, television,
phones and cell phones. It is not possible that environmental preservation will be a
priority for populations in this context where basic needs are still not satisfied.
More than the government’s desire to be modern, laws must be adjusted to the
social and economic situation, in order to have the needed connection with the
“real” world, not to mention the necessity of being feasible. Otherwise, the law will
be simply a wish list, without any effectiveness. Those two sine qua non conditions
do not always receive the proper attention from the authorities. It is time for an
important reflection: is Brazilian legislation really evolving its perception in order
to solve environmental problems, or is it merely an outward change to ease the
pressure made by environmentalists and other sectors of society?
Public Policies and Education for Biodiversity … 223

3 Public Policies for Biodiversity: Is Brazil Really Doing All

that Is Needed?

The answer to the last question of the previous topic is not found in the laws, but
arises when one analyzes public policies. Very few actions have been taken to turn
legal provisions into concrete results. This reveals an unexpected side to those laws:
the government’s evasion of its responsibilities. As awkward as the last phrase may
sound, the different levels of government in Brazil are receiving considerable
pressure from all parts of society and from the international community, both
worried about increasing deforestation, losses of genetic assets, climate change, etc.
As a response to those critics, the government did create laws, but did not execute
them properly, or did not create instruments to make their enforcement possible.
Equipped with a huge and strong bureaucracy, the different levels of government in
Brazil do not display a disposition to turn legal provisions into reality. For example,
the National Solid Waste Policy—law 12305/2010—in its art. 54 set a deadline for
extinguishing solid waste dumps. This deadline expired in August 2014, at which
time 60 % of the cities in Brazil had still not complied with the law (Torres 2015).
Examples like this are numerous. Brazil still has a legal culture that views laws as a
priority and the solution for all institutional problems. Things are indeed changing,
but this conception that laws in themselves can bring about change remains very
present today.
The law itself is not a solution, especially when it is related with the environ-
ment. Without surveillance, prevention, repression, and other investments such as
education, it is impossible to stop environmental degradation. The law is merely a
legislative framework to be combined with duly planned and appropriately adjusted
public policies. Perpetual investments are needed for protecting Brazilian biomes,
and a considerable portion of the criticisms leveled at the governments are directed
exactly to the issue of financial resources applied to nature conservation. Despite
that, the federal government has recently announced a 72 % reduction to the budget
against deforestation in the Amazon Forest (Leite 2015), even after a 282 %
increase in deforestation seen in February 2015 compared with the same month in
2014 (de Castro 2015). The future is really uncertain, as the political and
economical crisis advances in Brazil in 2015, and other cuts in the budget for 2016
and the following years have already been announced.
The main problem with public policies in Brazil—in general, and not only
related with environmental issues—against deforestation, the results of one policy
can appear quickly, but can is that they are not considered as a State Policy, but as
the Policy of a specific Government. That means a lack of planning and vision in
the long term. The way Brazilian Governments, at different levels, treat some
problems is often by giving them “solutions” that can be managed in four or eight
years (the time for one term of office, or two if the president, governor or mayor is
reelected). But it is incorrect to think that this way of acting will solve the structural
problems we are facing concerning environment and biodiversity. In some subjects
such as protection only be maintained if there is a long-term planning to keep that
224 T.L. Klautau de Araújo

policy working. In other cases, the results only appear many years later, as it is the
case of reforestation. However, in almost all situations related to environmental and
biodiversity law, investments and planning must emphasize long-term strategies
and actions to achieve, but above all, to maintain results, since it is easier to prevent
damage than to recover from it because environmental recovery is not always
possible.
This instability is not the only guilty scenario for the failure in Brazil’s envi-
ronmental public policies. The segregation between related areas contributes to
results to be even weaker. What is the point of having separately a National
Environmental Policy (law 6938/81), Law of Access to Brazilian Genetic Assets
(“Biodiversity Legal Framework”, Law 13123/2015), National Policy for Envi-
ronmental Education (Law 9795/99), and Climate Change National Policy (Law
12187/2009), among other related public policies/laws? All of them approach
different aspects of the same subject: environmental law and nature conservation. If
one of those actions is taken without consulting the other parts, its effects will
probably not be as accurate as they should. If the different government sectors act in
different ways, their public policies may nullify each other.
When analyzing the issue more in depth, we can see there is an almost total
overlap of responsibilities between the components of SISNAMA (National
Environmental System), established by art. 3 of Decree 99274/90. For example,
ICMBio (Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation), whose purpose is
listed in article 1 of Law 11516/07 is almost identical to the duties of IBAMA
(Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), set out in
article 2 of Law 7735/89. There are also: the SBF (Brazilian Forest Service), with
functions similar to those of the previous institutions, but restricted to forest issues
(art. 55 of Law 11284/2006) and the Environmental Education Governing Body
(arts. 2 and 3 of Decree 4281/2002). In addition to these, there is CONAMA
(National Environment Council), a consultative and deliberative body, which has its
tasks set out in art. 7 of Decree 99274/90. There are many other agencies that play
very similar roles to those, but with more specific and limited competences.
This is not to say that the specifics of these organisms in the environmental
problem approach should be forgotten. On the contrary, they must be promoted in
an integrated, articulated, multidimensional system that meets the specific charac-
teristics and their interdependencies without losing sight of the whole.
For those reasons, what are the advantages of having so many public agencies
with almost the same functions? For example, IBAMA and ICMBio have police
powers and duties that involve monitoring, protection, preservation, and promoting
environmental education. With the exception of police power, the SBF has the same
functions for forestry. Assignments that distinguish these three agencies are per-
fectly amenable of being performed by only one of them. The segregation of duties
brings huge financial losses, lack of efficiency and harm to the public, and above all,
to nature. The financial losses are due to the maintenance of multiple separate
institutions that perform similar functions involving additional infrastructural
expenses as well as commissioned positions, and other administrative costs that do
not contribute to improve the quality of the public service. The loss of efficiency
Public Policies and Education for Biodiversity … 225

due to this separation is evident by the fact that specialization, in some cases, is so
great that the lack of communication between the agencies can cause damage and
raise barriers to public policies implemented by the same government. Also,
agencies that have the same competence when working separately, as demonstrated
by the Brazilian experience, not only do not improve performance, but also
decrease it. The damage to the population can be checked through the increase in
deforested areas; the enormous amount of time and bureaucracy that is needed to
license environmental projects, lack of environmental law enforcement, and others.
This is loss for local populations and a global loss for humanity.
The lack of tools that enable law enforcement brings severe consequences to the
effectiveness of the proposed measures. Even when there is enforcement (which
does not always happen), the flexibility of Brazilian law ends up generating a high
rate of impunity for polluters and those who harm biodiversity. Between 2011 and
2014, only 8.7 % of the total amount of fines imposed by IBAMA were paid
(Geraque and Mena 2015), which shows that offenders benefit from system’s
slowness and extreme bureaucracy, which drags out payment of fines for years.
However, even if those fines were paid promptly, that would not be enough to curb
avoidable environmental damage because their amounts are very low. Some data
show that it is much cheaper to pay fines than to take measures to prevent envi-
ronmental damage as we may see in the recent example of the environmental
disaster that occurred in November 2015, in the city of Mariana, Minas Gerais.
A catastrophe resulting from a dam holding toxic waste was breached, and the
resulting mud advanced along the Rio Doce and reached the sea; Samarco (the
mining company responsible for the barrage) was fined in R$362 million
(approximately US$100 million), while the insurance would have cost US$1 billion
(Oliveira 2015).
The Mariana case is emblematic for several reasons. The damage to the envi-
ronment and populations is incalculable, as many experts believe that the life of Rio
Doce was decimated by heavy metals found in the river water (Redação G1 2015).
Water cannot be used for irrigation and drinking, and the mud spot already extends
for several kilometers along the ocean shore, also threatening marine biodiversity.
The first information conveyed by the media reported that the breach occurred due
to the negligence of the company with dam conservation and lack of control by the
competent state bodies. This should be investigated in more depth, but all indica-
tions suggest that these assumptions are real. Brazil currently has 16 high-risk
dams, which, if breached, can affect the basins of the Paraguay River (in the
Pantanal), the Amazon River (in the Amazon Forest) and the São Francisco River
(Sanches 2015). If there is an incident, we will probably witness an environmental
apocalypse in Brazil.
So, while the environmental legislation does not fit Brazil’s reality and ways for
applying it are not created, situations like the Samarco disaster will occur and the
damage will be irreversible, with harm to future generations. Especially in what
concerns biodiversity, investments in environmental education will be useless if the
government does not act in environmental preservation. Concerned citizens are
226 T.L. Klautau de Araújo

fundamental for the improvement of environmental conditions, but they cannot

replace the role of the state.
In a new global context, where societies demand more efficiency from govern-
ments (do more, spending less), maintaining different committees, consultants and
executive authorities, and hundreds of public employees working in related roles in
an uncoordinated way is not only unnecessary but also counterproductive. It would
be much more effective and cheaper if the government creates a special agency to
manage environmental issues in a coordinated, planned, and unified manner, joining
forces to implement responsible public policies that show awareness of environ-
mental problems and all their implications for the communities involved. Of course,
it is necessary to ensure two aspects in this conception: the focus in planning and
execution must combine all dimensions of environment, promoting coordinated
actions in order to deal with current challenges; there is also the need to decentralize
the decision process, providing a real opportunity to involve local communities in
participating in the establishment of public policies, that must be rooted in the
specific contexts where they will be performed. This last point is essential in Brazil’s
case, as the huge territory has its specificities that cannot, under any circumstances,
be disregarded at the risk of causing incalculable harm. This has been the case with
the Amazon Forest in the past (Klautau de Araújo 1995). In Brazil, at this moment
we may observe the opposite: planning and execution are dispersed, and the
decision-making processes are centralized.
Nature and biodiversity must not be seen as a duty or a heavy weight for all society
to carry, but as an opportunity to grow economically and provide equality in social
issues, while preserving nature. These are the three aspects of sustainable develop-
ment. Destroying natural resources is the shortest route to the bottom in all aspects.
Nowadays, Brazil is exploiting its forests, minerals, and oil without creating a pro-
ductive chain that will make it possible to create jobs, adding more value to the
products and providing financial resources to the government. Only this sustainable
strategy that integrates the population’s needs with responsible natural resources
management and their preservation can help to reduce the need for forest devastation.

4 Game Theory, Marginalism and the Inefficiency

of Environmental Agencies in Brazil

The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 raised Environmental Law to another level. One
way to promote the environment preservation was to assign supervisory tasks and
responsibilities to various federal agencies, states, and municipalities, as well as to
the citizens and the Public Prosecution Service. In other words, the environmental
issue has been expanded in order to all of society be able to participate in their
conservation, preservation and restoration. Federal environmental agencies end up
having their obligations and powers coinciding. In the view of the legislator, all of
these shared responsibilities could actually provide ways for improving environ-
mental surveillance and enforcement.
Public Policies and Education for Biodiversity … 227

Table 1 The umbrella game

B—with umbrella B—without umbrella
A—with umbrella 0, 0 0, 1
A—without umbrella 1, 0 −1, −1

Nearly thirty years after promulgation of the new Constitution, there have been
many advances in environmental issues, but still far from what was expected.
Environmental agencies are extremely criticized for their inefficiency by environ-
mentalists and other sectors of society. But, how can the expansion of supervisory
responsibility to many other agents reduce efficiency? Game theory and
Marginalism can help in understanding this problem.
One can characterize the existence of numerous agents with similar functions in
solving the same issues as a cooperative game, given that the performance of any of
them can be influenced by the others. In short, this is similar to the Battle of Sexes
Game (McAdams 2008) or a variety of the Umbrella Game (Fudenberg and Tirole
1991). Mixing elements of these two games, let us suppose a situation where two
people in the same building will meet and go out, the possibility of rain is uncertain,
and beyond the fact that they can get wet, there is also the inconvenience of
carrying the umbrella. If there is no communication about the subject between the
players, the game would go this way, on the assumption that, in fact, it will rain
(Table 1).
Taking the umbrella implies getting less wet but carrying it is a disadvantage, so
it is valued as 0. If neither of them brings the object, both players will get wet so the
value is −1. But if one of them takes the umbrella and the other does not, the one
who does not carry achieves a better result, because he will still be relatively dry,
but did not have the effort of taking the object. For that reason, the best possible
result for A or B only occurs for one of them if there is no action by one and the
other simultaneously acts. Therefore, the most likely outcome of the interaction is
that both get wet, as the best outcome involves the omission of conduct. This is the
total opposite of the legislators’ intention when the Constitution and laws were
made. Instead of providing an increase in enforcement, there has been a lack of
accountability for the environmental agencies.
Analyzing the performance and overlapped competences imposed on different
environmental agencies it is possible to draw a parallel between this situation and
the Umbrella Game. In matters in which agencies A and B have concurrent juris-
diction (a choice made in the legislation so that both can monitor and act), the most
likely outcome is that neither of them will fulfill their role. This is because action by
the agencies against environmental degradation generates budgetary costs and
institutional and political friction. Furthermore, the text of the legislation is vague,
the population is unaware of the legal system in most cases, and there is a plethora
of agencies with environmental responsibilities in Brazil (besides the federal level,
there are 26 states, the Federal District, and 5570 municipalities). So, it is quite easy
228 T.L. Klautau de Araújo

for them to avoid accusations of inaction or incompetence by dodging their

responsibilities and passing them on to other agencies.
On the other hand, the Marginalism approach could also provide a basis for
understanding the inefficiency of numerous environmental agencies, whose num-
bers have actually increased over the years. In short, one of the assumptions with
Marginalism is that the addition of a factor, at a certain point, begins to reduce its
efficiency until it loses its usefulness and begins having a negative contribution to
the system/individual/production (Marshall 1996). In an analogy with the Brazilian
environmental system, the dispersion of investments among different players,
instead of strengthening a limited number of environmental agencies, may be a
hindering factor and significantly reducing the efficiency of public policy in the
sector.

5 Education for the Environment and Biodiversity:

The Way Beyond the Classrooms

Disrupting educational paradigms is a complex task. When one adds the fact that
the system is immersed in a scenario of unstable planning and disjointed (or even
contradictory) public policies, those paradigms become almost insurmountable
barriers. Brazil is not able to meet its goals for improving education indicators and
is also failing to provide an acceptable education to the population. Many schools in
the countryside have lack of teachers, school meals, and basic structure in class-
rooms, not to mention the frequent lack of transportation to the schools. How can a
child have a good school performance if she or he has to face hours getting to
school, braving mud, rain, sun, and even dangers along the way? In such a chaotic
scenario, it is unthinkable to have an education with quality for biodiversity and
environmental protection.
Only with an educational system that works properly it is possible to establish an
efficient environmental education for biodiversity. The classroom is the first step in
order to prepare future ecological citizens in a context where basic needs are
guaranteed. That is not the case in Brazil. There are many things to be done, many
involving investments in several areas mentioned earlier in this chapter: conser-
vation, forest management, biodiversity research, offering economic alternatives for
local people, labor qualification, environmental monitoring, improving life condi-
tions, integrated vision of public policies, etc. It is necessary to create conditions for
environmental education to flourish and these conditions at present are far from
being achieved.
The law for the promotion of environmental education was created in 1999
(Law 9795/99) and has been harshly criticized by some authors, namely Antunes
(2010). Since that law was passed, very little has been done with its new
guidelines in order to integrate them into formal and informal Brazilian education.
Another situation that deserves attention and reflection is that there was no
Public Policies and Education for Biodiversity … 229

provision (in the law) for creating a school curriculum in “Environmental Edu-
cation” (Machado 2014).
Brazil is too large to have standardized policies for all regions, especially in
environmental education. Consequently, it is rather common to teach other regions
contents and specificities. However, it is very important to wake students’ interest
with issues closest to their reality, namely achieving an appreciation of the coun-
try’s biodiversity. It turns out that this centralization of decisions ends up trans-
forming environmental education into something very distant and unattractive for
children and young people. In the long run, there is even disunity between regions.
The North, Northeast and Central West have various topics about the South and
Southeast in their content, but the reverse is not true. So those three more marginal
regions are truly unknown to the South-Southeast, the wealthiest part of the
country.
The main challenge in implementing environmental education is, therefore, the
practical definition of what should be done to make it happen. The legislation is
extremely vague, both in concepts and in establishing policies, and does not point
the agents to their specific purposes. Instead of it, the law makes all actors
responsible for everything. In fact, the wording of the legislation exempts agencies
from responsibility, so that they do not act on the assumption that the other
co-guardians will act. However, even if the agencies were responsible for specific
parts of the implementation of an environmental education policy, the situation
would hardly change, since in practice this policy is nothing more than a letter of
intent that has no substance to be transformed into reality, due to the law’s
imprecision and lack of enabling instruments that can materialize it.
Within this context there are only a few individual examples of success. Among
the experiences in environmental education and biodiversity in Brazil, the “Escola
Bosque” deserves to be highlighted. Initially created to be installed in the city of
Belém, Pará, the concept was also taken to the archipelago of Bailique, Amapá in
the Amazon River estuary. The latter effort was more successful in maintaining
longer the social-environmental method developed by sociologist Mariano Klautau
(Klautau de Araújo and Lima 1997a). The Escola Bosque won numerous national
and international awards for innovations adopted, from planning and execution
until the formation of the first classes. The population has always participated in
decision-making, which was an important factor for the community to embrace the
project and its guidelines were laid down privileging the location of the town and
the population involved (Klautau de Araújo and Lima 1997b). Later, the school was
built based on six points, four of which are highlighted: (1) integration of the
buildings architecture in the landscape, using local materials and improving local
construction techniques; (2) local recruitment of workers; (3) disciplines focused on
learning aspects of the locality in addition to conventional educational curriculum;
and (4) implement training plans for community teachers (Klautau de Araújo and
Lima 1997c). These features, added to the fact that the school was sustainable,
taking advantage of the sunlight, rainwater and its area to plant foods, transformed
the school into an attractive hub for the whole community. Families participated in
numerous activities, sharing and building knowledge with students, and some
230 T.L. Klautau de Araújo

courses were geared to families, such as new planting techniques and crops, use of
leftover food, composting, recycling, etc.
As a result, the project made possible the reduction of environmental degrada-
tion and child and families malnutrition, combined with an improvement in school
indicators and health indices. Another aspect to be noted is that young people were
no longer forced to move to the state capital if they wanted to continue their studies
(Lima 2013). They could stay in Bailique and obtain professional qualification in
addition to regular education, in areas such as Flora or Fauna Management, Eco-
tourism, Mineralogy, Archeology, Traditional Fishing, and others (Klautau de
Araújo and Lima 1997a). The dynamic generated by this educational project for the
environment was an example of sustainable development.
The Escola Bosque was a revolutionary project, but it was implemented as a
Government Policy and at the end of the governor’s term in Amapá the project was
closed with regard to its primary philosophy, and the social-environmental method
was discontinued. The Hotel Escola Bosque, for eco-tourism and hotel management
training was also abandoned. The building was ready and equipped, only awaiting
the formal opening. Today it lies in ruins in the jungle (Lima 2013).
This is the fate of all public policies that are not assimilated as State Policies. It
has to be understood that Brazil is larger than any political dispute and that every
day that we lack a coherent and sustainable public policy for biodiversity we lose an
invaluable amount of species and natural resources that will be missed in the future.

6 Possible New Paths for Preserving Brazil’s Biodiversity

As seen in the previous topics of this chapter, there may be numerous alternatives
for the preservation of biodiversity, but almost all of them require effective public
participation. More than listening to people or winning their adherence to the
projects and actions to be taken, it is very important to involve them in all the stages
of the process in order to promote their understanding of public policies that are
designed to protect the interest of all society. When citizens engage they become the
main protectors and inspectors of nature, supporting the state in vigilance against
environmental damage. In addition to this fact, there is also the important aspect
that changes in individual behavior and interaction with nature that on a larger scale
are crucial for achieving the status of an ecological society.
However, for such targets to be met, all levels of government in Brazil need to
organize their public policies and join efforts in carrying out public policies and
achieving paradigm shifts. After observing the current policies and system failures,
some ideas are provided here to highlight suggestions for possible future paths.
The first measure that can be suggested is the creation of a unified law broadly
covering the environmental issue. As there is a Civil Code, Criminal Code, etc., it is
necessary to create an Environmental Code. Milaré (2014) states that codification of
environmental law in Brazil will be a necessary step for providing legal certainty to
this area. Considering this context, the mentioned need is highlighted by the fact
Public Policies and Education for Biodiversity … 231

that the sparse legislation, in its current state, causes two major problems: disar-
ticulation between the different environmental policies, because they are treated as
entirely separate issues for each one of the laws; and the great difficulty with
handling such legislation, because it requires expertise that is not readily accessible
to the population. The law itself does not solve environmental issues, but bringing
in a more streamlined legislation can democratize access to it. There are several
cases where people commit environmental crimes simply because they do not have
information about the law, and it is quite common for people not to know whom to
seek out when they become aware of any irregularity.
An advanced technical knowledge is required, and the cost of hiring a lawyer
with experience in environmental law is high, which may make it impossible for
some people to do so (Klautau de Araújo 2014). There are cases where political
organizations fund the hiring of such professionals, but merely as a means of
political bargaining and to influence those populations. This politicization of
environmental issues causes damages in the implementation of environmental law
and creates prejudice against the needed awareness among some part of the pop-
ulation and law professionals. Thus, the creation of codified legislation could
facilitate people’s access to rules and authorities, untangling the procedures and
making the mechanisms of state action more transparent.
The second suggestion is the creation of a government body that concentrates the
State’s actions in the environmental and biodiversity areas: e.g. preventive and
educational actions, enforcement and surveillance, application of fines, regulations,
etc. From planning to execution and evaluation of public policies, this body would
concentrate both advisory and executive roles. This concentration of competencies
is crucial to correct the present lack of coordination of public policies.
In other words, this institution would require the fusion of the existing ones, as
CONAMA, IBAMA, ICMBio, SBF, as well as other environmental agencies,
consultative and deliberative, with the aim of developing public policies and join
forces towards maximizing the efficiency of State action. Currently, the budget for
environmental policies is so dispersed among several government bodies that their
performances are increasingly restricted. By incorporating all institutions into a
single one, there will be savings with costs, maintenance, and commissioned
positions, decreasing administrative expenses, enabling investment to achieve its
primary function: preservation of the environment, biodiversity, and promotion of
environmental education.
This is essential in the current situation in which Brazil finds itself. The gov-
ernment is going through great difficulties to control its spending and avoiding
finishing 2016 with a deficit of more than R$30 billion (Martello and Passarinho
2015). One of the areas that suffered a budget cut, as mentioned earlier in this
chapter, was the fight against deforestation. Reducing investments in environmental
protection while maintaining administrative spending is an almost surefire recipe
for a future environmental disaster. Instead, the costs could be optimized with this
alternative unification of environmental agencies.
232 T.L. Klautau de Araújo

The third suggestion is to create a public company for the administration of all
products and ecosystem services obtained from Brazil’s biodiversity and biodi-
versity research. This is essential to achieve nature conservation. The exploitation
of these resources, if not managed by the State, will be handled by private com-
panies, irregularly and without adequate financial return for the country. The rich
Brazilian biodiversity is the passport to a future of development, quality of life, and
good public services. Thus, much more than an environmental issue, the man-
agement of genetic resources is essential to national sovereignty.
Law 13123/2015 in its art. 20 provides that the payment of royalties in return for
the use of genetic resources, will be up to 1 % of gross revenue, but can be reduced
to 0.1 %. In the current legal scenario, this insignificant amount goes through an
intricate system—that will never work in practice—and the country will give away
its rich genetic heritage almost for free.
Once Petrobras was created it contributed decisively to the scientific and eco-
nomic development of the country, a public company that manages the genetic
heritage can earn billions of dollars, and assist in environmental conservation and
economic development of the regions that hold biodiversity. One has to understand
that decisions of this scale cannot be postponed: either Brazil takes on a new
position and begins profiting from biodiversity resources as a way to preserve
nature, or Brazilian biodiversity will be lost without leaving any concrete benefit for
the country.
It is not possible to predict the future, but the current indicators are very dis-
turbing. The decrease of forests in Brazil has begun to have consequences even for
large cities, as seen in the water crisis faced by the Southeast. Studies show that
deforestation in the Amazon Forest lowers the flow of moisture from the air inside
Brazilian territory, which reduces rainfall in the Southeast (Carvalho 2014). The
paths followed so far have been seriously distorted from their original purposes.
Brazil continues failing to accomplish environmental education; the forests
degradation is increasing; the population still does not get involved; time keeps
ticking and the situation only gets worse. The presented suggestions highlight a new
Environmental Law that supports an integrated and multidimensional intervention
as an alternative to a system with serious operational limitations that needs to be
simplified urgently, in order to become closer to reality.

7 Conclusions

Brazil has an advanced legislation for the environment. However, the complexity of
terms and the high numbers of laws, decrees, and other regulations, turn Brazil’s
environmental law system into a truly inaccessible instrument to enable society to
cooperate with the state and cope with environmental challenges. More than that,
the governments have not been able to implement legislation.
Public Policies and Education for Biodiversity … 233

One of the reasons why this happened was the lack of coordination between
different environmental agencies. Erroneously it was thought in the 1980s that more
institutions taking care of the environment would represent more efficiency in
nature conservation. Almost thirty years after the New Constitution, the results have
proved that this conception is very expensive and has not achieved expectations.
All of the structure, complexity, and inefficiency of Brazilian environmental law
and public policies systems are disabling implementation of environmental edu-
cation. For that reason, a deeper reflection is needed to involve society in this
process and to build a more ecological society, where biodiversity and the envi-
ronment are important to the educational system.
There are many possible paths that Brazil may find to solve these problems. This
chapter has pointed to three feasible options, but the debate is always open in order
to refine the environmental scenario in Brazil. A better and more sustainable
country can be a reality in a near future if society wants that. Many reforms have to
be made. Brazil is a reference in terms of its natural wealth and can become an
example of nature conservation, ecological economic growth, and satisfactory
living conditions.

References
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Education for Sustainable
Development in Brazil: Challenges
for Inclusive, Differentiated
and Multicultural Education
Andréia Faraoni Freitas Setti and Ulisses Miranda Azeiteiro

Abstract
Economic progress has been noteworthy in almost all fields in the last 70 years.
However, the unsustainable use of non renewable resources, the destruction of
biological diversity, and greenhouse gas emissions accelerated the environmen-
tal crisis and highlighted social inequalities. The accountability over this
civilizational crisis is diffuse, but environmental education in Brazil is mostly
focused on those who cause the least environmental damage. This chapter
analyses the interactions between the determinants of the current environmental
crisis and the contribution of education to sustainable development, critically
considering the sustainability of the current means of production and consump-
tion and as a strategy for the promotion of autonomy and equity in the Brazilian
reality. A qualitative methodology was used to understand a movement in
environmental education based on the critical analysis of the sustainability of the
means of production and consumption. For such, documents, laws, and texts
were analyzed to approach three important aspects, not intending to exhaust the
issue. The first aspect is the original, foundational, and practical constitution of
environmental education. The second is about understanding the challenges of
institutionalizing environmental education in the Brazilian context. The third has

A.F.F. Setti (&)

Center for the Studies, Research and Documentation on Healthy Cities,
University of São Paulo, School of Public Health, São Paulo, Brazil
e-mail: andreiasetti@gmail.com
A.F.F. Setti
Centre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra,
Coimbra, Portugal

U.M. Azeiteiro
Department of Science and Technology, Universidade Aberta and Centre for Functional
Ecology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 237

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_15
238 A.F.F. Setti and U.M. Azeiteiro

to do with the paths of political action to be carried out to attain the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs).

Keywords



Environmental education Sustainable development Traditional communities



Differentiated education Sustainable Development Goals

1 Introduction

1.1 The Challenge of Paradigm Shift

Sustainable development should designate a socially-fair, economically-inclusive

and environmentally-responsible process of production of goods and services, but
integrating these three pillars has been challenging. The more the hegemonic model
of production and consumption advances, the greatest is the global risk of envi-
ronmental collapse—related not only to the extinction of animals, global warming,
or low oil reserves, but also to the consequences of social inequality: poverty, food,
and nutritional insecurity, housing shortage, lack of access to potable water and
basic sanitation, among others (Martine and Alves 2015).
Our risk society produces growing negativities. According to United Nations
[UN] report “World Population Prospects: The 2015 Revision,” the world popu-
lation should reach 9.6 billion people by 2050. Including all these people in the
average standard of consumption implies a huge demand for natural resources and
the negative impact on the environment may be irreversible. However, if most
people remain socially excluded, the fight between peoples to meet their basic
needs will intensify (UN 2015a).
Given its reach, omnipresence, level of acceleration and impact, the environ-
mental crisis should be considered Humanity’s central and most essential problem, a
priority in the development of public policies and governance tools. This implies a
change in the development paradigm based on economic growth, in which the
well-being of societies is measured by the growth rate of the Gross Domestic Product
(GDP) and determined by the culture of consumption, the “culture-merchandise”
and the “culture-value” mentioned by Guattari and Rolnik (2000).
A new form of conduct based on the development and the implementation of
values based on the respect of life, values that consider complex issues and are
developed for the long term, that stimulate a new perspective on the globalized
world, on nature, on society and knowledge, with the goal of implementing a
healthy, solidary and sustainable model of development is necessary. Therefore,
environmental education seeks to provide solutions for a new balance that allows
the effective education of critical, reflective and participative citizens that are
capable of making decisions fitting of more emancipatory and solidary initiatives
Education for Sustainable Development in … 239

dedicated to consolidating true and inclusive democracies (Medina and Santos

2000; Setti and Gallo 2013).
A qualitative methodology was used in this chapter to understand a movement in
environmental education based on the critical analysis of the sustainability of the
means of production and consumption. For such, documents, laws and texts were
analyzed to approach three important aspects, not intending to exhaust the issue.
The first aspect is the original, foundational and practical constitution of environ-
mental education. The second is about understanding the challenges of institu-
tionalizing environmental education in the Brazilian context. The third has to do
with the paths of political action to be carried out to attain the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs).
Next sections intend to contextualize this debate that points to diversity and mul-
ticulturality as strategies for sustainable societies in the reality and context of Brazil.

1.2 Interdisciplinarity in Education

The environmental approach requires interdisciplinary knowledge in order for the

complex political challenges and the challenges of environmental management to
be understood and addressed. Studies of biodiversity, for instance, must consider
not only the perspective of Botanics and Zoology, but also the dimensions of social
diversity, productive activities, the climate, the soil, water resources and other
elements that affect and are affected by the biodiversity in question (Bursztyn and
Bursztyn 2012; Alves et al. 2013).
Interdisciplinary approaches must focus on the environment as within the dis-
ciplines, but furthermore must also establish a methodological communication
between them, unifying the process as a whole in schools through integrative
programs that account for the complexity and the interconnection of the various
components of the global ecosystem (Vincent 2011).
The need for integrated knowledge arises from the realization of tensions
between plural, scientific knowledge and local, traditional knowledge, which
implies inherent issues to science, technology, economy, sociology, politics, and
culture (Alves et al. 2013). With multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary interven-
tions, environmental education approaches environmental, educational, political,
and social issues in an articulation that makes use both of the objective parlance of
science and of resources that bring about ethics and a form of politics. Therefore,
the educational process must include different forms of knowledge (science and
common sense) stemming from many sources, whether produced by scientists or by
ethnic groups and social and popular groups movements.

1.3 Dialogue Between Different Forms of Knowledge

The ideology behind the movement for environmental education relates to under-
standing beings within knowledge, incorporating ethical principles that emerge
240 A.F.F. Setti and U.M. Azeiteiro

from various senses that break from unidimensional thinking, from the scientific
and instrumental rationality. Therefore, social knowledge emerges from the dia-
logue between knowledges and is translated into a pedagogical guideline that
recognizes the need for a plurality of heterogeneous (often contrary) forms of
knowledge in the construction of a sustainable future without risking a loss of
autonomy (Santos 2007; Leff 2001).
The complexity of the environment inaugurates a new pedagogy of a dialogic
and subjective reappropriation of knowledge, moved by values, interests and uto-
pias, a confluence of different forms of knowledge in permanent diversification and
differentiation. The environmental rationality includes various forms of cultural
rationality, opening different worlds, articulating realities and complex thinking in
the reconstruction of identities. Therefore, the construction of environmental
knowledge implies the deconstruction of the simplified and unitary knowledge
trapped into disciplines (Leff 2001).
This is the greatest challenge of education today: accountability—the task of cooperating
with this reconstruction, of educating so that the new men and women of the world are
capable of standing the burden of this civilizational crisis and converting it into the meaning
of their existence, so that life brings a new enchantment and that the world is reconstructed.
These paths have been open by the environmental rationality, and these are the veins
through which the blood of environment education runs in Latin America (Leff 2001).

1.4 Fundamental Humanitarian Principles and Brazilian

Environmental Law

The ecological crisis is also a crisis of human values and an ethical crisis, in all
dimensions. Together with legal norms, social norms also regulate the conduct of
people in relation to one another and may fit into the category of “Morality”; the
discipline dedicated to studying it can be called “Ethics” (Kelsen 2000). The fact
that human beings are capable of minimally agreeing among themselves on prin-
ciples such as justice, equal rights, the dignity of the human person, full citizenship,
solidarity, etc., creates a chance for these principles to be put into practice, but does
not assure their fulfillment.
Nations have come to an agreement around many ethical principles, such as, for
instance, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UN 1948). However,
Ethics is not sufficient as a theory—or a general principle agreed between nations,
peoples, religions, etc.—or the fact that the Constitutions (like the Brazilian Con-
stitution, in 1988) mirrored these principles.
Brazilian Environmental Law includes the principles of protecting all forms of
life to promote sustainable development, considering the saturation caused by the
economic system in the ecological system because of the disproportionate and
continuous use of natural resources to maintain the productive system above nat-
ure’s capacity to replace them.
Education for Sustainable Development in … 241

The principles of Environmental Law are the bases of the Constitutional system
of environmental protection, since they inform, in all aspects (administrative, civil
and criminal, in the terms of Art. 225, §3 of the Federal Constitution), the legal
system that protects the environment (DOU 1988).
This chapter highlights the structuring principles that assure rights, such as the
principle of an ecologically-balanced environment—related to the fundamental
right to a healthy life (both regarding physical existence, the health of individuals
and the dignity of existence)—and the principle of participation, education and
information, which assure people the right to be educated and informed in order to
actively participate in the management of the environment (Machado 2000).
Also highlighted here are the principles of repressive and preventive order,
which guide educational actions, such as the polluter pays principle, which seeks to
make polluters accountable for actions or omissions that negatively impact the
environment in order to recover what was degraded. The precautionary principle is
focused on the need to make decisions in an environment of scientific certainty
concerning the potential future damage of a given activity before such environ-
mental damage takes place. And the preventive principle, a classic principle of
environmental law that makes polluters accountable whenever there’s actual or
potential damage and a causal relationship between such damage and an action or
omission (Milaré 2001).
Such legal principles not only influence the development of the legal system, but
also guide the actions of the State concerning the protection of the environment.
The historical and determinant relationship between legal norms and democracy
—via its institutional representations, which demand weighing the interests
involved and common economic, legal and political sense in guiding the valuation
of the Constitution, especially its fundamental principles—should be highlighted
(Leal 2010). This process takes place by means of conscious actions, based on
ethical values, such as equity, solidarity, and social justice and is often opposed to
the hegemonic model of economic power. Therefore, environmental education is a
strategic process dedicated to shaping the necessary values, skills and abilities that
will guide the transition towards sustainability.

1.5 Environmental Education: A Matter of Citizenry

With the Military Dictatorship in the 1960s, mass education in Brazil became
technical, focusing on efficiency, productivity and scientific neutrality, aimed at
providing workers for industrial and technical jobs. This liberal/technical peda-
gogical trend was also responsible for the fragmentation of knowledge and the
“banking concept of education,” of depositing information on students, the Carte-
sian form of education (Brüger 1999; Stahlschmidt 2012).
Further analyzing this instrumentalization of science as an ideology and as a
means of domination (operated from the 1970s onwards), environmental education
became a priority for the government, to break from the parameters of Cartesian
242 A.F.F. Setti and U.M. Azeiteiro

education, of a fragmented, compartmentalized, disjunctive, reductionist intelli-

gence that divides problems, separates what is tied together and makes unidimen-
sional what is multidimensional (Morin 2001).
Environmental education was recognized at the United Nations Conference on
the Human Environment (1972), in Stockholm, as a strategy to fight the environ-
mental problems of the time. At the time, the Special Secretariat for the Environ-
ment was created in Brazil to implement an integrated form of management.
From then on, Brazil played an increasingly important role in the field, having
hosted two international conferences on sustainability: The United Nations Con-
ference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) and the United
Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (the Rio+20), which expanded the
participation of the civil society, of the scientific and academic communities and of
the private sector, strengthening the legislation, even though its enforcement
remained deficient.
The National Environmental Education Policy, instituted by Law 9795 (from
April 27, 1999), has been contributing to the institutionalization of Environmental
Education in Brazil, which is being implemented through a collaboration between
government spheres and the strengthening of the National Environment System
(DOU 1999).
However, environmental actions and plans are still being implemented in dif-
ferent secretariats and councils, their guidelines are developed and implemented
separately, mirroring university projects originated from isolated initiatives, not
emanated from a broad, strategic approach (Shiel et al. 2015).
Environmental problems are mostly linked to the climate change (global
warming), solid waste and the availability of natural resources (water, soil, forests),
which demonstrates a perspective of nature detached from people, opposed to the
complexity suggested by Morin (2001).
For Brüger (1999), a large part of environmental courses operate philosophically
within an instrumental worldview, which is demonstrated by the use of utilitarian
nouns such as “management” and “administration” in natural/ecological issues,
which undermines the effectiveness of their application in the promotion of sus-
tainable development. The more waste is recycled, the more waste is produced and
the more people live in subhuman standards, depending on landfills, which shows
that recycling, separating trash and the sustainable use are insufficient in tackling
the problem, which should also encompass issues such as equity, human rights and
empowerment (Brüger, 1999). Therefore, environmental education in Brazil needs
to focus on the population that mostly causes environmental problems, which, in
turn, must be understood in all its complexity.
The Brazilian Constitution, in its Art. 205, states that education (in general) and
environmental education (especially) should be promoted and incentivized with the
collaboration of the society, aiming at human development (DOU 1988). Incen-
tivizing permanent and accountable individual and collective participation in the
preservation and balance of the environment is understood as inseparable from the
exercise of citizenry (DOU 1999).
Education for Sustainable Development in … 243

The systems of social pressure towards State agents and instances of power—
such as the mechanisms that assure citizenry, the institutions and instruments of
collective participation, the forms of association and organization, etc., which
integrate citizens and the public sphere—should be known and appropriated as to
assure and defend individual and collective rights. Therefore, environment-related
information cannot be the privilege of public administrators, technicians or scien-
tists; it should be broadly disseminated and is crucial for democracy. It is funda-
mental that environmental education is incorporated to the teaching/learning
process, making sustainability a moral and ethical imperative, respecting cultural
diversity and traditional knowledge.

2 Differentiated Education and Future Perspectives

2.1 Ethnic, Racial, and Gender Identities and Movements

for Differentiated Education

Given the issues concerning environmental education in Brazil, new social move-
ments emerged to reaffirm ethnic, racial and gender identities, linked to the pro-
tection of territories and the traditional use of natural resources.
Most indigenous and quilombola lands are inalienable goods of the Federation.
Traditional peoples have the permanent ownership and the exclusive right of use of
their existing natural resources, and few traditional peoples have proprietary rights
over the property (RRI 2015).
The cultural dimension of diversity is associated to social movements, especially
those working with identity and articulated around the protection of the so-called
“policies of difference” (Hall 2003). In Brazilian education, diversity emerges in the
demands of ethnic groups for differentiated schools. In the legal realm, both Law
10.639/03—which makes it mandatory for African-Brazilian history and culture to
be taught in all schools in the country—and Law 11.645/08—which includes the
history and culture of indigenous peoples in school curriculums—were approved
(DOU 2003, 2008).
Diversity has to do with a demand for recognition at the public and political
spheres of the so-called “minority” groups and certain varieties of feminism. In
Brazil, such claim emerged in a few sectors of the feminist and black movements in
the 1980s and intensified in the following years, when it also involved the
indigenous and disability rights movements (Moehlecke 2009).
Understanding the history of the movement for differentiated education implies
comprehending the contradictions and tensions concerning the access to knowledge
in society and problematizing the dominant knowledge and the epistemological
hierarchization of the society, which delegitimizes the knowledge produced by part
of its population.
Rural education emerged during the struggle of peasants, put forth because
transnational companies began controlling the agricultural production, exacerbating
244 A.F.F. Setti and U.M. Azeiteiro

the capital and its expansionist rationale. In Brazil, different and associated
movements kicked (and continue to kick) workers out of the fields while promising
to include them in the technological modernity of agribusiness, subduing all, in one
way or another, to the technological model that has been called “industrial agri-
culture,” which maintain awful labor conditions (Caldart 2010).

2.2 Indigenous Ethnicities and Indigenous School Education:

Future Perspectives

There is a whole array of indigenous ethnicities and cultures in Brazil (305 eth-
nicities and 274 languages), and 17.5 % of indigenous individuals do not speak
Portuguese (IBGE 2010). Indigenous school education is becoming differentiated,
bilingual, and intercultural, but the model has not been implemented equally
throughout the country. The challenge of indigenous school education is attaining a
high-quality and differentiated education system that meets the specificities of a
different people in the national society, respecting their culture, language and
teaching/learning methodologies (Cohn 2005).
Schools are often instances of social, economic, and cultural reproduction,
which, at best, offer limited mobility to socially excluded groups. How to create
schools that are directly related to real life, that are the syntheses of multiple
relationships, determinations, diversities, and concretenesses that real life imposes?
How to develop a curriculum that includes different educational dimensions and
that articulates pedagogical work at the knowledge level with practical applications
concerning work, culture, and social struggle? This demands breaking from a
structure of values, from a worldview that follows the rationale of capital, politi-
cizing, therefore, the struggle for the right to established forms of education and for
public policies that assure the access to public, differentiated schooling (at the basic
and higher levels), coupled to the access to land, to dignified labour, to culture, to
political participation and the protection of the environment (Caldart 2010).
As to traditional communities, the goal is contributing to a model of equitable
development that integrates the protection of the environment and natural resources,
economic growth and the promotion of a better quality of life (Setti et al. 2016a).
Affirmative action can contribute to traditional communities if they affirm them as
producers of their own knowledge, education and culture and actors of the decisions
that affect their lives, opening spaces for participation, based on their organization
and on the history of their struggle. Therefore, since they have identified the need to
include and legitimize both traditional knowledges and pedagogies—which are
crucial for the maintenance of their culture and way of life—, this represents a
resistance to the hegemonic model of education. Hence, they criticize practices that
are unrelated to the local reality and to their struggle for land legalization, the
valorization of their culture, the fight against prejudice and racism, to the nascent
public policies that recognize, repair and assure their rights to housing, labor,
education and health, adapted to their specificities (Setti et al. 2016b).
Education for Sustainable Development in … 245

Inclusive, equitable, high-quality education that is accessible to all children, that

respects cultural and traditional identities was highlighted among the targets to
reach Sustainable Development Goal #04. It was established that content related to
the contributions of African descendants and indigenous people to the development
of nations should be included in school curricula (UN 2015b). The complex and
unbreakable relationship between the different education targets and their contri-
bution to the other SDGs were highlighted in the 2030 Agenda and included
development, employment, inequity, population dynamics, and health (UN 2015b).
The culture and ways of life of traditional communities were recognized as a
driver of sustainable development, especially regarding the various forms of
knowledge, technologies, traditional cultural practices and their actions in the ter-
ritories, valorizing diversity in all its dimensions. Therefore, targets dedicated to
protecting and assuring the ways of creating, doing and living of traditional peoples
and communities were established: preserving historical sites, mapping, cataloguing
and researching the memory, rituals and celebrations of traditional communities;
preserving linguistic diversity, forms of expression, artistic expressions, and cul-
tural practices of various ethnicities; promoting the culture of diversity, of soli-
darity, of equality, and inclusion in the media, with the goal of suppressing
situations of discrimination, racism, homophobia, sexism, and any other form of
exclusion; promoting the strengthening of peoples and cultures for the planning of
climate change (UN 2015b).
The global cooperation for the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of
programs, actions and guidelines for the work of the United Nations and its member
countries (in the 2030 Agenda) toward sustainable development between 2016 and
2030 is being promoted. Such cooperation must be based in the principles of equity,
autonomy, sustainability, solidarity, and respect to humanity and shared responsi-
bilities depending on each person’s capacities.
Governance actions must mobilize intersectoral government policies, including
shared goals and joint planning, at the national and global levels, by means of
negotiations within governments and the participation of different segments of the
civil society (Setti et al. 2016a).

3 Closing Remarks

The current model of development is based on the premise that nature has a lim-
itless capacity to provide resources and absorb waste, both of which are necessary
in the productive process. For centuries, the environment was explored without any
form of protection, which led to a considerable loss in biodiversity and the ensuing
ecological unbalance. The change in attitudes of these societies will depend on the
understanding of the problem that nature is going through, of the environmental
crisis, their direct and indirect causes (such as the health-disease process, poverty,
violence, unemployment), all of which are based in an economic model of
246 A.F.F. Setti and U.M. Azeiteiro

superproduction and superconsumption for a small group and underconsumption

and a lack of proper conditions for the vast majority.
History shows that there are two types of political acts: those that preserve
reality, maintain the status quo, and those that change, transform reality. In both
cases, it could be said that political acts (in the perspective of cultural relativism)
can both promote and degrade people and their environments. The practical
implementation of sustainable development depends on political acts capable of
transforming the current reality, promoting equity and autonomy and reincluding
people into nature, considering the interdependence between the social, the
socio-economic and the cultural spheres.
Using the law as an instrument of social transformation (or even conservation)
necessarily confronts politics and power. Having rights assured in a text isn’t
enough, rights need to be effective. Moreover, States (institutions dedicated to the
protection of the common good, promoters and safe-keepers of human dignity) play
a contradictory role in maintaining the balance between capital and the labor force,
being the keeper of the economic system. In this context, environmental knowledge
emerges, characterized by a complex rationality, bringing together and clashing
theory and practice, promoting the dialogue between scientific and popular forms of
knowledge to repurpose the social and political territory in a process of interaction,
discussion, and critical evaluation of environmental problems.
The contributions of environmental education for a more participatory and
democratic political management is based on the idea of empowering individual
and collective agents, promoting autonomy and making politics emancipatory. The
goal of this chapter was to ponder how specific educational policies have been
considered and developed and whether they promote dialogue, contention or
agreement with specific situations experienced by traditional communities, which
play a fundamental role in the preservation and conservation of ecosystems, which
has been recognized in the Convention on Biological Diversity. Therefore, differ-
entiated education is a human right, assured by law, and should be articulated with a
territorial development project that connects work, culture and the social function of
traditional communities via the recognition of their diversity and the respect to their
difference.
Differentiated education has also been recognized in the new universal agenda,
the 2030 Agenda, in the Declaration of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) and in its 169 targets. Although the SDGs are applicable globally and
universally, they also dialogue with policies and actions aimed at the regional and
local levels.
Tackling the asymmetries of humanity and making sustainability a moral and
ethical imperative—in which cultural diversity and traditional knowledge need to be
respected—is fundamental for the fulfillment of the SDGs. This idea strengthens the
perspective and the practices of a popular, participatory, critical, transformative and
emancipatory environmental education in the development of socio-environmental
public policies in Brazil.
Education for Sustainable Development in … 247

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temática “História e Cultura Afro-Brasileira”, e dá outras providências. Brasília. http://www.
planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/2003/L10.639.htm. Accessed December 15, 2015.
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ber 15, 2015.
Protecting Soil Biodiversity and Soil
Functions: Current Status and Future
Challenges
Sara Mendes, Anabela Marisa Azul, Paula Castro, Jörg Römbke
and José Paulo Sousa

Abstract
Living soils are fundamental for human life as we know it. The top layer of
Earth’s crust, essentially composed of minerals, water and air, harbours an
immense variety of organisms, from plants to microorganisms, which qualifies it
as a living system. Soil biodiversity is the main actor underlying the provision of
services that are essential for regulating, providing and supporting human life.
The increasing level of human activity has been subjecting soil to multiple
pressures, resulting in soil degradation and biodiversity decline, hence deteri-
oration in the system’s capability to render those ecosystem services. Growing
concern on this resource’s misuse has led to a series of conventions and
strategies targeting its conservation (such as the Thematic Strategy for Soil
Protection in the European Union (EC) 2006) and advocating for specific
protection measures that can ensure a sustainable use of soil. These measures
mainly focus on extending our knowledge on how soil functions but also on
developing monitoring programmes that can detect trends and changes in soil
biodiversity. This demand boosted research on soil ecology over the last
decades, with significant increases of scientific knowledge on its structural and
functioning complexity. However, there are still some gaps and needs to be

S. Mendes (&)
P. Castro
J.P. Sousa

Centre for Functional Ecology, Department of Life Sciences,
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: sara.mendes@gmail.com
A.M. Azul
Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

J. Römbke
ECT Oekotoxikologie GmbH, Flörsheim, Germany

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 249

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_16
250 S. Mendes et al.

addressed in order to design adequate measures for soil protection. In this

chapter we review the main advances in soil ecological research and monitoring
and further discuss the status of current strategies towards soil protection and
sustainability. Moreover, we present here a strategy, consisting of three action
lines, for effectively contributing to soil protection. It is based on monitoring and
mapping, experimentation and raising awareness towards soil issues, which
hopefully can change the way we perceive and use soil, this very dynamic but
non-renewable resource at the human life time scale.

1 Soil—The Hidden Living World

As fundamental as it might be, soil is frequently overlooked when protection and

conservation plans are designed (Dominati et al. 2010). In public opinion, soil lacks
the attractiveness and charisma of other natural elements and, although it is fun-
damental in linking the atmosphere with subsurface and aquatic compartments
(Faber et al. 2013), it is usually perceived as less important than air or water (Beck
et al. 2005). The functions and services soil provides, ranging from supporting
human housing and a plethora of activities, to providing food or filtering water, are
essential for human life. Soil, as defined by the International Organisation for
Standardisation (ISO) (2015), is the upper layer of the Earth’s crust transformed by
weathering and physical/chemical and biological processes, composed of mineral
particles, organic matter, water, air, and living organisms organized in genetic soil
horizons (ISO 2015). Therefore, soil is not only the outcome of a series of abiotic
components, but it is, in fact, a living system, whose life is usually hidden but of
paramount importance when it comes to delivering ecosystem functions and ser-
vices. Soil biological diversity is immense and considerably higher than that found
aboveground (Gardi et al. 2009; Pulleman et al. 2012), with at least ¼ of the
described species living in the soil (Decaëns et al. 2006).

2 Soil Biodiversity, Soil Functions and the Provision

of Ecosystem Services

Soil biodiversity, as outlined in Turbé et al. (2010) following the definition of

biodiversity from the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Convention, is “the variation in soil life,
from genes to communities, and the variation in soil habitats, from micro-aggregates
to entire landscapes”. The diversity and interactions between and within soil
organisms are responsible for the processes that ultimately make soil such an
important resource (Breure and Römbke 2005). Soil organisms can array from plants
to animals, fungi or microorganisms and have traditionally been classified according
to their taxonomic position and body size (Jeffery et al. 2010; Pulleman et al. 2012)
into microfauna/flora (size range 1–100 µm), mesofauna (size range 100 µm–2 mm)
Protecting Soil Biodiversity and Soil Functions … 251

and macro/megafauna (size range >2 mm). Taxonomical classification, however,

has proven to be a very difficult task for soil organisms, not only because the vast
majority of soil species remains to be identified but also due to the lack of taxonomic
specialists in soil science (Pulleman et al. 2012; Wurst et al. 2012). To overcome this
difficulty, soil organisms can broadly be classified into functional groups based on
the main roles they perform in soil (Pulleman et al. 2012; Turbé et al. 2010):
• Chemical engineers, also labelled transformers or decomposers, are mainly
microorganisms (bacteria, protozoa, fungi) involved in the decomposition of
plant organic matter, responsible for carbon transformation as well as making
nutrients (such as nitrogen and phosphorus) readily available for plants or
animals;
• Biological regulators or biocontrollers encompass a wide variety of small
invertebrates, such as nematodes, mites, springtails, and pot worms, that regulate
the dynamics of other organisms in soil (plants, invertebrates, microorganisms)
through predation, grazing or parasitism;
• Ecosystem engineers, such as earthworms, termites or ants, maintain and modify
the structure of soil by aggregating and transporting soil particles, forming pore
networks and bio-structures, creating habitats for other soil organisms.
This classification generally reflects most of the functions the soil community is
responsible for, from supporting plant productivity, nutrient and water cycling and
soil formation, to regulating soil erosion and water purification, or simply providing
a pool of biodiversity (European Commission [EC] 2006). Soil functions are of
utmost importance and fundamental for ecosystem services provision, with most of
the benefits human beings gain from natural systems relying on soil functioning,
being it supporting, provisioning, regulating or cultural services (Brussaard 2012;
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [MEA] 2005). Soil quality, defined as the
capacity of soil to function, within natural or managed ecosystem boundaries, to
sustain plant and animal production, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and
support human health and habitation (Karlen et al. 1997), further highlights the
importance and value of soil biodiversity and its functions (Creamer et al. 2015)
whose environmental and economical (direct and indirect) benefits can to an extent
be assessed and valued (Pascual et al. 2015).

3 Soil Resources Under Threat

External drivers associated to increasing levels of human activity have led to bio-
diversity loss, with the disappearance of several life forms and a decrease in the
abundance of many species due to a variety of pressures (European Environment
Agency [EEA] 2007). Soil biodiversity is no exception, and with its decline soil
functions and services have been deteriorating. Such reduction, which may result
252 S. Mendes et al.

from different inappropriate management practices including soil overexploitation,

makes soils more vulnerable to other degradation processes (Orgiazzi et al. 2016).
These have been listed separately in the TSSP-Thematic Strategy for Soil Protection
(Bispo et al. 2009; Commission of the European Communities 2006; EC 2006),
although occurring simultaneously. Specifically, the following threats are of utmost
importance:
• Erosion—This is a natural process occurring over geological time, resulting on
the removal of soil particles by physical forces (such as water or wind), leading
to a progressive exposition of underlying rocks. Although erosion might be
triggered by a combination of non-anthropogenic factors like climate, geology
or topography, human activities (namely deforestation, inappropriate land use,
deep tillage or mineral fertilization) can and cause significantly accelerated
erosion rates. Soil erosion leads not only to a decline in soil functions (and
consequent loss of agricultural productivity and degradation of water courses
and reservoirs, for example) but ultimately can result in losing soil itself.
• Decline in organic matter—Soil organic matter (SOM) is constantly built-up and
decomposed, as it incorporates organic material, living organisms, and humus
(resulting from organic material decomposition in soil). SOM is crucial for
several soil functions, securing the binding and buffering capacity of soils,
which, in turn, limit pollution and diffusion of contaminants. Carbon is one of
the main components of SOM, which is one of the reasons why soil is so
important in the carbon cycle (hence in climate change): carbon is released in
the atmosphere as CO2 and recaptured though photosynthesis, but this
sequestration is occurring at much slower rates than those of current SOM
depletion. Farming and forestry malpractices (such as conversion of
semi-natural ecosystems to agricultural lands, use of monocultures, deep
ploughing, deforestation, overgrazing or excessive irrigation) accelerate soil
erosion and leaching, causing a rapid depletion of the soil carbon pool.
• Soil contamination—Contaminants make their way to the soil coming from a
wide range of sources (mining, industry, waste landfills, traffic, agriculture),
generally resulting in damage or loss of soil functions. Depending on the type of
contaminant and the extent of contamination, different problems arise: e.g.,
mining and smelting facilities may be sources of local contamination where risk
is mainly associated with storage or disposal of metal contaminated tailings and
other type of residues; the latter, together with other industrial activities may
also originate diffuse contamination with the generation of airborne contami-
nants and the consequent land deposition far from the source; intensive farming
activities, with the overuse of pesticides, fertilizers, and antibiotics may cause
contamination of soil, surface and groundwater, and also the increase of resis-
tance of microorganisms and the increase of potentially pathogenic organisms
(like viruses and bacteria) in soil. Soil contamination raises issues on soil and
water safety, as the chemical imbalance raised by contaminants frequently
decreases the buffering capacity of soils (with consequent massive releases and
leaching of contaminants that can enter groundwater and/or surface water).
Protecting Soil Biodiversity and Soil Functions … 253

Ultimately it raises concerns at human health level since increasing contaminant

load in soil may cause not only a direct exposure via contact with contaminated
soil particles, but also exposure via the food chain.
• Sealing—Soil sealing is commonly referred as the covering of soil with an
impermeable layer. Even though it can happen naturally, most of soil sealing
nowadays is of anthropogenic origin and directly linked to urban expansion and
human population growth. Inadequate urban planning has allowed the estab-
lishment of structures (housing, roads or land developments) on fertile soils (and
valuable for agricultural production), in a process that is almost irreversible. Soil
sealing blocks exchanges between above and belowground communities,
reducing the area for soil organisms to carry out their functions and even driving
most soil organisms to a slow death due to resource exhaustion and subsequent
changes in the soil community composition and behaviour. Soil sealing also
generates great impacts indirectly on surrounding soils, as the process creates a
waterproof surface that changes flow patterns for water, nutrients, and
organisms.
• Compaction—Intensive agricultural practices, such as the use of heavy
machinery or overgrazing, exert mechanical pressure on soil that can lead soil
compaction. This modification in soil structure is very difficult to reverse and
has immediate impacts in reducing soil porosity and, therefore, decreasing the
habitat availability for soil organisms, especially for those living in upper soil
layers and within interstitial spaces in soil. The space between soil particles gets
reduced and so compaction also affects the absorptive and water storage
capacity of soils, restricting root growth and ultimately having consequences in
fertility, stability and biological activity in soils. For the same reason, changes in
water flowing arise and because water infiltration rates can be severely altered,
in face of heavy rainfall events, water that can’t infiltrate soil will runoff,
increasing erosion risks and causing floods.
• Salinization—Soluble salts of calcium, magnesium, and sodium can accumulate
in soils naturally but this accumulation may also be human-induced. Generally,
salinization is associated with irrigation, more specifically with bad irrigation
practices in which saline water ends up being used and/or soil characteristics
inhibiting salt washing (high evapotranspiration rates, soil textural characteris-
tics) further add to the problem. Overexploitation of groundwater can also be the
cause behind salinization, especially in coastal areas where the lowering of the
water table makes way for the intrusion of marine water. Soil salinity is a key
factor influencing soil organisms, controlling their metabolism and limiting their
distribution (due to different sensitivities in soil organisms to salinity concen-
trations), which is why irrigation with high salt content waters can have drastic
effects in soil communities. Usually, salinization tends to cause a decrease in
plant growth and, hence, significantly altering crop productivity, being com-
monly considered one of the main causes for desertification.
• Floods and landslides—A slightly different type of threat emerges from floods
and landslides, which in spite of being natural hazards are closely related to soil
and land management. Whether they happen because soil water cycle is
254 S. Mendes et al.

hampered (namely due to changes caused by compaction or sealing) or because

land management has favoured erosion (deforestation, land abandonment), these
mass movements of soil can end-up causing erosion, pollution, damage to
infrastructures, loss of agricultural land and loss of soil resources, with con-
siderable impacts on human activities and lives.
The list of threats presented may seem generalized or reduced, but it’s a starting
point to raise awareness and in effect work towards soil protection and sustainable
use of soil (Orgiazzi et al. 2016), i.e., a use of soil that can meet the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs (Beck et al. 2005). Soil protection and soil issues have been receiving greater
attention from policy makers (EC 2011; United Nations [UN] 2014) and the general
public (Banwart 2011; Hartemink 2008; Wall et al. 2015), but still there’s little
implementation of effective protection measures towards soil. Current rates of soil
degradation are too fast for rates of soil formation (or recovery) to cope with
(Pulleman et al. 2012), which is one of the reasons why soil protection strategies
and frameworks have been sought over the last decades. Over the next section we
present some of these and elaborate on a three vector strategy to efficiently protect
soils.

4 Soil Protection and Conservation Strategies

The international community has been trying to address biodiversity conservation

and a lot of debate has been put on strategies and frameworks to halt biodiversity
decline. Emerging from the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (also known as the Rio Earth Summit), the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD) (UN 1992) marked one of the first steps towards sustainable
development. The legally binding document laid down the general principles on an
environmental agreement addressing the conservation of biological diversity, the
sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits
arising from the use of genetic resources (Jeffery et al. 2010; UN 1992), recognizing
the importance of biodiversity for ecosystem functioning and the provisioning of
soil services to mankind (Rutgers et al. 2009). Biannual meetings of the Conference
of the Parties for the CBD assessed and discussed further details for policies and
guidance targeting these objectives, whilst also adopting work programmes to deal
with specific goals or management approaches. While developing the work pro-
gramme on agricultural biodiversity, soil biodiversity became visible as an area
requiring particular attention, earning a spotlight that eventually led to the creation
of the International Initiative for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Soil
Biodiversity (Jeffery et al. 2010). Implementing CBD in light of the role of bio-
diversity in the maintenance of ecological functions in the soil, policy makers and
researchers felt that new tools had to be developed or implemented and that more
data had to be collected in order to assess the quality and resilience of soil
ecosystem services (Rutgers et al. 2009). For that reason, several European Union
Protecting Soil Biodiversity and Soil Functions … 255

[EU] initiatives arose, aiming to develop tools and sets of indicators to monitor
biodiversity trends (Sousa et al. 2009).
It was not long before an articulate approach to soil protection reached the
European political agenda: in 2006 the TSSP (EC 2006) was proposed and adopted,
compelling EU states to embrace measures to halt and reverse soil degradation
whilst stating the essential and irreplaceable role of soil and the functions
depending on it. The objective of TSSP was to delineate common approaches
oriented for soil protection and preservation but, at the same time, to also restore
and prevent further degradation of soils. The strategy was based on four pillars:
• Framework legislation [with the proposal of a Soil Framework Directive
(SFD) (Commission of the European Communities 2006)];
• Integration of soil protection in national and Community policies;
• Increased research on soils to assist for policies;
• Raising public awareness.
Even though the SFD failed to meet ratification and was withdrawn in 2014,
research conducted under this strategy set the basis for protecting and monitoring
soil organism communities and functions at EU and national levels (Römbke et al.
2016).
Stemming from that same Rio Earth Summit, the United Nations Convention to
Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or
Desertification, Particularly in Africa (UNCCD), adopted in 1994 and put into force
in 1996 (UN 1994), aimed to combat desertification and mitigate drought effects.
Soil protection falls in the scope of this convention, namely because its objectives
include preventing and reducing land degradation, restoring partly degraded land
and reclaiming desertified land (Turbé et al. 2010). Similarly to what happened with
the implementation of CBD, a series of recommendations were made looking for
deeper assessment and knowledge of soil information as to provide tools for policy
makers and help design strategies to promote sustainable land uses.
Soil research (specifically soil biodiversity) studies are thus critical for coping
with the paucity of knowledge on this subject (Gardi et al. 2009) as there’s yet not
enough information on soil biodiversity distribution (or which drivers/pressures
affect this distribution) (Orgiazzi et al. 2016) and our understanding of relationship
between soil biodiversity and soil or ecosystem functions is still incomplete
(Bardgett and van der Putten 2014). Also, there’s a pressing need for monitoring
soil biodiversity, which could not only allow the detection of biodiversity hot spots
and areas subject to change but also be useful in the implementation of ecosystem
management successfully. The accessibility to all this information and the com-
munication between soil researchers, policy makers and public in general will
ultimately allow for effective soil protection programmes and operational tools to be
designed and implemented. A good strategy for soil protection could then be
delineated using three action lines: monitoring, experimentation and raising
awareness. Current status and opportunities for each of these lines is presented
below.
256 S. Mendes et al.

4.1 Action Line 1: Monitoring

Soil monitoring in general can be perceived as a systematic determination of soil

variables in order to register their temporal and spatial variation (Jeffery et al. 2010).
It is essential to record data and to detect possible changes and/or decline in soil
quality (Morvan et al. 2008). Monitoring aims to provide guidelines for decision
makers, enabling the design and implementation of policy measures to support the
provision of ecosystem goods and services by protecting and maintaining the
sustainable use of soil (or reverse undesired trends) (Gardi et al. 2009; Jeffery et al.
2010; Niemelä 2000). In order to develop soil quality measures, policy makers will
then need to know the current status and establish baseline and threshold values
(normal operating range—NOR) for soil biodiversity to which new policies can be
applied to (Orgiazzi et al. 2016; Stone et al. 2016). Increasing pressures in soil
biodiversity have inspired the adoption of soil biodiversity monitoring programmes
(Turbé et al. 2010) for which a management framework that allows for systematic
monitoring is necessary (Beck et al. 2005; Orgiazzi et al. 2016). Even though a
consensus on a single monitoring scheme that fits all scenarios, scopes and goals
can be hard to find (Rutgers et al. 2009; Stone et al. 2016), some common principles
should be kept in mind when designing monitoring programmes. It is fundamental
that prior to establishing a monitoring programme matters like the goal, data col-
lection and processing are well analysed and defined (Niemelä 2000). Site selection
for monitoring programmes should be made according to its goal and follow an
adequate sampling design, both in terms of the spatial arrangement of the sampling
points within each site, and of the sampling effort necessary to have a robust
estimation of the indicators to be assessed (this is particularly relevant when dealing
with biodiversity indicators—see Reis et al. (2016). Evaluating and assessing the
sustainable use of soils should follow a holistic approach, encompassing the
characterization of physical, chemical and biological variables of soil (Turbé et al.
2010). For monitoring programmes to be legitimate, all of these measurements
should be made following standardized, quantitative, and repeatable protocols (such
as those published by ISO), allowing for results to be comparable among sites and
time (Jeffery et al. 2010; Stone et al. 2016). Some of these measurements are too
complex to assess (for example, identification of soil organisms can prove to be a
hard task due to both the lack of taxonomists and the current hampered knowledge
on soil species) and even more difficult to communicate to managers and policy
makers, which is a vital step in any monitoring activity (Niemelä 2000). A way to
bypass this complexity is to use indicators, measurable surrogates for environ-
mental endpoints too complex to assess or communicate (Pulleman et al. 2012).
Selecting and developing indicators should take into consideration several criteria,
like their measurability, power to monitor at multiple spatial and temporal scales,
relevance, and ability to be interpreted and communicated (Pulleman et al. 2012).
Since it comprises so many different and intricate aspects, no single indicator will
suffice to assess soil biodiversity (Römbke et al. 2016), which is why large scale
monitoring relies on sets of indicators. The information and metrics provided by
Protecting Soil Biodiversity and Soil Functions … 257

several indicators can, afterwards, be quantified in terms of synthetic numerical

indexes, usually derived by using multivariate analysis on physical, chemical, and
biological indicators measured (Ruiz et al. 2011; Velasquez et al. 2007) or based
only on biodiversity data using a trait-based approach like the eco-morphological
QBS index (Parisi et al. 2005).
Selecting the best set of indicators is not an easy task, but it’s an important step
to reduce operational costs and, most of all, provide data fit to the monitoring
purpose (Stone et al. 2016). Looking to contribute for the harmonization of mon-
itoring schemes in Europe, EU FP6 project ENVASSO (Environmental Assessment
of Soil for Monitoring) set out to design a single, integrated, operational set of
EU-wide criteria and indicators for soil biodiversity (Bispo et al. 2009). Selecting
indicators that were complementary, have standardized sampling methodologies
and were easy to interpret at both scientific and policy levels, the project came to a
set of 3 key indicators as a minimum to be used as surrogate for overall biodiversity
decline: diversity of earthworms (in acid soils, naturally without earthworms:
enchytraeids), diversity of Collembola, and soil microbial respiration. These indi-
cators were validated and proven to be effective and sensitive to detect changes in
land use across Europe (Bispo et al. 2009). The project also defined extended sets of
indicators for a second and third more intensive levels of monitoring (depending on
relevance to specific issues or for when resources are available) and suggested
further systematic sampling across EU relating to land use and soil type categories
to derive baseline and threshold values for soil biodiversity (Bispo et al. 2009).
Following the work of ENVASSO, the EU FP7 project EcoFINDERS (Ecological
Function and Biodiversity Indicators in European Soils) set out to standardize
methodologies for the assessment of biological soil indicators, delineate NOR for
soil biodiversity according to climatic zones, soil and land use types, investigate
associations between biological diversity and land use management types in Europe
and analyse how the relationship between organisms within and across taxonomic
trophic levels relates to key ecosystem services in soil (Creamer et al. 2015;
Pulleman et al. 2012). Looking for potential indicators of biodiversity and
ecosystem functioning suitable for the European scale, a first list of soil biodiversity
indicators was compiled from literature, after which a “logical sieve” approach was
applied to establish key indicators to be used (Faber et al. 2013). The final indicator
shortlist thus obtained included process measurements, organism‐based assays and
biodiversity (organism‐based assays as well as developing molecular biology tools),
which were evaluated at EcoFINDERS sites (Stone et al. 2016).
Significant progress has been recorded in the selection and definition of indi-
cators for European areas, but this is only a step in designing a monitoring pro-
gramme (Faber et al. 2013) and while there are monitoring networks implemented
for soil abiotic properties, very rarely these include indicators related to the decline
of soil biodiversity (Stone et al. 2016). There are some exceptions, like Australia’s
Earthworms Downunder programme (Baker et al. 1997) and, in Europe, France’s
Réseau multi-institutionnel de Mesures de la Qualité des Sols (RMQS) (Arrouays
et al. 2002), UK’s Countryside Survey (Black et al. 2003) or the most noteworthy
German biological soil classification scheme (BBSK) (Ruf et al. 2003) and Dutch
258 S. Mendes et al.

Biological Indicator of Soil Quality (BISQ) (Rutgers et al. 2009). Both BBSK and
BISQ use ecological classification and assessment of soils based on reference data
for soil organisms, using community approach methodologies and previously
established monitoring networks (Ruf et al. 2003; Sousa et al. 2009). BISQ uses the
Dutch Soil Quality Network (DSQN), which includes 200 sites on 10 soil type/land
use combinations and was established to obtain policy relevant information on soil
status and trends (Gardi et al. 2009). Following the ratification of the CBD by the
Dutch government, the role of biodiversity in maintaining ecological functions in
the soil was one of the subjects policy makers felt needed more attention (Rutgers
et al. 2009). BISQ was designed to answer this need: composed of 25 indicators
comprising both abiotic, biotic (nematodes, earthworms, enchytraeids, soil
microarthropods) and functional (microbial biomass, respiration, structural and
functional diversity, and C and N-cycling) parameters, it compares indicator values
measured in a site with the reference values taken from reference sites, enabling an
assessment of bacterial diversity under different management regimes/soil structure
and an estimation of the impact of land use and human activities. As for BBSK, it
relies on the simple assumptions that soil fauna community composition is mainly
determined by abiotic parameters (therefore sites with similar soils should have
similar communities and reference communities can be defined) and that it’s pos-
sible to find the fundamental parameters that influence soil fauna (Ruf et al. 2003).
BBSK accounts for multiple biotic factors (like life history traits, feeding guilds or
diversity and abundance of meso- and macrofauna); however, contrary to BISQ, the
network in which BBSK is applied is not centrally coordinated and biodiversity
monitoring endpoints vary by the individual German states according to the interest
of management responsible (Gardi et al. 2009; Ruf et al. 2003). However, at least a
central database (called Edaphobase) containing all German soil biological data has
been set up (Burkhardt et al. 2014).
Even though no consensus has been reached so far on which is the best approach
as to monitor soil biodiversity, the fact is that almost a decade after the SFD was
presented the status of soil biodiversity has certainly improved (Römbke et al.
2016). There’s still work to be done on establishing long-term systematic sampling
schemes (Bispo et al. 2009), using standardized methods (Römbke et al. 2005),
finding baselines/reference values, integrating new promising techniques (such as
“omics” tools) (Faber et al. 2013) and above all, understand and describe the
relationships, links and processes connecting soil biodiversity and ecosystem ser-
vice provision, which is why experimentation remains a key issue for soil
protection.

4.2 Action Line 2: Experimentation

Whilst our knowledge on soil and the importance of its biodiversity is expanding
rapidly, the relationship between soil organisms, soil processes and ecosystem
services is not yet fully described. This task is being undertaken with the help of
Protecting Soil Biodiversity and Soil Functions … 259

recently developed technologies and approaches—and is expected to continue to be

pursued on more studies and experimentation led by soil researchers.
Empirical studies have led to a growing consensus that quantifying functional
traits in biotic communities might be the most meaningful way to assess ecosystem
services (de Bello et al. 2010). A functional trait is defined as “a characteristic of an
organism, which has demonstrable links to the organism’s function” (de Bello et al.
2010), being it a morphological, physiological, behavioural or life-history attribute
of an organism (Pulleman et al. 2012; Vandewalle et al. 2010). Classifying soil
organisms according to their functional traits may help for a better understanding of
the relationships that ultimately enable the provision of ecosystem services, with the
advantage of being eco-region independence (Pulleman et al. 2012). Relationships
between ecosystem services and traits have been documented for several organisms
(de Bello et al. 2010), but more experimental-based studies are necessary to dis-
entangle these relationships in order to fully understand the role of soil biodiversity
in ecosystem functioning.
A promising tool to attain these goals is to use the so called “semi-field” methods,
namely mesoscoms, such as the terrestrial model ecosystems (TME). TMEs consist
of intact soil cores, extracted from the field and meant to be used to under controlled
laboratory conditions. These types of methods ally the realism of the field envi-
ronment by working with intact soil cores and the natural soil community, with the
ability to control for some abiotic parameters potentially acting as confounding
factors in the experiment, thus focusing on particular structure-function relationship
questions. The use of these semi-field experiments in ecological studies proliferated
over recent years and has so far allowed for the understanding of some mechanisms
by which soil organisms mediate nutrient cycling in soil (Pulleman et al. 2012) and
further linkages between biodiversity and ecosystem functions are expected to be
unearthed by running such experiments. Actually, this method has been proposed as
a standard approach in high-tier ecotoxicological assessments (Schaeffer et al. 2010)
and are also being used to assess effects of climate change on shifting the risk posed
by toxicants (Bandow et al. 2016).
Advances in technology, bioinformatics and data management also unveil an
auspicious future for soil research. Management of large databases is becoming a
conceivable task, whilst the evolution of statistical analysis and novel conceptual
designs (like network based approaches) have allowed for further obtaining relevant
information and comprehension on the interactions between organisms, trophic
levels and how these shape the natural communities in soil (Burkhardt et al. 2014;
Creamer et al. 2015).

4.3 Action Line 3: Raising Awareness

The ultimate goal of soil protection is to maintain soil quality in order to secure its
functioning for current and future generations. For that reason, involving the
general public in soil protection is not only advisable but essential. The need to
260 S. Mendes et al.

raise awareness has been emphasized at global scale and efforts have been made in
order to increase everyone’s knowledge about soil biodiversity and its importance
(Jeffery et al. 2010). These efforts run through research and education at every level
(from pre-school children to university students, but also considering key partici-
pants in soil use and management such as farmers, land-owners or policy makers),
trusting that the more people learn about the role soil organisms play in soil
functions and, therefore, sustaining the environment, the more they will be likely to
protect it (Jeffery et al. 2010). Soil has reached the global agenda and the threats on
it have raised enough concern to convince the UN General Assembly of the
importance of a sustainable use of soil and, thus, adopting a resolution to designate
December 5 as the World Soil Day and declare 2015 as the International Years of
Soils (IYS) (UN 2014). The work under the TSSP, as well as the activities prepared
during the 2015 IYS and the importance and funding that government agencies
have been giving to soil matters (namely the LIFE programme in the EU (EC 2014),
have considerably helped raising awareness towards the importance of soil and a
number of educational activities (such as lesson plans, games or films) have been
and are still being developed to intensify this message. Soil is becoming a current
theme on general public perception, which hopefully will pave the way for a better
and more sustainable use of this living, fundamental and dynamic, yet, at the human
life scale, non-renewable resource.

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Interdisciplinary and Participatory
Research at Early Childhood
to Biodiversity Education
and Sustainable Development
João Miranda, Raquel Maricato, Joana Vila Nova,
Joana Margarida Baptista, João Lourenço Monteiro,
Nuno Freitas, Odete Gonçalves, Vera Vale
and Anabela Marisa Azul

Abstract
The biodiversity is the ultimate concept of life on Earth and includes all living
organisms but remains a serious challenge at global scale, principally as result of
human activities. The perception of biodiversity and their linkages to the
ecosystems functioning and human well-being may have significant impacts in
terms of Biodiversity Education and Sustainable Development (BESD).
Interdisciplinary and participatory research, have increasingly strong evidence
in the biodiversity conservation awareness. In early childhood, however, certain
challenges come around in the understanding of basic concepts of biology and
ecology, and their combination with the areas of proximal development of

J. Miranda
Centre for 20th Century Interdisciplinary Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities,
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
R. Maricato
J.V. Nova
J.M. Baptista
N. Freitas
O. Gonçalves
Kindergarten JISASUC–Jardim de Infância dos Serviços de Ação Social da
Universidade de Coimbra, Av. Dias da Silva, 7, 3030-136 Coimbra, Portugal

J.L. Monteiro
CIUHCT- Interuniversity Center for the History of Science and Technology,
Department of Applied Social Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology,
Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, Lisbon, Portugal

V. Vale
College of Education of Coimbra (ESEC-Escola Superior de Educação de Coimbra),
Rua Dom João III – Solum, 3030-329 Coimbra, Portugal

A.M. Azul (&)

CNC-Centre for Neuroscience and Cell Biology, University of Coimbra,
Pólo I – Edifício da FMUC, Rua Larga, 3004-517 Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: amjrazul@ci.uc.pt

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 265

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_17
266 J. Miranda et al.

children. This chapter explores the effectiveness of a participatory research at early

childhood through a discovery process focused on biodiversity experience. We
intended to explore how biological understanding of the biodiversity and
ecological processes at early childhood may contribute to BESD awareness.
The participatory research undertook a constructive programme, with the active
collaboration of researchers from life sciences, humanities, science education,
kindergarten teachers, children, and artists. The perceptions, evaluation, and
validation of the approach are emphasised in the ateliers progressively designed, in
the drawings by the children, in the documentation by the kindergarten teachers,
and in the interviews to the children. The findings focused attention on the
understanding of biological and ecological interactions, the adaptations to climate,
the food and the products of the Mediterranean forests, and the biodiversity legacy
in Mediterranean region. We highlight the construction of a conceptual design
from the child’s perspective that includes the children as actors/authors of
knowledge, which resulted from mutual learning and active collaboration. The
participatory research linked to real-life of children and local/regional context
clearly contributed the extension to families and society. Moreover, the science-art
collaborations did engage the children expressively. The paper concludes with
remarks addressing the participatory research in early childhood to rise awarenes
in BESD context, with attitude gains and lifelong outcomes.

1 Introduction

Biodiversity is the ultimate concept of life on earth and includes all living organ-
isms found on land in water, and in the atmosphere. Biodiversity supports the
ecological networks that underpin the ecosystems functioning and the human
existence (World Health Organization [WHO] and Secretariat of the Convention on
Biological Diversity 2015). Despite the magnitude of biodiversity to human health
and well-being, the loss of biodiversity remains a serious challenge at global scale,
mainly as result of human activities (WHO 2015; European Environment Agency
[EEA] 2015).
Mediterranean region is recognized as a global biodiversity hotspot. However,
over the last decades, the risk of biodiversity loss is increasing (EEA 2015) due to
the over-exploitation of natural resources, habitat loss, pollution, and growing
impacts of invasive alien species. About 60 % of protected species assessments and
77 % of habitat assessments recorded an unfavourable conservation status in
Mediterranean region (EEA 2015). Also, climate change is projected to increase
water shortages, with direct impacts on water resources and indirect effects on food
production, ecosystem functions, services and health, and people health (IPCC
2014). Some impacts of biodiversity and habitat loss can be estimated—nearly 5 %
of the original vegetation in the Mediterranean region remains relatively intact
(FAO 2013)—but other effects in ecosystem such as soil degradation—the
Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood … 267

microorganisms loss and biogeochemical changes—are very difficult to estimate.

The soil biodiversity is increasingly recognized to deliver existential benefits—in
terms of food production clean air, water and nutrients—with the ability to promote
human health (Wall et al. 2015). The increasingly global sustainable and health
challenges are intimately tied to the interactions between ecosystems processes and
people behaviour.
There is a compelling need for understanding the identity of biodiversity and
ecological interactions and networks at local and regional levels, but also to pro-
mote the affective dimension in terms of the sensations of own experiences and
identity from nature (Hinds and Sparks 2008). The Mediterranean diet, acclaimed
as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2013, brings the
opportunity to reflexions at multi-layered contexts, from nutritional to
socio-economic (Bach-Faig et al. 2011), and with the “biodiversity” featuring a
healthy and sustainable dietary pattern (Dernini and Berry 2015).
Environmental communication and education programmes have been dominated
by approaches with end-users as receivers of simplified and overgeneralized
information. Such assumptions too often create barriers in the communication and
misconceptions in the appropriation of knowledge. This ultimately translates in the
ineffective environmental awareness and the incapacity to remodel individual and
collective behaviors in terms of natural resources sustainability and human
well-being.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) promotes efforts to rethink
educational programmes using participatory research and recognizes the pluralistic
and the continuous mutual learning processes throughout lifetime (UNESCO 2007,
2008, 2015). However, there is a recognized gap between early childhood educa-
tional programmes and systems—methodologies and topics—in perspective of the
child’s (UNESCO 2008).
Knowledge of biodiversity in their extension to ecological interactions and how
human well-being is interconnected and influence their existence in future will have
a profound impact on conservation education in terms of Biodiversity and Edu-
cation for Sustainable Development (BESD). Understanding the biological mech-
anisms and ecological processes that underlie linkages between nature and people,
and the effects of interdisciplinary research, mutual learning environment, emotion,
and age on experiencing nature could driver educational strategies to design BESD
programs that promote awareness and attitude gains from individual to collective
and from local to global scale.
Interdisciplinary and participatory research can now offer some understanding of
how linkages between nature and people can be strengthened for improved
explorations at early childhood and processes the experiences and knowledge
throughout life.
We explored how discovery process and biodiversity experience at early
childhood underpin attitudes and behaviours at local and regional levels for
improving BESD at global scale. We specially focused on the understanding of
268 J. Miranda et al.

biological and ecological principles—abiotic and biotic interactions—and the

biodiversity legacy in the Mediterranean region.
Interdisciplinary and participatory research was previously explored within
pre-schoolers (Wells 2013; Wells et al. 2015), primary scholars (Azul et al. 2009),
secondary scholars (Azul 2009), teachers (Azul et al. 2008), and forest producers
(Azul et al. 2010; Azul 2011).

2 Perception of Biodiversity and Their Linkages

to the Ecosystems Functioning and Human
Well-Being

2.1 Approach: Mediterranean Forest Experience

The main objective of the project «Exploring and Experiencing Mediterranean»

was to link the biological understanding of biodiversity in Mediterranean region as
it inhere the network of ecological interactions, and to promote sustainability
awareness connected to natural resources conservation and human well being.
We intended to report the extraordinary biodiversity—plants, animals, and
mushrooms—in Mediterranean forests, particularly in the oak woodlands, tradi-
tionally called «Montado» in Portugal and «Dehesas» in Spain. These oak wood-
lands correspond to man-made ecosystems and are recognized as a successful
example of sustainable land use in Europe. We also meant to explore basic concepts
of biology and ecology—abiotic and biotic interactions—and the connections
between human and nature in Mediterranean region—food, materials, and history
(see the glossary, Table 1).
The «Exploring and Experiencing Mediterranean» project used an interdisci-
plinary and participatory research, with the active collaboration of researchers from
life sciences, humanities, science education, kindergarten teachers, and artists. We
intended to explore how biological understanding of the biodiversity and ecological
processes may contribute to biological conservation awareness and attitude gains in
terms of sustainability.
The JISASUC–Jardim de Infância dos Serviços de Ação Social da Universidade
de Coimbra, is a kindergarten from the University of Coimbra, with four classes
with children 3 to 6 years old. The JISASUC have wide experience in participatory
research with researchers of the Coimbra Education School and the University of
Coimbra. The approaches at the JISASUC have being inspired by several con-
structivists authors, such as Dewey (1989), Piaget (1926), Vygotsky (1967), Freire
(1996), and Loris Malaguzzi (Smidt 2013), and is increasingly demonstrated
interconnected regarding the cognitive, emotional, and physical well-being. The
observation, the reflection, and the documentation, are the three main pillars that
JISASUC explore to support children in their areas of proximal development.
Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood … 269

Table 1 Ateliers accomplished along with the participatory research

Term Definition
Biodiversity The variability among living organisms from all sources including, among
others, terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological
complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species,
between species and of ecosystems (Convention on Biological Diversity,
Article 2; 1992)
Biome Regions on Earth with similar climatic conditions, especially temperature and
rainfall, characterized by large communities of plants and animals as result of
adaptation to climate
Climate Climate represents the average of weather in a place over many years (the
weather include temperature, precipitation, cloudiness, and wind speed, at a
certain place; the weather may change according to regular events, such as
the seasons). The climate is associated to gradual chances over large periods
of time
Ecosystem Community of living organisms, combining the relationships they establish
with each other, and in conjunction with surrounding environment—air,
water, and mineral matrix of soil
Food chain The food chain represents the fluxes of nutrients and energy between the
organisms. The food chain has at the basis the organisms that produce their
own food, such as the plants, and then the organisms that feed from other
organisms. Some animals eat plants others eat animals or fungi. The fungi
feed themselves by absorption
Fungi The kingdom of Fungi is composed by organisms, which the structural unit is
the hyphae. The fungi do not move by themselves, and do not produce their
own food—get feed by absorption
Lichen The lichen corresponds to a symbiotic relationship that arises from junction
of a fungus and algae or cyanobacteria (or both). The lichens have many
colors, sizes, and forms
Mediterranean The Mediterranean biome is characterized by temperate climate with hot and
dry summers, and precipitation restricted to a few months in a relatively
warm winter and spring
Montado Savannah-like landscape dominated by open oak formations—Quercus suber
L., Quercus rotundifolia L., and Quercus ilex L.—but also some dispersed
pines and other tree species, that results from an extensive agro-silvo-pastoral
exploitation. Known by Montados in Portugal and Dehesas in Spain, have
accompanied human history in Mediterranean basin and represent a classic
example of sustainable land use in Europe by combining biological
conservation and socio-economical value. The multifunctional use of
Montados is associated to multiple products, e.g., cork, wood, meat, fruits,
apiculture, medicinal plants, mushrooms, habitat for fauna, tourism, and
ecosystems services. The Montados dominate the landscape in the Alentejo
region (southern Portugal)
Mycorrhizas Mycorrhizas (from Greek mykes = fungi and rhiza = root) are mutualisms
between fungi and plant roots. The fungi translocate water and nutrients to
plant roots; plants translocate carbon to the fungus. The mycorrhizas are
common associations in nature that promote the ecosystems functioning
below- and aboveground
(continued)
270 J. Miranda et al.

Table 1 (continued)
Term Definition
Mushrooms The mushrooms are associated to the sexual fruiting bodies of higher fungi,
which produce the spores. The fruiting bodies growing above-ground are
called mushrooms, the fruiting bodies growing below-ground are called
truffles
Soil Soil encompasses mineral particles, organic materials in various stages of
decomposition, living soil organisms. The living soil matrix includes fungi,
bacteria, insects, and earthworms
Rhizobium Rhizobia are bacteria; the Rhizobium-legume symbioses promote the
biological fixation of N2, and can play a significant role in improving the
fertility and productivity of soils
Symbiosis In ecology, symbiosis is associated to long-term interaction between two
different biological species. The mutualism is a symbiosis in which both
benefit from the association
Sustainability In ecology, sustainability is associated to the biological and ecological
processes and functioning, as well as to the use of the resources without
compromising the balance in nature

3 Materials and Methods

3.1 Sample

The approach comprised all children at the kindergarten JISASUC; in total, 53

children, between 3 and 6 years: 3 year—7 children; 4 year—18 children; 5 year—
19 children; and 6 year—9 children (52 % boys and 48 % girls). Informed consent
from the parents and kindergarten teachers was obtained through written collabo-
ration agreement in order to discuss the progress of the research and to disseminate
the results.

3.2 Participatory Research Approach

The participatory research experienced three phases: (1) conceptual design, (2) re-
alization of the ateliers, and (3) perceptions, evaluation, and validation of the
approach. The approach encompassed a constructivist programme over a 9 months
period that accompanied the project from the beginning.
Phase 1: Conceptual design
The conceptual design was primarily planned taking into account basic concepts
of biology and ecology (see glossary, Table 1) to improve the understanding of the
biological processes associated to biodiversity in Mediterranean at early childhood.
The conceptual design followed a discovery process by children and kindergarten
teachers, and support of the researchers and the multiple actors. The constructivist
Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood … 271

programme engaged children as active actors/authors. The discovery-based process

followed a holistic exploration of the biodiversity through a flexible and sponta-
neous programme, within a combination of basic concepts of biology and ecology
and creativity.
The participatory research team—researchers and kindergarten teachers—met
regularly to discuss the approach and the tools to be explored in the ateliers—
books, website, newspapers, videos, experiences, games, and artistic forms. The
regular meetings were crucial to accurate the programme in terms of the biodi-
versity related concepts the development and interests of children. The regular
meetings contributed to strength the active collaboration between the research team
and the invited actors that participated in the project (researchers and artists).
Phase 2: Realization of the ateliers
The discovery-based process resulted in sixteen ateliers (Table 2). The ateliers
specially focused on the biodiversity in Mediterranean forests (A1, A4–9, A13,
A15–16), adaptations to climate in Mediterranean region (A1, A6, A9, A16), traits
of plants (A4–6, A9, A16), traits of fungi (A10–11, A15), Mediterranean diet
(A1, A4, A6, A9, A15, A16), products of the Mediterranean forests (A1–2, A9,
A13, A15–16), ecological interactions (A6, A10–11, A16), efficient use of water
(A5–6, A16), connections between biodiversity and the real-life of children (A2,
A9, A15, A16), history of the Mediterranean region (A3, A12), science-art col-
laborations (A3, A8, A12, A13), and participative actions (A3, A7, A9). The ate-
liers were mostly conducted by the kindergarten teachers and the actors invited
during the project. The collaborative actions attempt science from the children’s
perspective with children as actors and authors in the appropriation of knowledge.
Phase 3: Perceptions, evaluation, and validation of the approach
The perceptions, evaluation and validation of the approach include the active
collaboration in the conceptual design of the ateliers/activities/actions, the per-
ceptions from the children’s perspective, and the consultation process through an
interview/questionnaire to the children.
The kindergarten teachers documented the perceptions and interests of the
children during the ateliers/activities/actions, and the questions and initiatives prior
to the ateliers. The documentation and perceptions from the children’s perspective
were registered during the ateliers and discussed on the regular meetings. The
documentation included drawings by the children, photos, and videos during the
ateliers and actions, and documentation by the kindergarten teachers (Edwards et al.
2011).
In order to ascertain the appropriateness of the approach, a consultation process
was conducted with the children at the end of the 9-month experience. The children
were interviewed based on a questionnaire with 27 closed questions. The consul-
tation process involved a selection of topics, ateliers, and actions presented ran-
domly. The questionnaire was firstly presented as a pre-test. The researchers and
kindergarten teachers optimized collectively the consultation process in terms of the
specific scientific contents and concepts regarding. The consultation process/
interview was primarily oriented to the perceptions of the biodiversity in the
272 J. Miranda et al.

Table 2 Ateliers accomplished along with the participatory research

Atelier Action Aspiration/brief description
A1 Where acorns Research hands-on Research about trees with
come from? acorns/exploration of oak trees—leaves,
bark, roots—that produce acorns, and their
habitats in the Mediterranean. Children
used multiples tools (books, web) with
their families and at the kindergarten.
Discussion groups promoted dialogues
about inhabitants, habitats and products of
oaks and oak woodlands (traditionally
called Montados)
A2 Discovering the Inquiry cooking Confection of bread with acorn flour/
acorn in the kitchen! children participated actively in the
confection of bread with acorn flour
A3 Dinosaurs in the Research painting Drama about dinosaurs and their forests/
prehistoric forests drama the dinosaurs—a topic chosen by children
—was used to introduce the history of
Mediterranean forest. Children discovered
a dinosaur—Plesiossauro—that inhabited
the Portuguese territory, and giant
mushrooms in prehistory forests.
Afterwards, they participated actively in
the construction of the dino-masks,
scenario, and drama
A4 Seeds of Research Exploration and observation of seeds of
Mediterranean plants exploration Mediterranean plants/children explored
seeds with their families. At the
kindergarten, children observed the seeds
by using magnifying glasses and overhead
projectors. Children compared colours,
sizes, and textures, and discussed the seeds
present in the Mediterranean dietary
A5 Vertical garden Research hands-on Cultivation of plants in small areas/
children and educators explored edible
plants that may be cultivated in balconies
and then constructed a vertical structure
with recycled materials. Children sowed
selected seeds (from A4), and
accompanied the life cycle of the plants
A6 Eat the garden you Inquiry hands-on Calendar of edible plants/children and
sow! gardening educators inquired legumes and vegetables
of Mediterranean that are sown during
winter and spring. Children cultivated a
small garden outside. The gardening
involved the techniques to use water
efficiently. Besides, children followed the
growth of plants and explored particular
symbiosis between legumes and the
bacteria Rhizobium
(continued)
Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood … 273

Table 2 (continued)
Atelier Action Aspiration/brief description
A7 Oaks in the city! Participative action Plantation of a cork oak at a garden in the
city/children, educators, and researchers,
made a walk to a garden of the city to plant
the cork oak seedlings. Children identified
oaks in different areas of the city
A8 Dance of Creative dance Performance of sounds and movements of
Mediterranean forest Mediterranean/children experienced
sounds and movements associated to
abiotic—sun, wind, rain, sea, river, soil—
and biotic—animals, plants—components
of ecosystems, in particular the
Mediterranean forests. The creative dance
involved the active collaboration between
children and a professional dancer
A9 Aromatics and teas Investigation Identification and preparation of
hands-on aromatics and teas/children identified and
catalogued aromatic plants of the
Mediterranean region. Children selected:
(i) aromatic herbs commonly used for tea,
(ii) aromatics to make aromatic bags;
(iii) aromatics to flavour salt, olive oil and
vinegar; and (iv) aromatic herbs to ice
cubes. Children dried some plants at the
class and then made tea and fresh drinks at
the kindergarten for their families.
Children took the aromatic bags to their
homes
A10 What is a Survey hands-on Observation of cork oak mycorrhizas/
mycorrhiza? children imagined what could be a
mycorrhiza. Children observed
mycorrhizas in a block of soil with roots of
cork oak; they observed the mycorrhizas
by using magnifying glasses
A11 There is an Role playing Simulation of development of mycelium in
internet growing my soil/through a role playing, children,
under by feet! educators, and researchers, explored the
mutual symbiosis between plant and fungi
—mycorrhizas—and the fructification of
mushrooms and truffles. Children also
made a panel of a forest with mycelia (1
spaghetti = 1 hyphae)
A12 Soil and houses Expedition to Construction of a mosaic with puzzle
from Mediterranean Roman ruins visual pieces of clay/children visited Roman ruins
arts (Conímbriga) and explored the soil
materials used to build the city. Children
created puzzle pieces with clay and then
constructed a mosaic. Children discussed
about the products derived from
Mediterranean soil
(continued)
274 J. Miranda et al.

Table 2 (continued)
Atelier Action Aspiration/brief description
A13 Painting with Research expedition Painting with natural ink/children
Nature to botanic garden prepared ink with acorns and other fruits,
painting legumes, spices, and mushrooms. The
performance was conducted in two
different moments: (i) individual at the
Botanic Garden of the University of
Coimbra (JBUC); and (ii) collective at the
kindergarten. Children explored the
biodiversity and applications from
biodiversity of Mediterranean. Children
experienced painting with nature in
Nature. The painting at the JBUC included
a visit to the glasshouse and a drama
performed by the educators
A14 How much did it Experiment Use water resources efficiently/children
rain? hands-on constructed a pluviometer, registered the
evolution of water according to the
rainfall, and construct a strategy to irrigate
efficiently. Children discussed about the
importance of water
A15 Risotto of wild Exploration culinary Exploration of mushrooms diversity and
mushrooms confection of risotto/children participated
actively in the risotto confection that
counted with a collaboration of a
researcher from social sciences as “chef”.
Children were able to discuss the diversity
of mushrooms and the products from forest
that contribute to dietary
A16 Mediterranean Exploration Construction of a Mediterranean garden/
garden hands-on gardening researchers selected wild plants, children
replanted the wild plants over the
perimeter of the kindergarten, after
exploration the main characteristics and
names. Children also replanted some
plantlets from A5 and A6. Once the garden
established, children also explored the
trees that were previously present and
another symbiosis: lichens
The detailed report can be consulted at the web page www.montadomedia.com

Mediterranean region, the insights about the ecological interactions, the engage-
ment and attitude gains regarding food and products of Mediterranean forests, the
impact of science-art collaborations, and the preference for sources and actions. The
consultation process comprised all children at the kindergarten JISASUC (53
children). The data was analysed using the computer program Statistical Package
for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0.
Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood … 275

4 Results and Discussion

4.1 Participatory Research from the Children’s Perspective

The children feel exceptionally comfortable with the new questions and the ini-
tiatives associated to the research at the kindergarten and at home with families. To
the question, “How can we research?” children clearly answered “On your com-
puter, on the internet”; “And we can make drawings”; “We can also go to the
Google”; “And [consult] in the books”; “And we could also go a museum”; “And
go to the library where I often go”.

4.2 Biodiversity in Mediterranean Region

Table 3 reports the list of plants, animals, and mushrooms, after the
ateliers/activities/actions done by the children. The Mediterranean forest experience
resulted in well-known species, particularly plants and mushrooms. The exploration
of biodiversity in Mediterranean forests associated to traits and adaptations to cli-
mate, food, and products, clearly contributed to depict main characteristics of
species but also to debate the importance of biodiversity in terms of conservation
and sustainable development. The exploration and experiencing of biodiversity
stimulated the construction of the vertical garden (Table 2 A5), “the garden to eat”
(Table 2 A5), and the Mediterranean garden (Table 2 A13). Likewise, the explo-
ration of biodiversity revealed to be a good practice to introduce interactions
between species and the symbiotic associations, such as mycorrhizas (Fig. 1x, xi; i,
j), Rhizobium (Fig. 1xiii; l), and lichens (Fig. 1xvi; m).

4.3 Perceptions from the Children’s Perspective:

Documentation and Drawings

To investigate the perceptions from the children’s perspective we combined the

documentation and drawings throughout the participatory approach. The kinder-
garten teachers documented the perceptions, questions, interests, and suggestions of
the children during the ateliers, group discussions, and sharing experiences. Fig-
ure 1 exemplifies the documentation during the research, explorations, experiences,
and creative and participative actions by the children.
The drawings were explored before, right through, and after the ateliers (Fig. 1).
The drawings produced by the children may expressively contribute to better
comprehend the appropriation of knowledge regarding the topics explored
(Fig. 1b–k) and experienced (Figs. 1j and 2), but also the interests and engagement
of the children to perform in multiple circumstances, such as the discovery from the
unknown (Fig. 1a, i, l, m).
276 J. Miranda et al.

Table 3 Biodiversity in Mediterranean region explored and experienced during the participatory
research
Group
Plants Trees: azinheira (holm oak, Quercus rotundifolia), carrasco (kermes oak,
Quercus coccifera), sobreiro (cork oak, Quercus suber), azereiro (Portuguese
laurel cherry, Olea oleaster), loureiro (laurel, Laurus nobilis), pinheiro-manso
(stone pine, Pinus pinea), medronheiro (strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo),
limoeiro (lemon, Citrus limon), oliveira (olive tree, Olea europaea)
Shrubs: carqueja (Pterospartum tridentatum), giesta (broom, Cytisus spp),
gilbardeira (butcher’s-broom, Ruscus aculeatus), esteva (rockrose, Cistus
ladanifer), sargaço (sage-leaved rock rose, Cistus salvifolius), tojo (gorse, Ulex
sp.; Figure 1k), alecrim (rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis), rosmaninho
(lavender, Lavandula spp), rosmaninho-verde (green lavender, Lavandula
viridis), erica arbórea (tree heath, Erica arborea), urze (heath, Erica spp.)
Herbs: borragem (borage, Borago officinalis; Fig. 1 documentation xii), cardo
(thistle, Cynara cardunculus), dedaleira (foxglove, Digitalis purpurea),
erva-de-S-Roberto (herb-of-S. Roberto, Geranium robertianum), ervilhaca
(vetch, Vicia sativa), espargo-silvestre (asparagus, Asparagus aphyllus),
hipericão (Perforate St John’s-wort, Hypericum perforatum), malmequer
(chop-suey greens, Chrysanthemum coronarium), morango-silvestre (wild
strawberry, Fragaria vesca)
Animals Domestic mammals: black pig, cow (Fig. 1e), donkey, goat, horse and sheep
Domestic birds: chicken, duck and turkey
Wild mammals: coelho-bravo (wild rabbit, Oryctolagus cuniculus), corço
(buck, Capreolus capreolus), javali (boar, Sus scrofa; Fig. 1d), texugo (badger,
Meles meles), gineta (genet, Genetta genetta), lebre (hare, Lepus granatensis),
lince (Iberian lynx), lontra (Lutra lutra), morcego (bat, Tadarida spp.),
ouriço-cacheiro (hedgehog, Erinaceus europaeus), toupeira (mole, Talpa
occidentalis), raposa (fox, Vulpes vulpes; Fig. 1f), rato-do-campo (wood
mouse, Apodemus sylvaticus), saca-rabos (ichneumon, Herpestes ichneumon)
Wild birds: águia-imperial (imperial eagle, Aquila adalberti), poupa (hoopoe,
Upupa epops)
Insects: beetles, flies, spiders, ants, bees, butterflies, grasshopper, cricket, wood
louse, centipedes, earthworms
Mushrooms Wild mushrooms: Crista-de-galo (Chanterelle, Cantarellus cibarius; Fig. 1g),
Astraeus hygrometricus, Amanita muscaria, Boletus chrysenteron, Boletus
edulis, Boletus subtomentosus, Bovista spp, Laccaria laccata, Lactarius
delicious, Pisolithus (Pisolithus tinctorius Fig. 1h) Russula cyanoxantha,
Russula sororia, Schizophyllum commune, Scleroderma spp. and Trametes
versicolor
Cultivated mushrooms: repolga (oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus) and
portobello mushroom (Agaricus bisporus)

The documentation (Fig. 1; Table 4) contributed to ascertain the curiosity, the

engagement, and the appropriation of knowledge in understanding the biological
and ecological principles—abiotic and biotic interactions—the attitude gains, and
their combination with the areas of proximal development of children.
The documentation to perception, evaluation, and validation of the approach
attempted to be diverse. The ateliers were realized through a discovery-based
process, in which children explored/experienced individually and/or collectively.
Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood … 277

Documentation Drawings

i) Where acorns came from? (3, 4 years old) Before research: (a)
“The acorns come from the soil, because they are nuts...” “…
and because pigs eat them. Pigs do not climb the trees!” “No!
Acorns come from trees...” “The tree is called «boloteira».”
(Fig. 1 a) “The acorns are green...” “...and then become brown
and fall down to the soil.” “When the acorns fall down, no
longer return to the trees... we can not stick acorns on trees!”
ii) After research (3, 4 years old): “No! The tree that produces
acorns is called cork oak!” “The cork oak belongs to the family
of oaks.” (Fig. 1 b, left to right) “This is a leaf of cork oak. This
is a leaf of oak... of course! ... They have little waves”
iii) After research (4-5years old): What gives us the cork oak?
“Give us acorns! It is a fruit. Pigs and wild boar eat acorns. And
we too!” “ “Give us cork stoppers... and many things... walls, (b)
bags, shoes, umbrellas, coats and dresses...” “Give us wood…”
“…Forests, biodiversity…” “It also gives shadow. The shadow
is nice not to take sun on the head.” “Oxygen... it's a lot!” “To
make flour of acorn, we take off its hat?”

iv) “When the acorn grows, comes out a seedling from the
soil... This little plant grows and then turns into a cork oak.” (c)
(Fig. 1 c, 5 years old)

v) Seeds of Mediterranean plants (3-4 years old) “We've been

watching seeds with a magnifying glass that lights.” “My seed
was of lettuce and I thought it was yellow, and then it was not.
It is very little.”
vi) Garden to eat (3, 4, 5, 6 years old): “We sow the seeds in
the soft soil and then we water them.” “We sow the seeds,
water the seeds and come to see as they are.” “The carrot seeds
will germinate and will give carrots” “…then we eat.” “I am
working in our garden!” (d)
vii) Some of the animals of Mediterranean forests (Montados)
(3, 4, 5, 6 years old): boar (Fig. 1 d), wild rabbit, Iberian lynx,
genet, bat, hedgehog, pig, sheep, goat, cow (Fig. 1 e), horse,
chicken, duck, turkey, donkey, fox (Fig. 1 f), and imperial
eagle. (e)
viii) Discussion group about foxes: “The foxes live in a
labyrinth” “It's a den!” “The animals live in that dens. Then,
when they leave, the foxes go there.” “The foxes have a good
smell and good hearing” “The foxes are also mammals.”
“[They] have orange hair and white legs and tail” “Foxes run
very fast” “They eat animals, are carnivorous…and eat eggs” (f)
“Foxes eat animals that are inside the eggs. And also eat chicks
of chickens that are there [in the eggs].” “The foxes hunt... and
hunt rabbits. They also hunt at night” “Because they take the
opportunity to go out at night.” (g)
ix) Some of the Mediterranean forests (A13, A15; 5, 6 years
old) Chanterelle (Cantarellus cibarius; Fig. 1 g); Pisolithus
(Pisolithus tinctorius; Fig. 1 h): “There are two stones or bones (h)
of dinosaurs” “The stones have no sand!” “It is not a stone
because it broke on the stairs, I think it is clay!” “These
mushrooms are strange. I've never seen mushrooms like these!”

Fig. 1 Documentation of perceptions and interests of the children during the approach and actions
278 J. Miranda et al.

x) What is a mycorrhiza? (A10; 5, 6 years old) Before the (i)

research: “It’s a scary person. When you are watching TV, the
mycorrhiza hides behind the sofa and... it scares you!” (Fig. 1 i)
“It’s a thing that sews clothes. When the clothes are shabby we
put them on the mycorrhiza and it sews them, so we don’t get
cold.” “It’s a house.” “It’s a name for stones. And everybody
loves the mycorrhiza because it has a funny name.” “It’s a
microbe because it could be a microbe name.” “It’s a machine.
You put damaged things in it... and you get new things! This
machine is in the stores.”

xi) After the research, during the role-playing (A11; 5, 6 years (j)
old): “The mycelium is what goes below-ground. It seems the
internet. When it finds a tree, the mycelium forms a
mycorrhiza” (Fig. 1 j). “I have an Internet under my feet”.

xii) Plants of Mediterranean (A16; 3, 6 years old)

Borage (Borago officinalis): “Herb with blue star-shaped
flowers and larger leaves. [Leave] It is hairy and tastes like
cucumber with salt!”
Carqueja (Pterospartum tridentatum): “Shrub with yellow
flowers. It has green branches. The leaves are below.”
Gorse (Ulex sp.): “The leaves are thorns and are everywhere
and it has yellow flowers.” (Fig. 1 k)
Heather (Calluna vulgaris): “Shrub with tiny leaves. The (k)
flowers seem balls with fringes and smell like honey”.
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis): “Bush with brown and
green branches, narrow leaves, and purple flowers. It smells
great!” “With the magnifying glass, it’s rather easy to see the
purple flowers.”

xiii) What is a Rhizobium? Before the exploration of legumes in

the garden (A6; 4, 5 years old): “… This arm is a hook and the
other is a hammer. The one with the hook is an arm very big
and the one with the hammer is too short. And it has wings, one (l)
wing is little and the other is bigger.” (Fig. 1 l)

xiv) What is the lichen? (A16; 4, 5 years old) Before the

exploration of the garden outside the kindergarten: “It is the
trunk of cork oak. It is brown and light brown. It has a light
green things, also.” “A trunk of cork oak. It has many crumbs!” (m)
“A lichen is a table. It gets up alone, but only at night when no
one sees. It jumps at night, also.” (Fig. 1 m) “[Lichens] are little
things that are animals... they have four legs, two eyes, a mouth
and three ears, so they hear very well!”

Fig. 1 (continued)

The ateliers were accompanied by group discussions in class. The group discus-
sions occurred within multiple purposes, individual expression, conversations
within class, and sharing experiences among classes. Some of the ateliers were
documented by video (www.montadomedia.com), which become available as an
open tool to society. The children also actively collaborated in a radio programme
dedicated to the project. The videos and the radio programme created the oppor-
tunity for children to be actors for transforming society.
Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood … 279

Fig. 2 Painting with Nature

(A13) during the expedition
to the Botanic Garden of the
University of Coimbra
(JBUC). “I have painted
myself, a cork oak and the
Sun. I also have painted a
rainbow and firework because
I like both very much!”
(5-years old)

4.4 Consultation Process to the Children

To the question: “Did you enjoy experiencing the biodiversity in the Mediter-
ranean?” all the children gave an affirmative answer. By detailing the biodiversity
in the Mediterranean region among «Plants», «Animals», and «Mushrooms»
(Fig. 3), it was possible to infer through the children preferences that plants were
the most interesting element of analysis.
About the discovery processes and exploration/experiencing, the results stress
the preference of the ateliers, the books, and the web (Fig. 4) by the children.
However, there is clear evidence in the preference for the ateliers (Fig. 5) and thus
their putative significance to engagement, appropriation of knowledge and attitude
gains.
Table 5 reflects the preference of the ateliers by the children. Curiously, the
preference for the atelier associated to the confection of the bread was rather
discrete. This may be associated to when it was performed. The confection of the
bread occurred in the first month of the project. However, children asked to repeat
the atelier after the 9 months period. They confectioned bread and pizza to their
families with flour of acorn and products of the Mediterranean forests.
The appropriation of knowledge regarding the biological understanding of
biodiversity in the Mediterranean region was assessed through 17 closed questions,
each one with four possible answers, and only one correct. To the question “What is
280 J. Miranda et al.

Table 4 Appropriation of knowledge by the children, in understanding notions, concepts, and

principles of biology and ecology associated to biodiversity and sustainable development
Examples Documentation
Abiotic interactions: “We also put soil.” “Well dome! My grandfather also put soil in
soil, water plants.” “Now we put the seeds.” “And the water!” “And then they
will grow.” “Things [plants] were born!” “But not here.” “We did
not water…” “[Plants] They drink by the roots”.
“…[We] may have a hose and make small holes to water slowly.”
“We can make a small hole in a carboy and so the water flows very
slowly.”
Biotic interactions: Dialogue between children about mammals 4, 5, 6 years old
food chains “We made a domino about mammals”
“First we saw [discussed] and then we decided to do a domino about
mammals”
“We did two animals and what they eat.”
“What eats the genet?” “Little mice!”
“And the lynx eats wild rabbits.”
“The bats eat insects. When they are babies, the eat [drink] milk
from Mom breast.”
“The foxes are carnivorous and eat animals.”
“I drew a boar! He eats mice and acorns.”
“Acorns are for squirrels to eat [Squirrels et acorns]. And we too!”
“The pig also eats acorns.”
“The boars eat truffles…”
“I have two mammals in my house!”
Biotic interactions: Role playing “there is an internet growing my under by feet!” 3, 4, 5,
Mycorrhizas 6 years old
“We intended to pretend that we were a network that exists in the
forest. Some children are trees others are fungi. The fungi spread a
network belowground. When there are mycorrhizas, born
mushrooms.” “We made a network of fungi with wool yarns, the
mycelium, around trees.” “…When the mushroom appears there is
that network [mycelium]. When it rains, it may appear another
mushroom.” “The mushroom is near the roots. It’s very good! The
mushrooms [fungi] give water and minerals to the tree, and the tree
gives sugar to mushrooms, at the mycorrhiza.”
“We’ve been seeing mycorrhizas with magnifying glass. And below
the mushroom there is the fungus because the mushroom is a
fungus.”
Biotic interactions: Exploration of plants through the construction of Mediterranean
Rhizobium garden (A16) 3, 4, 5, 6 years old. During the observation and
description of the legumes pea and broad bean, “This is a Rhizobium.
It is in the root.”

a cork oak?” 90.6 % of children answered “A tree”. About the shape of cork oak
leaves, 64.2 % children chose “Green and peaks”; the options: (1) Green and
roundish; (2) Green and peaks; (3) Green and thin; (4) Green and rolled. About the
acorns, 88.7 % children were able to associate acorns to the cork oak tree, but also
other species of oaks. Also, 56.6 % of the children identified acorns as a fruit and
Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood … 281

What do you like to reserch / explore?

50.00%
45.00%
40.00%
35.00%
30.00%
25.00%
20.00%
15.00%
10.00%
5.00%
0.00%
Plants Animals Mushrooms
Favorite subject 47.20% 32.10% 20.70%

Fig. 3 Preferences of the children in terms of biodiversity topics «Plants», «Animals», and
«Mushrooms» (n = 53)

What allows you know more?

60.00%

50.00%

40.00%

30.00%

20.00%

10.00%

0.00%
Ateliers/Participative
Internet Books
actions
Discovery/Experiencing 49.10% 13.20% 37.70%

Fig. 4 Perceptions of children in terms of information/appropriation of knowledge about

biodiversity (n = 53)

67.9 % could recognize the bread as a product. The cork was mentioned by 79.2 %
of children as a product likely to result from the cork oak trees.
To the question “Which of these animals is not a bird?” 71.7 % of children
identified the “bat”; the options: (1) Black stork; (2) Great bustard; (3) Bat;
(4) Iberian eagle, and 62.3 % recognize the ant as an insect quite current in the cork
oak.
Regarding ecological interactions, to the question “Which animal eats acorns?”
83 % of the children chose the “Pig”; the options: (1) Bat; (2) Pig; (3) Bobcat;
(4) Stork. The association between plant roots and fungi—mycorrhizas—41.5 % of
the children indicated that mycorrhizas are in the soil; the association plant root and
bacteria—Rhizobium—49.1 % of children could find the nodules on the roots of
plants. The results are quite different on the relation to traits of plants. To the
questions “How plants drink water?” and “How plants breath?” 92.5 % chose
282 J. Miranda et al.

What do you enjoy more in discovering / experiencing

60.00%
biodiversity?
50.00%

40.00%

30.00%

20.00%

10.00%

0.00%
Ateliers/Participative
Internet Books
actions
Discovery/Experiencing 55.80% 23.10% 21.20%

Fig. 5 Perceptions of the children regarding pleasure in discovering/experiencing the biodiversity

(n = 53)

Table 5 Preferences of the Ateliers %

children in relation to the
Atelier Vertical garden 1.9
Discovering the acorn in the kitchen 1.9
Dance of Mediterranean forest 18.9
There is an internet growing my under by feet! 7.5
Garden to eat 1.9
Buildings from Mediterranean soil 1.9
Dinosaurs in the prehistoric forests 1.9
Painting with nature 11.3
How much it rain? 3.8
Risotto with wild mushrooms 3.8
Oks in the city! 11.3
Radio interview 15.1
Seeds of Mediterranean plants 5.7
Aromatics and teas 1.9
What is a mycorrhiza? 7.5
Where acorns came from? 1.9
Mediterranean garden 1.9

through “The root” and 56.6 % chose through “The leaves”, respectively. More-
over, 75.5 % of the children were able to indicate that efficient watering is asso-
ciated to gradual procedures. Children were able to distinguish trees from other
plants, plants cultivated and plants not cultivated, plants commonly used in dietary,
plants that can be used to flavour food.
Notably, this participatory approach resulted in mutual learning about scientific
concepts associated to biodiversity in the Mediterranean forests combining with
multiple areas of proximal development of children. Moreover, this participatory
approach promoted dialogues within multiple disciplines. Exceptionally, this
Interdisciplinary and Participatory Research at Early Childhood … 283

experience at early childhood was crucial to construct the argument of the Ani-
mation “Mediterranean Forest: Montado, as long as we live together” (www.
montadomedia.com).
Experiences at early childhood are not relief actions; they represent a key
identity to cognitive, sensorial, and social development, and must be conceptualized
as a dynamic and constructivist approach. This provides the challenge of how to be
effective in BESD experience in terms of attitude gains and behaviours in a
long-term perspective.

5 Concluding Remarks

The interdisciplinary and participatory research, resulting in active collaboration

through mutual learning and constructivism, and involving science from the chil-
dren’s perspective, provided clear evidence of the engagement of children in
understanding basic concepts of biology and ecology associated to biodiversity in
Mediterranean region but also to ecosystems dynamics and to human well-being
(e.g. dietary). The combination of science with children’s explorations, questions,
and affinities, revealed to promote curiosity and attitude gains in the context of
BESD.
Children were critical actors in planning and developing the ateliers but also to
extend the topics explored to their families. Children revealed distinct interests in
different topics and actions. The interdisciplinary and participatory research in the
Mediterranean forest experience highlights the influence of combining science with
creativity and collective actions, such as painting or cooking.
The mutual learning between researchers, kindergarten teachers, children, and
artists, throughout the plan programme was focal, to: (i) select the topics, (ii) adapt
the science knowledge to children’s development and interests; (iii) introduce local
and regional level in terms of BESD. The dialogue between the multiple actors,
through the regular meetings, was relevant to identify gaps between science and
education, and to enhance participatory approaches from the children’s perspective.
Such participatory approach at early childhood that includes children’s perspectives
and interests corroborate the success of mutual learning processes and can be
inspiring to different areas of knowledge, not only life sciences and environment.
The participatory approaches require extra time at kindergarten to construct daily
programmes with specific expertise, but can be significantly improved by the dia-
logues within the academy. Finally, we substantiate the interdisciplinary and mutual
learning actions in the higher education curricula for future professionals.

Acknowledgements Data in this paper were generated as part of a study entitled «Exploring and
Experiencing Mediterranean» inserted in the project «Montado: From Biodiversity to Ecosystem
Services», co-funded by COMPETE—Competitiveness Factors Operational Program (FEDER)
and National Agency Ciência Viva, Lisbon, Portugal (FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-016867). João
Miranda and João Monteiro also acknowledge the financial support provided by the grants within
FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-016867. The authors gratefully acknowledge to: António Carmo
Gouveia, Catarina Moura, Helena Castro, Helena Freitas, and Sofia Costa, the scientific team at
284 J. Miranda et al.

CFE-Centre for Functional Ecology, University of Coimbra; Carla Pacheco and Rui Dias, the
scientific at CCVE-Centro Ciência Viva of Estremoz, Estremoz, Portugal; radio of university of
Coimbra the support in the radio programme; media of the University of Coimbra for the edition of
videos; Angela Filipe—sociologist—the engagement and collaboration in the atelier “risotto of
wild mushrooms”; Marta Laranjeira—teacher of ballet—the engagement in the creative dance; and
Mário Montenegro—theatre Marionet—the support in the programme meetings.

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 Part V
Online Education to Biodiversity
and Sustainability Awareness
Engaging ODL Students
with Biodiversity Issues: A South
African Case Study on the Role of ESD
Rudi W. Pretorius, Mathilda E. Brand and Leslie R. Brown

Abstract
Biodiversity is regarded as a key asset in safeguarding the well-being of future
generations. The threat to biodiversity through indiscretionary human activities
is increasingly gaining attention, from local to global scales. Biodiversity forms
part of the agenda for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) through
addressing inter-linkages between the various components and systems
comprising the environment. This has been illustrated throughout the Decade
of Education for Sustainable Development, which ended in 2014. As a result,
significant progress has been made at various levels on the understanding of the
impact of human consumption on biodiversity, together with the sensitization of
students in terms of their potential roles to curb habitat and species loss as well
as environmental degradation. This chapter utilises a case study approach to
reflect on the way biodiversity is dealt with through the blended approach to
ESD in the Diploma in Nature Conservation offered by the University of South
Africa (UNISA). This blended approach is unique due to the combination of
open distance learning (ODL), practical sessions, and work-integrated learning
(WIL). A review of the flexibility of a blended approach to ODL, the challenges
that were experienced, the means through which these were addressed and a
future perspective, concludes this chapter.

R.W. Pretorius (&)

Department of Geography, University of South Africa, Private Bag X6,
Florida 1710, South Africa
e-mail: pretorw@unisa.ac.za
M.E. Brand
L.R. Brown
Applied Behavioural Ecology and Ecosystem Research Unit,
Department of Environmental Sciences, University of South Africa,
Private Bag X6, Florida 1710, South Africa

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 289

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_18
290 R.W. Pretorius et al.

Keywords
Biodiversity education

Education for sustainable development

Nature
conservation training
Open and distance learning

Blended learning

Work-integrated learning

1 Introduction

1.1 Linkages Between Biodiversity and ESD

The relationship between biodiversity and education for sustainable development

(ESD) was established in 1992, when the Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD) was signed during the United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNEP). Despite several improvements, reports 18 years later during
the launch of the International Biodiversity Year indicated that biodiversity loss was
continuing at an unprecedented rate (Ki-Moon 2010). A variety of factors have been
suggested to explain the lack of results in terms of the CBD. These include lacking
political will, institutional weakness inadequate public education, to mention a few
(COP6 Decision VI/26 2002). This fuelled the realisation that a turn-around
strategy in terms of biodiversity loss should not only focus on technocratic solu-
tions, but also need to incorporate communication, education and awareness (SCBD
2010). It is therefore not surprising that biodiversity and the need for its conser-
vation is recognised as key theme in ESD (Collins-Figueroa 2012). ESD addresses
biodiversity through a focus on linkages and interactions between the various
subsystems comprising the environment, together with human activities related to
agriculture, industry, urbanisation, livelihoods and more (Ramadoss and Poyya
Moli 2011). Following the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development (UNDESD) which ended in 2014, it is now recognised that ESD
constitutes a key element of educational quality, and is crucial to facilitate sus-
tainable development (UNESCO 2014).

1.2 Biodiversity, ESD and the African Context

The African environment is notorious for challenges posed to people’s livelihoods,

associated with climate change, deforestation, resource exploitation, deterioration
of ecosystems, and water quality issues. The impacts of these issues are frequently
intensified because of wide-spread occurrence of poverty, food insecurity, insta-
bility, disease, drought, water provision, and sanitation problems (Togo 2009).
Taking it a step further, the ultimate compounding factor as identified by
Engaging ODL Students with Biodiversity Issues: A South African … 291

Togo (2009), is Africa’s characteristic low capacity to respond to these challenges,

associated with the fact that countries in Africa generally do not meet the human
development threshold of 0.8 (Louw 2013). It has therefore been indicated that in
the African context, the need for expanding access to education in general, but
specifically to higher education, is huge and of an urgent nature (Barasa 2011). This
challenge has to be considered against the background of Africa’s vision to attain
the Millennium Development Goals and the recognition of education as primary
means by which this vision may be attained (African Union 2006). Taking the
perspective of ESD, for which there is a crucial need to expand in scope in a relative
short time period, the limited access to higher education in Africa is problematic.
Achieving a turn-around in biodiversity loss is similarly dependant on matters such
as capacity development, awareness-raising, engaging indigenous communities and
mainstreaming biodiversity targets, to mention a few (Chandra and Idrisova 2011).
Despite certain constraints, open and distance learning (ODL) has the ability to
respond to many of these challenges, especially since ODL institutions have rea-
lised the need to transform to more engaging pedagogies (e.g. Unisa 2007).

1.3 Position Statement, Aim and Methodology

The position taken on biodiversity in this chapter, concurs with Van As et al.
(2012), namely that biodiversity refers to the diversity of life on Earth in all forms at
all levels of organisation within all ecosystems. Biodiversity conservation and
teaching therefore have to focus on all habitats, ecosystems and biomes on Earth.
The study programme under scrutiny in this chapter is the Diploma in Nature
Conservation offered by the University of South Africa (Unisa), which is an ODL
institution. This study programme has direct linkages with biodiversity conserva-
tion and ESD, and is well suited to the theme of the book. A case study format is
used to review this study programme, with focus on links with biodiversity and
ESD. The value of the case study approach is to allow contextualised description
and analysis of the study programme as it is offered, with addition of critical
reflection. Following the case study, the results of an assessment of the study
programme is provided, firstly in terms of pivots to guide programs for biodiversity
education (Kassas 2002), and secondly in terms of processes underpinning ESD
(Tilbury 2011). This chapter contributes to the debate on access to sustainability
related study programmes in higher education, while recognising that conservation
science requires theoretical, practical and work related learning. The case study
presented contributes to better understanding of the challenges faced by ESD, and
how these challenges are addressed in the Diploma in Nature Conservation of Unisa
through a blend of ODL, practical sessions and work-integrated learning (WIL).
292 R.W. Pretorius et al.

2 Perspectives on Dealing with Biodiversity: The Higher

Education Context

2.1 Review of Successes and Failures in Biodiversity

Education

Navarro-Perez and Tidball (2012) refer to the results of several surveys on biodi-
versity awareness that have been conducted in a number of countries since the
launch of the CBD in 1992. The results being reported confirm that levels of
awareness of biodiversity issues by the general public as well as children still at
school are generally low. In addition, it is clear that strategies (also in terms of
education) that have been implemented to stimulate interest in and support of
biodiversity restoration and conservation, have generally not succeeded in getting
their message across very well. Despite these low levels of awareness being
reported, national and international agreements concerning biodiversity have con-
tinued to gain relevance, resulting in frameworks to involve nations in the pro-
tection of biodiversity that have become commonplace, with organizations such as
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) that has become
well-known for contributions in this regard. There appears to be consensus that
education has an important role to play in terms of transformation of attitudes
towards nature, which should have positive spinoffs in terms of sustainability and
biodiversity conservation (Ehrlich and Pringle 2008). Based on the research by
Navarro-Perez and Tidball (2012), four challenges in terms of biodiversity edu-
cation have to be attended to: (1) Defining an appropriate approach for biodiversity
education; (2) Handling of a concept that is regarded as ill-defined; (3) Reaching
different and broad audiences through a meaningful message; (4) Reconnection of
people with nature.

2.2 Requirements for Biodiversity Education in Terms of ESD

In terms of ESD, consideration of interdependence between the environment and

community concerns about societal, economic and cultural matters cannot be
over-emphasised (Collins-Figueroa 2012). From this viewpoint, ‘traditional’ bio-
diversity education, with ecological focus on various plants and animals within their
habitats, can benefit from the dimensions associated with ESD, such as critical
reflection, clarification of values, envisioning of more sustainable futures and
responding in terms of various modes of applied learning (Tilbury 2011).
Although ESD has the potential to contribute to biodiversity conservation, it is not
clear how to go about this in the best possible way. As indicated in the literature
(Collins-Figueroa 2010), success seems to depend on the provision of opportunities
for transformative learning in biodiversity education, in combination with hands-on
engagement with multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary projects in real-life con-
texts, preferably including local environments. In South Africa, the Biodiversity
Engaging ODL Students with Biodiversity Issues: A South African … 293

Act (No 10 of 2004) mandates higher education to develop the required capacity to
manage the biological diversity of the country (South Africa 2004). As argued by
Zietsman and Pretorius (2006), this capacity does not require specialists with a
focus on only certain topics in specific fields, but with a holistic perspective on
biodiversity within its cultural, social and economic context. This concurs with the
view of Huntley (2003) namely that the qualifications of professionals working in
conservation areas need to include not only conservation biology, but also embrace
sociology, economics, marketing and politics.

2.3 Implications of the ODL Context

Since ODL does not require on-campus presence, students have the freedom to
participate in the job market and to conduct their studies from locations of their
choice and at times (to an extent) blended with their schedules (Taylor 2006).
Instead of attending classes, interaction between participants in ODL
(student-lecturer and student-student) is increasingly relying on various media
facilitated through information and computer technologies (ICTs). The current trend
is towards online presence through the internet, but which is limiting where com-
puter literacy is inadequate (Wright et al. 2009) and where infrastructure presents a
challenge, highlighted by Oyedemi (2012) for South African students and Unwin
et al. (2010) for the broader African context. With many ODL institutions currently
transforming to more engaging pedagogies (e.g. Unisa 2007), ODL programs are
slowly but surely moving beyond the image of inferior, theory based learning
experiences (Barasa 2011), towards provision of high quality qualifications in line
with requirements of the job market and focus areas as ESD. However, catering for
study fields as engineering, medicine and nature conservation, which require sig-
nificant hands-on experience, remains challenging in ODL. This can be addressed
by implementing variants of blended learning, defined as integration of face-to-face
with online approaches to teaching and learning (De George-Walker and Keeffe
2010), and augmented with practical sessions and exposure to the world of work, as
illustrated by the case study in the next section of this chapter.

3 Case Study: National Diploma in Nature Conservation

Offered by Unisa

3.1 Contextual Setting: Unisa and ODL

The study programme that is presented and reviewed in this section of the chapter is
associated with the Department of Environmental Sciences at Unisa, with the staff
members who are involved also linked to the Applied Behavioural Ecology and
Ecosystem Research Unit of Unisa. Although being regarded as a pioneer of dis-
tance education more than 100 years ago, Unisa has since grown significantly and
is now a major player in the field of ODL (Tait 2008). By providing study
294 R.W. Pretorius et al.

opportunities to more than 400,000 students from South Africa, Africa and other
parts of the world, a choice of study fields are offered at Unisa at the level of
certificate to degree (Unisa 2015a). This places Unisa in the league of mega ODL
institutions worldwide. The vision of Unisa is “The African University shaping
futures in the service of humanity” (Unisa 2015b). Since 2007 the strategy at Unisa
has been transformed to streamline interaction between students and the university,
among other things with appropriate ICT solutions, including a move towards
e-learning (Unisa 2007).

3.2 Background on Study Programme

The Diploma in Nature Conservation (previously labelled as the National Diploma

in Nature Conservation) comprises 360 credits and is pitched at Level 6 of the
National Qualifications Framework of South Africa (for comparison, a three year
B-degree is pitched at Level 7). Work-integrated learning (WIL) amounts to almost
25 % of these credits. This study programme was recently revised, and currently in
transition between the previous and new curriculum. The rationale for this study
programme is to provide input to the improvement of professional competence in
the field of nature conservation on a regional and national level in Southern Africa.
As a result, the curriculum has been compiled with the aim to deliver conservation
officers that will be able to provide support to conservators and resource managers
and/or actively participate in management related functions in natural resource
management areas. In this way people that can participate in ecosystems man-
agement, environmental education, and ecotourism, are supplied to the conservation
industry. This also supports sustainable utilisation of natural resources and the
conservation of biodiversity in Southern Africa, and feeds into economic devel-
opment. A last, but very important aim is to provide accessible opportunities for
individual, career and entrepreneurial development to people from all social and
cultural groups, thereby contributing to social and economic transformation.

3.3 Teaching and Learning Approach

In order to inform biodiversity and its management, it is important for conservation

science to engage with students in different ways. Different modes of teaching
should therefore be applied in order to enhance learning. This is supported by Finn
et al. (2002), suggesting that ecological experiments, in addition to theoretical
teaching, would greatly enhance the environmental consciousness of students.
A trend to take into account is that new tertiary students in biological related fields
generally have a lower appreciation and understanding of nature than students
during past decades (Ens et al. 2014). This may be one of the reasons for the
detachment of humans from nature, and an aspect to take note of during curriculum
design, teaching and learning. The Diploma in Nature Conservation has been
Engaging ODL Students with Biodiversity Issues: A South African … 295

Fig. 1 Components of the

Unisa programme in nature
conservation

developed with sustainable veld and game management in mind, while focussing on
biodiversity conservation. Stakeholders that were consulted before and during
curriculum development include representatives from the conservation industry,
government departments, NGOs and tertiary institutions. A blended approach to
facilitate teaching and learning in this ODL study programme, was deemed most
suitable. The study components that have been blended include theoretical work,
practical work and work-integrated learning. Concerning teaching approach, both
ODL and face-to-face contact sessions are utilised. The different components
comprising this study programme and how they come together to create the learning
experience for students, are shown in Fig. 1.

3.4 Theoretical Component of Study Programme

The theoretical component of the study programme forms the basis to expose stu-
dents to different aspects of biodiversity, within the context of sustainable veld and
game management. The focus is distinctively South African. Four major areas are
covered, namely Zoology, Botany, Ecology, and Resource Management. A matrix
approach during curriculum development ensured that each area that is covered
theoretically, forms part of the practical sessions as well. In this way integration
between theory and practical modules is ensured. Table 1 provides a synopsis of the
themes and topics that are covered. Basic terminology and ecological principles are
dealt with during the first year of study, population dynamics and interactions during
the second year and ecosystems and biodiversity management during the third year.
296 R.W. Pretorius et al.

Table 1 Themes utilised in the nature conservation programme

Theme Examples of topics covered
Plants Classification, identification, anatomy, morphology, physiology, vegetation
condition assessment
Animals Classification, identification, anatomy, morphology, physiology,
invertebrates and vertebrates, population dynamics, genetics
Ecology Principles, processes, interactions, biogeochemical cycles, succession,
freshwater, terrestrial and marine ecosystems, climate change
Resource Wildlife monitoring and census techniques, stocking rates, species selection;
management supplementary feeding
Technical aspects Fences; water provision, soil science; soil erosion (prevention and
rehabilitation), fire as a management tool, invasive plant control techniques,
management of damage causing animals
General topics Communication and nature interpretation, environmental education, general
administration, legal and security aspects, history of conservation, relevant
conventions and treaties, environmental citizenship, use of technology

Examples of supportive modules that are included are Soil Science, Conservation
Legislation, Communication and Fundamentals of Conservation. Basic technolog-
ical skills form part of the curriculum and are practiced in most of the modules. The
design of the study material for all modules promotes student engagement through
active learning. The activities that are included aim to ensure that students do not
only read the study material, but have to participate in the learning process as well.
These activities may be for self-assessment or else form part of the formative
assessment strategy in the form of assignments that have to be submitted and con-
tribute towards the year mark portion of final marks.

3.5 Practical Component of Study Programme

A practical module is linked to each of the three levels of study so that the inte-
gration of the theory modules at each level is reinforced by means of hands-on field
work in an appropriate nature-based environment. Examples of skills and tech-
niques taught during these contact sessions include the following:
• Basic plant and animal identification keys;
• Game management (e.g. animal monitoring, census techniques, human-animal
conflict);
• Technical aspects (e.g. fences, water provision, soil erosion, game capture);
• Vegetation management (e.g. veld condition assessment, use of fire, control of
alien invasive plants; wetland delineation);
• Basic communication skills (oral and/or poster presentation, environmental
education, nature guiding);
• Aquatic ecosystem (freshwater and marine), ecology, and management
techniques.
Engaging ODL Students with Biodiversity Issues: A South African … 297

All venues for practical sessions are selected to meet specific objectives. This is
achieved through collaboration with industry partners and ensures that students are
exposed to best practice. Practical activities are planned to emphasise the integra-
tion and interconnectivity of all components of the study programme. This increases
the awareness of students of the importance of biodiversity management for sus-
tainability. During the duration of the study programme, soft skills are also inte-
grated in assessments and activities. Examples of these include critical thinking,
working in a team, organising and managing activities, collecting and organising
information, using science and technology effectively, reflection on learning and
responsible environmental citizenship.

3.6 Work-Integrated Learning (WIL)

The final part of the nature conservation study programme is devoted to

work-integrated learning (WIL), during which students are exposed to real-life
situations in the natural environment. Students are required to complete six mod-
ules, consisting of a total of 30 activities (Unisa 2015c). These activities are linked
to all the modules of the theoretical component of the study programme and include
prescribed and elective topics. The prescribed topics are specifically set up so that
the students acquire the necessary skills to be able to apply the principles of veld
and game management. These activities are completed with assistance of a mentor
and students have to submit a detailed report for assessment.
The final module serves as capstone and requires students to compile an eco-
logical management plan for a specific protected area. Students, who are employed
or have access to a specific protected area, may use real data to compile the
ecological management plan according to the vision and mission of that area.
However, if students are not employed or do not have access to a protected area,
they are required to do a vegetation survey in a natural area chosen by themselves.
This information is then used to provide these students with their own unique
simulation, in which they use the vegetation information and all its associated data
to compile an ecological management plan for the protected area (Unisa 2015d).

3.7 Reflection on Student Experience

Feedback received from students indicates that they value the role of study groups
as part of their learning experience. These groups are formed voluntary once stu-
dents have registered for a module and post their contact information in the dis-
cussion forums on myUnisa, the virtual learning platform used by Unisa. This form
of interaction is encouraged as it forms part of Unisa’s teaching and learning
strategy and facilitates peer learning. The members of study groups are inclined to
attend the same practical contact sessions, which they generally seem to regard as
highlights in their study calendar. The different venues of the contact sessions offer
298 R.W. Pretorius et al.

opportunities to some students who have not visited such areas before (e.g. Mar-
openg and Mogale’s Gate situated in the Cradle of Humankind—UNESCO World
Heritage Site; or the Marakele National Park).
The challenges experienced by students do not necessarily have to do with the
study programme or modules, but with the context of studying at an ODL insti-
tution. Some are, in fact, studying full-time, lack an income and therefore financing
their studies is a challenge. Although this does not specifically relate to the context
of conservation, it impacts on student’s learning experience. Technological issues in
terms of using the virtual learning platform present a further challenge. Some
students work in remote nature conservation areas, where infrastructure to access
the internet is lacking. As Unisa is increasingly relying on technology, issues like
these pose a real challenge. Although such access is provided at the Unisa learning
centres in various major cities and towns in South Africa, this does not always
provide a practical solution to the problems students are experiencing.

3.8 Reflection on Lecturer’s Experience

Teaching nature conservation to students from different backgrounds is challenging,

but also rewarding. One of the greatest rewards is to experience the change in
attitude and behaviour of students as they make progress through their studies.
After engaging with the basics of sustainability and conservation, they are eager to
implement recycling programmes, organise river clean-ups and become passionate
about environmental education and biodiversity conservation in their respective
communities. From a teaching perspective, the use of technology to provide
additional resources complementary to the study material, presents a positive
challenge. Teaching students to access relevant information to ensure that they get
the best learning experience is very satisfying. The dedication shown by some
students to conservation and sustainable use of resources provides proof of the
success being achieved.
That being said—no study programme will ever be so successful that there are
no challenges. Since the programme is offered in collaboration with the conser-
vation industry, continuous reflection on the needs of graduates is required, in order
to keep up with the challenges of an ever changing environment. Another major
challenge is to ensure that students are actively involved in the learning process—
which is achieved through regular communication and by supplying motivation. In
this regard it indeed appears as if the teaching strategies and the blended approach
of the nature conservation programme reduce the ‘distance’ in distance education.
In terms of communication, and with the majority of students having English as
second and even third of fourth language, the challenge is to find suitable
approaches to reduce the impact of language barriers on the teaching and learning
process.
Engaging ODL Students with Biodiversity Issues: A South African … 299

4 Role of the Unisa Study Programme in ESD:

Critical Review

In this section the Unisa study programme in nature conservation is critically

reviewed in the context of firstly the approach taken to biodiversity education, and
secondly the extent to which this approach relates to ESD. In terms of the approach
to biodiversity education, the review is based on the alignment between the Unisa
programme and the five pivots to guide programs for biodiversity education as
identified by Kassas (2002), often cited in recent literature as benchmark (e.g.
Navarro-Perez and Tidball 2012; Saito 2013). To determine the extent to which the
approach to biodiversity education followed at Unisa relates to ESD, the benchmark
is provided by the processes underpinning ESD as identified by Tilbury (2011),
recognised for her leading role during the UNDESD. In addition, both parts of this
review address an issue that is not well researched yet, namely the challenges
experienced when exposing students from differing contexts and with varying needs
to biodiversity education, thus adding to the body of knowledge and experience in
this regard.

4.1 Approach to Biodiversity Education

Scope in terms of view of biodiversity: Since ‘biodiversity’ has different meanings

to different stakeholders, study programmes in higher education need to be tailored
to take this into account. However, since the Unisa programme has been designed
with vocational training in mind, the scope had to be narrowed down. Sustainable
use and management of biodiversity as resource thus emerged as golden thread
running through the programme. The programme furthermore aims to strike a
balance between the aims of vocational training of nature conservation technicians
(which are very specific), and the aims associated with human development and
life-long learning (which are more general).
Guiding perspectives: The Unisa programme focuses on conservation of bio-
diversity in the Southern African context. As a result course materials are designed
with a view to engage students to all facets of the Southern African environment as
an integrated whole, including the socio-economic and socio-political environ-
ments. Students need to be aware of the needs and challenges associated with this
region and how to deal with these (e.g. lack of sufficient useable water, poaching,
cultural diversity, food security, intensified development, etc.). To achieve this, the
programme aims to get students to learn (from theory modules) by doing and
implementing (through practical sessions and WIL).
Matching of actors, stakeholders and aims: For biodiversity education to be
effective, the aims of actors (lecturers and students) need to be matched to those of
stakeholders (industry, government, etc.). For the Unisa programme this match is
achieved through an Advisory Committee (comprising of representatives from the
conservation industry, academics and educational consultants). This committee
300 R.W. Pretorius et al.

provides advice on changing needs and trends which need to be incorporated in the
curriculum. Linked to the guiding perspective and scope, the curriculum and course
materials are then adapted accordingly to ensure that at successful completion of the
programme, students will meet the set requirements.
Themes/sites utilised in the programme: This pivot refers to themes/sites for
biodiversity education such as a garden attached to the campus, or accessible
wetlands, river banks, or nature reserves. Selection of these will relate to the
guiding perspective, associated aims and required stakeholders-actor match. In the
case of the Unisa programme, the practical sessions offer some students the
opportunity to visit places they would else never have been to (e.g. Maropeng,
situated in the Cradle of Humankind—a World Heritage Site). Similarly the course
dealing with marine environments presents the first opportunity for many students
to experience the ocean and to observe/identify organisms usually just seen in
textbooks/media.
Assimilation of programme: It is important that the study programme, in the way
that it has been designed and implemented, produces its target and that all actors
have undertaken their roles as envisaged. Means to evaluate this aspect therefore
need to be developed and put into place. Since the Unisa programme has specifi-
cally been designed to deliver students that meet the requirements set by the
conservation industry, the programme is deemed successful if students are indeed
taken up in positions in the conservation industry. Constant feedback from industry
(through ad hoc discussions and formally through the Advisory Committee) ensures
that the programme is updated to meet the needs of the industry.

4.2 Relationship with ESD

Inclusion of collaboration and dialogue: ESD emphasizes engagement in collabo-

ration and dialogue to increase capacity and to facilitate learning towards sustain-
able development. In the Unisa programme, this aspect features through
participation in discussion forums on myUnisa, and in addition to that, especially
during attendance of and participation in the practical sessions. On a different level,
feedback from industry (through ad hoc discussions and through the Advisory
Committee) ensures the relevance of the programme. In addition, collaborative
research with industry creates new information, which is transferred to students so
that they are exposed to best practice in conservation and biodiversity management.
Utilisation of active and participatory learning: Regarding a suitable pedagogical
approach, it is generally accepted that active and participatory learning forms the
core of ESD, although supporting empirical evidence is still largely lacking. The
blended model of teaching and learning, as implemented in the Unisa programme,
provides for theoretical learning as well as practical application. This ensures that
students do not only study theory from texts, but perform activities on their own
(e.g. assignments and projects) and participate in group work as well (practical
sessions and WIL). Utilisation of the myUnisa virtual study platform provides
further opportunities to support active and participatory learning.
Engaging ODL Students with Biodiversity Issues: A South African … 301

Curriculum focussed on ‘whole system’: This requirement involves steps to be

taken to ensure engagement between ESD focused study programmes and the
‘whole system’ in which such programmes are based and through which they
operate. Engagement with the system as a whole is regarded as vital to make
progress in terms of learning for sustainable development. In the context of the
Unisa programme, the role of the Advisory Committee is to ensure that that a
‘whole system’ approach is adhered to. On a different level, the matrix approach to
curriculum development in this programme ensures continuity and the focus to
remain on biodiversity and the sustainable management thereof in the South
African context.
Stimulation of innovation and transformative learning: Although acquiring
knowledge, values and theories about sustainable development is important, ESD is
also about changing mindsets in terms of sustainable futures, whereas learning
processes and practices that are in place, mostly do not take this transformative
view into account. In the Unisa programme, this transformation is encouraged
through interaction with nature and aspects of biodiversity that is required
though-out the programme. The change in attitude and thinking is proven by the
increased number of students employed in the conservation industry and whose
progress through the ranks of various organisations has proven to be beneficial to
the programme.

5 Conclusion

5.1 Potential of ODL for Biodiversity Education

Using the Diploma in Nature Conservation of Unisa as example, this chapter

highlighted that ODL has a huge potential to fulfil in terms of biodiversity edu-
cation, linked to ESD. This is especially true in the African context, where the threat
to biodiversity is characterised by continent specific challenges, including lacking
capacity to deal with the problem, together with issues limiting access to higher
education. However, courses that focus only on theory, and do not provide
hands-on, practical engagement with nature, stand little chance of success. To this
end addition of real time practical sessions in nature to enhance student’s under-
standing of natural processes and biodiversity, proved to be successful for the Unisa
study programme. The final component of the blended teaching and learning model
being used comprises work integrated learning, which exposes students to authentic
learning in real world contexts.

5.2 Biodiversity in the Context of ESD

Consideration of the Unisa study programme in nature conservation suggests a

synergy and integration between biodiversity education and ESD through collab-
oration and dialogue on various levels: between students, between students and
302 R.W. Pretorius et al.

lecturers, and between lecturers and stakeholders. This results in the curriculum to
maintain its relevance for biodiversity issues in local contexts, to show respon-
siveness to the needs of a range of stakeholders and to stay in line with industry
requirements. Lecturers are furthermore empowered to facilitate active learning
within a participatory context, which peaks during the practical sessions when both
lecturers and students have opportunity to enact their practice through relevant
ways. The project, theme-oriented approach encapsulated by the WIL component
allows ‘whole system’ learning and facilitates the multi-perspective approach to
studying biodiversity within ESD.

5.3 Future Perspective

The future of transformative learning in ESD requires more emphasis on integration

between environmental, economic, societal and cultural issues, while incorporating
the processes of active learning, participation and collaboration in teaching and
learning to a greater extent than currently the case. To this end, a theme as bio-
diversity can be used effectively to bridge the gap between human and physical
sciences and to facilitate the move towards approaches that emphasize interdisci-
plinarity. Although the role played by ICTs is becoming increasingly important in
the facilitation of ESD, consideration of themes such as biodiversity illustrate that
teaching and learning in some fields will always be in need of practical, hands-on
and/or work-based experiences, where direct guidance/support by physically pre-
sent mentors/peers are required, which cannot be replaced by online learning.

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Online Teaching for Biodiversity
Conservation
Ulisses Miranda Azeiteiro and Paula Bacelar-Nicolau

Abstract
The aim of this work was to present the Biodiversity and Conservation teaching
contents, teaching and learning methodologies and their results/effectiveness
through e-learning in higher education (HE) at the Universidade Aberta (UAb),
Portugal. Two curricular units covering the thematic of Biodiversity Conserva-
tion are taught in the three cycle degree system at UAb: Biodiversity and
Conservation (compulsory CU, 6 ECTS, integrated in the curricular plan of the
major in Environmental Sciences) and Biodiversity, Geodiversity and Conser-
vation (optional CU, 6 ECTS, integrated in the curricular plan of the Master
degree in Environmental Citizenship and Participation). Based on the teaching
experience of nine editions of the e-learning courses on Biodiversity Conser-
vation, particularly on the students perceptions and on the number of completed
dissertations on the topic of Biodiversity, we consider that their main objectives
were fulfilled, i.e. knowledge acquisitions about fundamentals on biodiversity
conservation, interpretation, and applications. Some improvements are needed:
foster the competencies needed among teachers to use e-learning in a meaningful
way; materials suitable for use on e-learning programmes and the need to create
synergies and interfaces between scientific knowledge and traditional knowledge
(essential in this area of Biodiversity conservation) and also the lead role that
e-learning can play establishing and developing a broader awareness on
biodiversity conservation.

U.M. Azeiteiro (&)
P. Bacelar-Nicolau

Department of Science and Technology,
Universidade Aberta and Centre for Functional Ecology,
University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
e-mail: paula.nicolau@uab.pt

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 305

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_19
306 U.M. Azeiteiro and P. Bacelar-Nicolau

Keywords
E-learning
Biodiversity
Bachelor
Master
1 Introduction

E-learning in higher education can be of great relevance in effective life-long

learning education for sustainable development in a population of students who are
simultaneously full time employees (Azeiteiro et al. 2014, 2015; Martinho et al.
2014, 2016). Azeiteiro et al. (2015) assess the Education of Sustainable Develop-
ment effectiveness through e-learning in higher education in a case study at the
Universidade Aberta, the Portuguese Distance Learning University. The expecta-
tions and experience of students who enrolled in more than one programme in
environmental and/or sustainability science offered by Universidade Aberta were
analysed in six dimensions: general expectations; learning quality; teaching
resources, pedagogical tools, and evaluation; acquired competences in education for
sustainable development; satisfaction and interactions; and reasons to pursue
enrolment in a new programme at Universidade Aberta. Authors conclude that the
surveyed students felt that they attained a high level of motivation and satisfaction,
and had reached an effective learning outcome of knowledge, competences, values,
attitudes and behaviour in environment and/or sustainability sciences. Azeiteiro
et al. (2015) results are in line with previous works (Bacelar-Nicolau et al. 2009,
2012) and let us conclude that formal e-learning programmes can provide an
effective alternative to face-to-face training (see also Moura et al. 2010), allowing
students to pursue their studies, in a flexible, collaborative and interactive way,
whilst holding down full time jobs (Bacelar-Nicolau et al. 2015). In the environ-
mental and sustainability science fields, online programmes may produce the same
level of student performance as in face-to-face courses, with comparable learning
outcomes, and with high levels of satisfaction (Azeiteiro et al. 2015;
Bacelar-Nicolau et al. 2009, 2012).
The teacher’s education mission, contents and goals for biodiversity conserva-
tion can be achieved through transdisciplinary approaches, innovative teaching
methods and e-learning (see for this purpose the work from Huettmann (2015). The
aim of this work was to present the Biodiversity and Conservation teaching con-
tents, teaching and learning methodologies and their results/effectiveness through
e-learning in higher education (HE) at the Universidade Aberta, Portugal.

2 Biodiversity Conservation Teaching and Education

for Sustainable Development

Biodiversity and Conservation teaching is essential for Education for Sustainable

Development (ESD). The central reason for this is what we define as Ecosystem
Services (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [MEA] 2005). Raising awareness of
the critical role that biodiversity plays in ensuring environmental sustainability,
Online Teaching for Biodiversity Conservation 307

economic prosperity, and social and cultural well-being is essential for ESD. It is
necessary, in order to support sustainable development.
The 2006 Communication from the European Commission—‘Halting Biodi-
versity Loss by 2010—and Beyond: Sustaining ecosystem services for human
well-being’—underlined the importance of biodiversity protection as a pre-requisite
for sustainable development (SD), and set out a detailed Biodiversity Action Plan to
achieve this. At the moment, European Union Biodiversity Targets for 2020
(“Halting the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the
EU by 2020, and restoring them in so far as feasible, while stepping up the EU
contribution to averting global biodiversity”) and The 2050 EU Biodiversity Vision
(“By 2050, European Union biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides—
its natural capital—are protected, valued and appropriately restored for biodiver-
sity’s intrinsic value and for their essential contribution to human well-being and
economic prosperity, and so that catastrophic changes caused by the loss of bio-
diversity are avoided”) emphasises the importance of the Biodiversity
Conservation.
However, there is little public perception of which taxa are most important in
terms of their total biomass, biodiversity or the ecosystem services they perform.
Such awareness is important for conservation, as without appreciation of their value
and conservation status, species are unlikely to receive adequate conservation
protection (Snaddon et al. 2008). Biodiversity and ecosystem services appear to be
under-represented in teaching environmental sustainability and these are essential
components in developing an understanding of natural capital. More holistic
approaches between nature, society and culture are needed (Alves et al. 2013). In
our analysis, we consider that it is essential to deconstruct the social and envi-
ronmental development, giving priority to the structural aspects that have a close
influence on social, cultural and environmental factors, and particularly to the
agency of individuals (demonstrating the plural knowledge they convey), and to the
spaces of empowerment and participatory democracy that they require (Alves et al.
2013).
In this area of Biodiversity, Conservation, and Ecosystem services, scientific
knowledge must relate with personal, local and cultural diversity.

3 E-learning and Online Teaching

Technology has had a major influence on the ways that information is generated
and accessed, and increasingly, on teaching and learning in higher education (see
Dlouha et al. 2013). A growing body of research has described the benefits (flex-
ibility, interaction, teaching presence, collaborative learning, and a great sense of
community and interaction among peers, as well as with teachers, is privileged by
online students promoting the existence of a learning community) of online tech-
nologies in this context (see Azeiteiro et al. 2014, 2015, Halog and Dishman 2014;
Leal Filho 2014; Sibbel 2014; Moura et al. 2010).
308 U.M. Azeiteiro and P. Bacelar-Nicolau

Through open learning environments, control is given to the learner through

processes that allow for self-guidance and tools that facilitate individual and col-
laborative exploration of concepts (Barth and Burandt 2013) supported by three
principles: Self-directed learning; Collaborative learning and Problem Orientated
Learning. These principles are put in place in Online Distance Learning in the
Modelo Pedagógico® (Pereira et al. 2008).

4 Case Study: The Universidade Aberta (The Portuguese

Open Distance University)

Established in 1988, Universidade Aberta (UAb) is the only Distance Learning

public higher education institution in Portugal. All pedagogical offers at UAb are
integrated in the Bologna European process and are organised according to the
European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS). All programmes are
taught in e-learning since 2008, and the open source Moodle (http://eLearning.uab.
pt/) is used as the course management system. UAb is a reference HE European
institution in the area of online and advanced e-learning and learning, using the
most advanced information and communication technologies, and is acknowledged
by its virtual pedagogical model (Pereira et al. 2008). UAb has more than 12,000
students and offers more than 40 degrees and several life-long study programmes.
All pedagogical offer is directed to an adult public (over 21 years old), who are
mostly working-students seeking professional development. The UAb was awarded
the international Prize of European Foundation for Quality in e-learning and cer-
tification of The UNIQUE Quality Label for the use of ICT in HE. It was also
awarded the 1st Level of Excellency of the European Foundation for Quality
Management, and for the Diploma Supplement Label, by the European Commis-
sion. UAb was also considered as a key player in the HE system both in Portugal
and in Europe (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice 2014) (from Azeiteiro
et al. 2015).
The virtual pedagogical model at UAb is based on four major principles:
(i) student-centred learning, (ii) flexibility (access to learning without pressure of
time and space, with primacy for asynchronous communication), (iii) interaction
(student-teacher, student-student and student-learning resources, and also socially
contextualised), and (iv) digital inclusion (Pereira et al. 2008).
A core aspect of the pedagogical model is the Plan of Curricular Unit—for
undergraduate courses, or the Learning Contract—for postgraduate courses (Figs. 1
and 3), which guide the teaching and learning process in each curricular unit (CU).
These documents, developed by the teacher of each CU, are structured into topics,
outcomes, competences to be acquired or developed, list of diversified learning
materials, learning methodology, e-activities, assessment, and timetable for devel-
oping learning activities. Besides the details that are discussed below, the two
documents differ by the fact that the Plan of Curricular Unit is more static, in nature
and content, while the Learning Contract is regarded as an agreement between
Online Teaching for Biodiversity Conservation 309

Fig. 1 Main page of the undergraduation CU on Biodiversity and Conservation, with emphasis to
the Plan of Curricular Unit (“Plano de Unidade Curricular”) and to the fora—News (“Notícias”)
and General Forum (“Fórum de Discussão do PUC”)

students and teacher, who may contain some degree on openness to debate e.g.
deadline adjustments. The virtual pedagogical model privileges continuous
assessment (through the e-activities), which weigh 40 % (in undergraduate courses)
or a minimum of 60 % (in postgraduate courses) of the final mark. Face-to-face final
exams are only mandatory in undergraduate courses. Different learning strategies
are developed depending on the study cycles: from mainly individual assignments
(in undergraduate courses) to more collaborative and cooperative learning where
peer dimension interaction becomes essential (in MSc and PhD).
A two week online introductory module is available for students before the start
of the curricular year, which is intended to familiarise the students with the virtual
environment and the e-learning tools, as well as promoting the acquisition of online
communication and online social skills. All the courses have virtual class sites, a
coordination site for student matters, a coordination site for the teacher’s team, an
online secretariat, and a virtual “café”.

5 Education for Sustainable Development Through

E-learning at UAb

In line with the global requirement for an education for sustainable development,
the UAb has developed a three cycle degree system, according to the reform of the
“Bologna process”, which aims to actively promote education for sustainable
development, along with an increase in transdisciplinarity across subjects, and
student cooperation:
• first cycle—Bachelor degree in Environmental Sciences (180 ECTS);
• second cycle—Master degree in Participation and Environmental Citizenship
(100 ECTS); and
310 U.M. Azeiteiro and P. Bacelar-Nicolau

• third cycle—PhD degree in Social Sustainability and Development (180 ECTS).

The Bachelor degree in Environmental Sciences is a b-learning programme,
which began in the academic year 2007. The general purpose of the course is to
promote and develop a set of professional skills and competences within the
Environmental Sciences, and includes three optional minors: Natural Heritage,
Environmental Health, and Environmental Management and Sustainability. The
first two years are composed of 20 mandatory curricular units of Science and
Environmental Technology, Biological Sciences, Earth Science, Mathematics,
Chemistry, Physics, and Legal Sciences. With the exception of two curricular units
(Fieldwork I and II, that include, each, a face-to-face week), the undergraduate
course follows UAb’s pedagogical model in its virtual class regime.
The Master degree in Participation and Environmental Citizenship was initially
offered in 2005 as a b-learning programme (all CU are offered in e-learning, except
for one which includes a one day face-to-face session). The main purpose of this
programme is to develop competences in the area of Sustainable Development,
covering both the environmental and the social aspects.
Lastly, the PhD degree in Social Sustainability and Development was developed
as a natural sequence, due to the increasing demand for an advanced specialisation
and research in sustainable development science, both from the professionals
connected to the tertiary sector and public sector, as well as educators, managers in
business and international organisations, whose area of activity is socio-
environmental sustainability. This PhD aims to contribute to forming a genera-
tion of leading individuals capable of understanding the different meanings and
implications of changes in global, social, and human systems and who choose the
path of sustainability in implementing policies on the basis of this understanding.
Thus, although the three cycle degree system is not fully specialized in SD, it
transversally integrates SD into the courses of each programme and increases focus
on SD, primarily at the Master and PhD levels covering all aspects of SD.
The evaluation of sustainability programmes at UAb started with the distance
learning experience of curricular units of Ecology, Environmental Education and
Environmental Sciences (Caeiro et al. 2001, 2004; Caeiro and Azeiteiro 2004,
2007). The transition from the open and distance education to the e-learning, and
namely the e-learning for the environment, was described in terms of new chal-
lenges for e-learning in environmental sciences by Martinho et al. (2010),
Bacelar-Nicolau et al. (2007, 2009), Amador et al. (2008), and Caeiro et al. (2008).
In summary, the studies of Bacelar-Nicolau et al. (2007, 2009, 2012), Martinho
et al. (2010), Moura et al. (2010) showed: (i) a very high level of student motivation
and satisfaction with the online programmes (changing their attitudes about envi-
ronmental domains and contributing to others’ changing attitudes and behaviours),
and (ii) that online students were highly satisfied with their courses (in terms of
general expectations and acquired competences) perceiving environmental online
education as effective as face-to-face education. Also Martinho et al. (2014) indi-
cated that the 1st cycle e-learning programme in Environmental Sciences of UAb,
Online Teaching for Biodiversity Conservation 311

was globally adjusted to employability requirements, through the acquisition and/or

development of competences and skills, according to its graduates. Based on the
results of a questionnaire survey applied to the master’s students for 3 academic
years, starting in 2007, Martinho et al. (2010) established a link between the
knowledge acquired and changing attitudes and behaviours towards sustainability.
However, the works of Moura et al. (2010) and Oliveira et al. (2012) reinforce the
need for more laboratory and practical classes (b-learning). Also Amador et al.
(2015) revealed a lack of consistency between the theoretical framework of ESD
during the curricular year and the implementation of praxis during the dissertation.
The new virtual technologies are important but not sufficient, because they do not
encourage the development of key learning skills, attitudes and values towards
environmental conservation and sustainability development to the same level as
face-to-face fieldwork (Oliveira et al. 2012).

6 Curricular Units on Biodiversity Conservation

Two curricular units covering the thematic of Biodiversity Conservation are taught
in the three cycle degree system at UAb: Biodiversity and Conservation (com-
pulsory CU, 6 ECTS, integrated in the curricular plan of the major in Environ-
mental Sciences; Table 1; Figs. 1 and 2) and Biodiversity, Geodiversity and
Conservation (optional CU, 6 ECTS, integrated in the curricular plan of the Master
degree; Table 2; Figs. 3, 4, and 5).

Table 1 Characterisation of biodiversity and conservation, curricular unit of the 1st cycle major
in environmental sciences
Curricular unit
6 ECTS
Mandatory
Online teaching contact: 26 h contact (in 156 h, total study hours of student)
Learning outcomes
• It is intended that at the end of this CU, students should be able to:
• Know, understand and apply the Concepts about Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services
• Describe and explain the major argumentation about Species and Habitats Conservation
• Describe and explain the major argumentation about Biodiversity Conservation
• Explain the threats to Biodiversity
• Know Species and Habitats Conservation Priorities
• Know Species Conservation Strategies
• Know the Instruments and Nature and Species Conservation Policies in Portugal and
European Union
• Recognise that Biodiversity is the very basis of the Territory Management Plans and
Economic Activities
Syllabus
• Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. The Study and Biodiversity Conservation (Concepts,
Quantification, Threats, Valuation, Ecosystem Services and Conservation)
(continued)
312 U.M. Azeiteiro and P. Bacelar-Nicolau

Table 1 (continued)
Curricular unit
• Biodiversity: Indicators, Strategies and Instruments (the European Union Strategies, Indicators,
the Portuguese Situation)
• Conservation (Nature Conservation Strategies, Legislation and Conventions, Protected Areas,
Red Lists, Natura 2000 as the centrepiece of EU nature and biodiversity policy, Birds Sites and
Habitats Sites, biogeographical regions)
Teaching-learning methodologies (including evaluation)
According to the pedagogical virtual model of UAb and its four major principles (see Sect. 3)
Continuous assessment (with teacher’s formative feedback) is privileged: 2 or 3 digital written
assignments (e-folios) during the semester (40 %) and a face-to-face final exam (p-folio) at the
end of the semester (60 %). In due time, students can alternatively choose to perform one final
face-to-face exam (100 %)
Students gradually practice their knowledge and competences acquisition in a series of
self-evaluation formative activities
Students who choose final evaluation have access to the same study materials as those who
choose continuous evaluation

Fig. 2 View of the topic on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (undergraduate CU on

Biodiversity and Conservation), with emphasis to the topic’s study guidelines, learning materials
and asynchronous fora—Student Forum and Teacher moderated Forum
Online Teaching for Biodiversity Conservation 313

Table 2 Characterisation of Curricular unit

biodiversity, geodiversity and
conservation, curricular unit 6 ECTS
of the master degree in Optional
environmental citizenship and Online teaching contact: 26 h contact (in 156 h, total study
participation hours of student)
Learning outcomes
It is intended that at the end of this CU, students should be able
to:
• Describe and debate the concepts and values of biodiversity
• Identify threats and destructive agents of biodiversity and
conservation issues globally
• Recognize the values of geodiversity
• Articulate goals and set priorities for nature conservation
• Know national, European and international strategies for the
conservation of nature
• Develop assignments of analytical and exploratory nature, in
the scientific area of the CU, presented as written assignment or
poster
Syllabus
• Geodiversity: Concepts, Value and threats
• Biodiversity: Concepts, Value and threats
• National strategies, European and international nature
conservation (Biodiversity and Geodiversity)
• Urban Biodiversity
• Biodiversity and Climate Change
Teaching-learning methodologies (including evaluation)
According to the pedagogical virtual model of UAb and its four
major principles (see Sect. 3)
In this CU only continuous evaluation is used (100 %). The
evaluation activities (research, individual and collaborative
work and debates with peer-review dimension) are designed for
students to acquire and consolidate the acquired knowledge.
The learning materials, course e-activities in the form of written
assignments (individual and collaborative) and collaborative
discussions allow students to achieve course competencies and
objectives of knowledge acquisition, comprehension and
practical application of the acquired consolidated knowledge
The continuous evaluation includes several tasks/strategies and
pedagogical instruments e.g. blogs, individual and group
projects, essays, Problem Based Learning, Case Studies,
participation in the discussions, research reports and online
tests). Individual evaluation activities can contemplate the
elaboration of short papers or a project with online presentation,
discussion and defence
314 U.M. Azeiteiro and P. Bacelar-Nicolau

Fig. 3 Main page of the postgraduation CU on Biodiversity, Geodiversity and Conservation.

Emphasis is given to the Learning Contract (“Contrato de Aprendizagem”), asynchronous fora—
News (“Notícias”), General Forum (“Forum Geral”) and Help (“Ajuda”), link to online Library
(“Biblioteca on line”), and to the student’s blogs of this CU, which serve as porfolio, reflexion log
and sharing intrument

Fig. 4 View of the topic on Biodiversity conservation in urban areas (postgraduation CU on

Biodiversity, Geodiversity and Conservation), with emphasis to the diversified learning materials
and link to online Library (“Biblioteca on line”) for further individual research

7 The Msc Dissertation Research Topics in Biodiversity

Since its beginning, 34 % (17 in a total of 50) of the dissertations were concluded,
within the thematic of Biodiversity: Education, teaching textbooks and biodiversity
teaching (n = 2); Interactive Teaching Materials about Biodiversity Conservation
and Protected Areas and Conservation Areas (n = 2); Biodiversity Literacy (n = 5);
Online Teaching for Biodiversity Conservation 315

Fig. 5 View of the topic Online Seminar: Projects on Biodiversity and Geodiversity Conservation
(of the postgraduation CU on Biodiversity, Geodiversity and Conservation). Emphasis is given to
the Call for papers guidelines, individual research through online library, student-teacher fora for
individual tutoring on preparing the scientific posters, e-Seminar forum for presentation and debate
(including peer-review)

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (n = 2); Environmental governance for bio-

diversity (n = 1); Evaluation of Life projects (n = 1); Importance of fish biodiversity
for the management of fisheries (n = 2); Perceptions and Values of Biodiversity
(n = 1); Ethics and Biodiversity (n = 1). Taking into consideration that the Bio-
diversity and Geodiversity Conservation 2nd cycle CU is an optional CU, the
research project choice on the topic biodiversity denotes the importance attributed
by the students to the topic.

8 Biodiversity Teaching in Education for Sustainable

Development: Some Conclusions

The main purpose of the above mentioned two e-learning curricular units is to
provide graduate and postgraduate students the contents and competences on the
field of Biodiversity Conservation. More specifically, the 1st cycle course intro-
duces the basic contents and the 2nd cycle course provides higher competencies.
Based on the numbers of students who have completed the curricular units
(namely progressing from the first cycle to the second cycle choosing the 2nd cycle
Biodiversity CU), we consider that the main objectives have been fulfilled by far.
After completing the CUs, students acquire an important knowledge about the
topic’s fundamentals, interpretation and applications. The results obtained along the
nine editions of the e-learning CU in Biodiversity Conservation point to a very
positive experience, both for the students and for the teachers, as also indicated by
the number of completed dissertations on biodiversity thematic (see topic 7).
Learning, as a process emerging from a relational network of ideas, conceptions
and representations is based on this social process of building experiences by the
community. Due to its complex nature, this process is not limited to the transfer of
information but rather expands with the construction of knowledge (Aires et al.
316 U.M. Azeiteiro and P. Bacelar-Nicolau

2014) and in this context of Biodiversity and Ecological and traditional knowledge
e-learning has a decisive role to play.
Still, improvements are needed to the effectiveness of e-learning. As already
stated by Leal Filho (2014) some of the improvements are: further fostering the
competencies needed among teachers to use e-learning in a meaningful way and the
conceptualization, elaboration and delivery of more suitable materials for use on
e-learning programmes. The need to create synergies and interfaces between sci-
entific knowledge and traditional knowledge (essential in this area of Biodiversity
Conservation), and also the lead role that e-learning can play establishing and
developing a broader awareness on environment and socio-environmental issues in
biodiversity conservation are essential to reach the Biodiversity Conservation tar-
gets. Hence, these are some interesting challenges to improve biodiversity con-
servation teaching and learning, particularly in the e-learning context, thus further
contributing for ESD in the future.
Other initiatives substantiate our teaching path on biodiversity Conservation.
Zahariev and Mihnev (2015) and Mihnev and Raycheva (2010) showed that
e-learning provides an accessible option for remote collection, publication and
verification of information of different nature and sources relating to the topic
biodiversity. These authors also reported on the effectiveness of an e-learning
course as a form of self-study that complements traditional teaching and learning
forms.

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Knowledge Dissemination and Best
Practice Transfer on Biosafety,
Biosecurity and Biorisk Management
Through a Sustainable and Effective
Education and Awareness System
Carola Argiolas, Veronica Baldo and Maurizio Martellini

Abstract
Education is the first step to create a society that respects the others and the
environment and that works to design and build a peaceful future. An effective
and sustainable education system could rely on a tailored methodology that
synergizes self-evaluation, gap-analysis, and train-the-trainers methods. This
combination allows gathering information about real needs and expectations of
training targets, elaborating a made-to-measure educational program and training
future educators on topics of interest, making education and awareness system
sustainable. Using these methodologies, we set up a knowledge development
and transfer of best practice system on biosafety/biosecurity/biorisk manage-
ment, in order to spread awareness and know-how on these topics. Twenty-two
countries, in four different regions (South East Europe, South East Asia, North
and West Africa) were involved in the project titled “Knowledge development
and transfer of best practice on biosafety, biosecurity and biorisk management”.
National Experts (NEs) from each country have been trained by intensive and
e-learning courses to improve learning efficacy, to raise awareness and to foster
networking as well as best practice sharing within each region. Consequently,
the trained NEs disseminated the knowledge in their own countries, tailoring the
courses on their local needs and expectations, amplifying the educational impact
of the project. Here, we review the methodologies applied to develop a
sustainable education and awareness system and the training contents related to
biosafety/biosecurity/biorisk management.

C. Argiolas
V. Baldo
M. Martellini (&)

Insubria Center on International Security, University of Insubria, Como, Italy
e-mail: maurizio.martellini@uninsubra.it

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 321

P. Castro et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Education for Sustainable Development,
World Sustainability Series, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-32318-3_20
322 C. Argiolas et al.

1 Introduction

The impact of an incident involving a biological substance can be enormous.

Hospitals, research institutes and industrial facilities must combine their efforts to
strengthen the global preparedness and response against incidents happened acci-
dentally or intentionally. Working with such biological agents requires bio-safety,1
bio-security2 and biorisk-management.
To this end, it is necessary to build a responsible conduct in the life science and
to achieve this goal, education and awareness raising constitute the main pillars.
A sustainable education system together with awareness raising activities are indeed
the first steps to promote a safety culture and create a society that respects the others
and the environment and that works to design and build a peaceful future (National
Research Council [NRC], 2010).
The importance of these two pillars has also been highlighted in the Report of
the BWC Meeting of States Parties in 2008 (United Nations [UN] 2008; Australia
et al. 2011), where the States Parties recognized the value of education and
awareness programs:
(i) Explaining the risks associated with the potential misuse of the biological
sciences and biotechnology;
(ii) Covering the moral and ethical obligations incumbent on those using the
biological sciences;
(iii) Providing guidance on the types of activities which could be contrary to the
aims of the Convention and relevant national laws and regulations and
international law;
(iv) Being supported by accessible teaching materials, train-the-trainer pro-
grammes, seminars, workshops, publications, and audio-visual materials;
(v) Addressing leading scientists and those with responsibility for oversight of
research or for evaluation of projects or publications at a senior level, as well
as future generations of scientists, with the aim of building a culture of
responsibility;
(vi) Being integrated into existing efforts at the international, regional and national
levels.
Without any doubt, the interest in biosecurity education has increased recently
but, as showed by an investigation conducted by the Landau Network-Fondazione
Volta and the University of Bradford, it appears that this interest has not manifest in
significant concrete action at the level of the life science academic community.
Indeed, it becomes apparent that very little exists in terms of biosecurity related

1
In this paper, biosafety is used to “to describe the containment principles, technologies and
practices that are implemented to prevent unintentional exposure to pathogens and toxins, or their
accidental release” (WHO, LBM, 2003).
2
In this paper, biosecurity refers to “to institutional and personal security measures designed to
prevent the loss, theft, misuse, diversion or intentional release of pathogens and toxins” (WHO,
LBM, 2003).
Knowledge Dissemination and Best Practice Transfer on Biosafety … 323

education. Some exceptional existing cases could be considered as examples or

models, but we are far from achieving the necessary levels of biosecurity related
education for life sciences students to be able to generate a culture of responsibility
(Mancini and Revill, 2008). Furthermore, there is also, in general, a lack of
awareness of the risk of malevolent misuse of the biological sciences as demon-
strated also by Dando and Rapper who conducted 90 interactive seminars with
more than 2500 life scientists in 13 different countries (Dando and Rappert, 2005).
Last but not least, alongside these intentional misuse concerns, safety risks
arising from the unintentional exposure to pathogens and toxins of humans, animals
and plants are of great concern, especially with the increasing number of advanced
research laboratories dealing with higher-level pathogens (Butler, 2009). Scientists
often recognize the biorisks related to pathogens they are researching accidentally
infecting people and animals or contaminating the environment outside the labo-
ratories, rather than recognizing the risk of theft or intentional malicious use of
bioagents for biocrime and terrorism (Gaudioso, 2006). Moreover, in her survey of
Asian life scientists, Gaudioso described how the main means to manage biorisk
management in laboratories are biosafety operations manual, institutional biosafety
committee, biosafety training procedures, and laboratory management plan, while
biosecurity issues do not figure as predominantly in most biorisk assessment, and
simple biosecurity measures are utilized to protect laboratories containing patho-
gens or toxins (Gaudioso, 2006). Therefore, in this context, biosafety education for
scientists working with highly pathogenic microorganism and toxins is based on
WHO and CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) manuals and, in some
cases, on national or institutional regulations. Biosafety training and dissemination
of good practices are mostly responsibility of the institutes where the pathogens are
used and, as it happens for biosecurity principles, they are very seldom integrated in
future scientists education as topics discussed during university courses.
Of course there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach dealing with bio-related issues, as
different aspects should be taken into consideration that differs from case to case,
namely local and regional needs and priorities, past and present national efforts
implemented (such as training organized, regulations, certification/accreditation for
laboratories, general level of knowledge and awareness on these issues, etc.), structure
of academic curricula, and different linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Minehata
et al. 2013). Therefore, a multidisciplinary and holistic approach should be applied in
order to address and cover all the aspects related to biosafety and biosecurity.
This paper intends to describe the project titled “Knowledge development and
transfer of best practice on biosafety, biosecurity and biorisk management”, and
implemented by the Insubria Center on International Security in the framework of
the EU CBRN Centres of Excellence (CoE) Initiative jointly implemented by the
European Commission (EC) and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice
Research Institute (UNICRI). In particular, the methodology used, the training
contents, the project’s added value and the lessons learned are highlighted hereafter.
324 C. Argiolas et al.

Fig. 1 Schematic representation of the project objective, outcome and main results

The strategic objective of the project was to promote sustainable knowledge

development in four geographical regions (South East Europe, the Southern Cau-
casus, Moldova and Ukraine,3 South East Asia,4 North Africa5 and African Atlantic
Façade6) on bio-safety, bio-security and biorisk management, via subsequent
train-the-trainer phases in order to deliver to the regions sustainable capac-
ity (Fig. 1). In particular the project planned to:
• Develop holistic and multidisciplinary approach to bio-related issues;
• Strengthen regional and international cooperation on knowledge sharing and
best practice exchange;
• Raise awareness on bio-related issues and support synergies among scientific
communities and institutions.

3
In this region, the participating countries were Albania, Armenia, Croatia, Georgia, Moldova,
Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Ukraine.
4
In this region, the participating countries were Cambodia, Brunei Darussalam, Laos, Myanmar,
The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
5
In this region, the participating countries were Algeria, Tunisia, Libya.
6
In this region, the participating countries are Gabon, Mauritania, Morocco.
Knowledge Dissemination and Best Practice Transfer on Biosafety … 325

2 Methodology

The methodology used to implement the project was aimed at guaranteeing the
highest level of ownership and sustainability of the actions carried out. An effective
education system should rely on a tailored methodology that synergizes self-eval-
uation, gap-analysis, and train-the-trainers methods. This combination allows
gathering information about real needs and expectations of training targets, elab-
orating a made-to-measure educational program and training of future educators on
topics of interest, making education and awareness system sustainable (Fig. 2).
First activities implemented were the self-evaluation, by disseminating to the
local stakeholders in the four regions a survey questionnaire in order to understand
local situation and local needs, and consequently gap analysis. The results of these
activities showed a big discrepancies among the countries (some more technolog-
ical advanced than others) and showed that regions have differentiated needs from
an educational point of view. Differences emerged not only among countries of the
same region, but even within each country, between main cities and the periphery or
rural areas.
In order to take into consideration these results, the train-the-trainers model,
applied to this project to develop knowledge and build a sustainable capacity in
bio-related issues, was common among the above mentioned regions, yet flexible
enough to be tailored to local needs. The model was inspired to EU levels of risk
management, and designed in cooperation with international institutions and
European partners. The development of a sustainable knowledge was achieved by

Fig. 2 Project main phases

326 C. Argiolas et al.

training, first, groups of local experts, i.e. National Experts (NEs), coming from the
22 participating countries, in the concepts of biosecurity, biosafety and biorisk
management system and, then, by supporting the NEs, who successfully completed
the training sessions and were qualified to become trainers in their own countries, in
implementing the training locally addressed to second groups of local experts
(hereafter referred to as “National Participants”), so that NEs become trainers
locally.
The NEs and NPs were selected according to precise profiles, to make sure they
had the necessary scientific, technical, educational and language (only for NEs)
qualifications: a list of criteria were indeed proposed in each country, taking into
account professional expertise, academic curriculum, age, geographical represen-
tation and female participation. The challenge in this phase of selection was to make
sure to select experts really interested in further disseminating and delivering of
acquired capacities at national level. The successful completion of training by NEs
was evaluated against predetermined SMART (Specific Measurable Attainable
Results-Focused Time-Focused) learning objectives using a range of assessment
methods, including assignments, case studies and situational analysis. In total, the
project trained 60 National Experts, and 410 National Participants, for a total of 470
trainers trained. These 470 trainers were doctors and technicians from hospitals,
research institutes and industrial facilities so as officials from different ministries
such as Health, Agriculture, Environment, Defense, Science and Technology,
Internal affairs, Trade and, among the authorities, from Customs and Civil Pro-
tection in a multidisciplinary perspective. During the training sessions, the different
background of the experts indeed helped and fostered the exchange of ideas and
lessons learned, based on their own professional experience.
The training methodology was diversified and consisted of e-learning phases and
intensive courses. The e-learning phases were delivered through a dedicated
Learning Support Platform, housing different educational materials and e-libraries
and based on open-source software (Moodle). In particular, the training modules
were set up with presentations, assessment tests and interactive tools, such as forum
and chat, to foster the discussion among the experts and the trainers. Open source
papers, guidelines, and manuals were uploaded in the libraries, used as a repository
of the documents and useful to deepen the topics discussed in the courses. This
e-learning phase was conceived as a preparatory step for the intensive courses. At
the end of the project, the Learning Support Platform remained as a tool available to
National Experts and National Participants (Fig. 3).
Intensive courses (both theoretical and practical) were from one week up to two
weeks duration and were structured through active learning methodologies. The
intensive courses were a mix of frontal lessons, delivered through power point, and
video presentations, brainstorming, analysis of case studies, open debates and group
exercises. To animate the sessions, laboratory visits and demonstrations were
organized as well. The interactive approach guaranteed the exchange of ideas, best
practice and share of expertise, especially where the gap between the background
and the level of knowledge on bio-related issues was significant. The heterogeneity
Knowledge Dissemination and Best Practice Transfer on Biosafety … 327

Fig. 3 E-platform course page

fostered a wide sharing of past experiences by the most skillful participants, coming
from countries that are at a higher level in terms of awareness on biosafety and
biosecurity issues, to the less experienced attendants.
The trainings of National Participants organized by the qualified NEs included
only theoretical-practical intensive courses aimed at the common learning objec-
tives, previously mentioned. In general, these training sessions addressed the
management from the technical but also policy, legal, and “teaching methods”
points of view related to biosafety, biosecurity and biorisk management.

3 Training Content

The content of the training modules addressed to NEs was conceived to have a
common basis but at the same time to incorporate specific local requests, at regional
level: it was based on identified transferable best practices, as well as on the further
development of the lessons learned by past similar training efforts, and the common
learning objectives, which were tailored and specified on the needs of each region.
Approaching the topics of biosafety, biosecurity and biorisk management a
multidisciplinary, omni-comprehensive and holistic approach is pivotal to under-
stand and apply good practices to safeguard security and to guarantee safety in all
the aspects involving biological threats. In order to cover all the topics the training
addressed to NEs was divided in 5 modules: Module 0 “Core training specifications
for biosafety professionals (content from CWA 16335)”, Module 1 “Teaching and
Assessment methods for bio-risk management training”, Module 2 “Legal, ethical,
environmental aspects”, Module 3 “Laboratory Biorisk Management”, Module 4
“Accreditation, implementation and the CWA Standards”.
328 C. Argiolas et al.

In detail:
– Module 0 “Core training specifications for biosafety professionals (content from
CWA 16335)”: was based on the CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA) 16335:2011
Bio-safety Professional Competences. It was conceived as a comprehensive
introductory module and as a preparatory phase of training useful to provide the
participants with a common and crosscutting background of knowledge required
to attend successfully the following modules and to overcome the gaps existing
among countries in the same region, emerged during the gap-analysis and self-
evaluation phases of the project. In particular: the risks associated with biological
agents and other hazards; concepts of containment and its limitations, the most
important types of containment and their installation, validation, certification and
maintenance; main elements of infection control, disinfection, decontamination
and sterilization; biological waste management plans and requirements on trans-
port, import and export, labelling and means of transport for different biological
agents.

– Module 1 “Teaching and Assessment methods for bio-risk management

training”:
• Teaching and Training methodologies consisted of four different subtopics,
namely “Adult as Learners”, “Facilitation versus Teaching”, “Active
Learning” and “Course Design”. This course was designed to help partici-
pants develop an in-depth understanding of facilitation techniques focused
on adult training, concepts of active learning and active learning strategies
for teaching bio-risk management. The training was designed to provide the
attendants with the ability to distinguish among various approaches for adult
training, to compare different methods for training in bio-risk management,
to apply active learning methodologies in training and to distinguish among
various types of assessment (Fig. 4).
• E-learning platform: this theoretical and practical course was aimed to make
experts more familiar with the e-learning platform. It illustrated how to use

Fig. 4 Moments of active learning

Knowledge Dissemination and Best Practice Transfer on Biosafety … 329

the platform as a student (i.e. updating personal profile, downloading course

presentations, filling and uploading assessment tests and communicating
through chats and forums) and as a teacher (showing how to create new
courses and profiles, upload files and grade assessment tests).
• Background elements of Quantitative Microbial Risk and Assessment and
presentation of toolkit focused on the biosafety and the biosecurity program
in laboratories. To point out the synergy and potential conflicts between
biosafety and biosecurity both programs were discussed in detail. The
experts were provided with international guidelines (WHO, BMBL, CWA
Laboratory Biorisk management) and tools like the biosecurity toolkit in
order to think over biosecurity management in their own organization and to
identify gaps in their biosecurity management system. The aim of this lecture
was to show the importance of doing a risk assessment and how to create
awareness. As an example of risk assessment, the basic steps of Quantitative
Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) for food and water were explained:
hazard identification, exposure assessment and risk characterization,
including also variability and uncertainty.
– Module 2 “Legal, ethical, environmental aspects”
• Legal framework for Biosafety and Biosecurity was aimed to review the
basic legal concepts and ideas relating to biosafety and biosecurity and
legislative provisions. During the training, participants were asked not only
to compare and contrast the legislative frameworks in their respective
countries but also to exchange ideas on best practices and areas where further
regulation may be required.
• Environmental Biosafety and Biosecurity focused on general environmental
concepts (biodiversity, resilience, and sustainability), environmental impact
assessment, and environmental management (Environmental Protection). In
particular, biosafety, biosecurity and biorisk analysis, Environmental Impact
Assessment (EIA), Environment Risk Assessment (ERA), Environment
Management Systems (EMS) were presented and discussed. Moreover, the
Invasive Alien Species (IAS) topic was developed elucidating the principle
of invasion ecology, explanation of the invasion process, and determinants of
invasiveness and invisibility. It was deeply analyzed the theme of biodi-
versity and the importance of its protection for earth and earth inhabitants
health.
• Ethical/dual use aspects discussed the ethical questions related to the dual
use dilemmas in science and, in particular, it focused on the possibility to use
the new emerging technologies, like nanotechnology, technologies based on
atomic fission, chemistry and synthetic biology, for good as well as for bad
purposes. The question of the moral responsibility of scientists and on their
accountability in dual use dilemmas was deepened and some case studies
were discussed.
330 C. Argiolas et al.

– Module 3 “Laboratory Biorisk Management”

• Laboratory Biorisk Management was divided in different subtopics. The first

one focused on natural occurring bio emergency. In particular, the social,
economical and demographical impacts of SARS outbreak (2003) were
analyzed in detail. Moreover, the recent Ebola outbreak (2014) effects in
society, economy and demography in the three most affected countries
(Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone) and in the rest of the word have been
discussed. The second course reviewed the classification of infective
microorganism by risk group, the characteristics of microorganisms
belonging to different groups, the bio containment levels that have to be
applied for each group and the diagnostic tools used to identify viruses and
bacteria. Moreover, this course aimed to refresh and improve knowledge
about safety in clinical diagnostic Biosafety Level Laboratories 2, 3 and 4
(BSL2, BSL3 and BSL4) of L. Sacco University Hospital based in Milan
(Italy), to encourage laboratory workers to think over safety issues while
they are working and to stimulate the birth of a safety culture in biological
laboratory. Guidelines to work safely in a contained laboratory were dis-
cussed and their implementations presented in details, analysing laboratory
building, personal protective equipments and good laboratory practices, as
well as how to face an accident or an emergency. Experts had also the
possibility to visit both the cellular and molecular laboratories of a BSL2,
BSL3 and BSL4 facilities. The laboratory visit and practical exercise con-
sisted in donning the BSL3 and BSL4 suit and all the required PPE
appropriately, in getting in the BSL3 and BSL4, where laboratory workers
showed equipment and tools and explained in detail how to work safely in
containment laboratories, using biosafety cabinets and appropriate protocols
especially for decontamination of outgoing material (Fig. 5).
• Biological Risk Assessment Methodologies/Measurements and analysis of
biorisk management system performance were mainly the Laboratory
Biorisk Management through the AMP model (Assessment, Mitigation,

Fig. 5 BSL3 and BSL4 laboratory visits

 Knowledge Dissemination and Best Practice Transfer on Biosafety … 331

Performance). In particular, BioRAM, software for risk assessment devel-

oped by Sandia, and “What if” analysis, FMEA, FTA, HAZOP study were
presented in detail as tools that can be used to assess biological risk corre-
lated to a microbiological laboratory. The measures to mitigate the risk were
highlighted as well, together with the methods to evaluate the performance.
– Module 4 “Accreditation, implementation and the CWA Standards”

• Accreditation, implementation and the CWA/ISO Standards and A wide

introduction to GMOs and GMO regulations was a discussion and experi-
ence sharing among the experts from different countries. In particular, dis-
cussions focused on regulations already present in each countries, ISO,
Standards and guidelines implemented and required for laboratory equip-
ment and PPE. Moreover, Certification, Guidelines and Manuals used in
Biosafety and Biorisk Management have been deeply analyzed, paying a
particular attention to CWA15793 and ISO15190. The second part of this
module was added to fulfil a request by the participants, emerged during
module 1 and 2 attendance, and focused on Genetically Modified Organisms
(GMOs) regulations and guidelines already present in each single country for
the use of GMOs.
Concerning the National Participants’ training, National Experts, according to
needs and specificities of their own countries, chose among the modules described
above the ones that were more appropriate and interesting for their audience, tai-
loring the courses on local situations.

4 Project’s Added Value

Notwithstanding a number of trainings programmes already organised in the past

and conducted in the four regions considered, the present project provided a sig-
nificant added value in the bio-sector, based on the following four factors (Fig. 6):
(a) Regional and inter-regional coordinated approach;
(b) Demand-side and participatory approach;
(c) Holistic and multidisciplinary approach;
(d) Establishment of a sustainable training method.
(a)
Regional and inter-regional coordinated approach
In line with the Centres of Excellence initiative, the project supported the
development of capacities in a regional coordinated manner. The project developed
and spread a common-ground of knowledge and expertise about bio-safety,
bio-security and bio-risk management in the targeted regions. The training content,
along with the involvement of stakeholders from different institutions and countries,
contributed to stimulate networking, cooperation and strengthen synergies among
332 C. Argiolas et al.

Fig. 6 Project’s added value

the scientific communities and institutions, thus facilitating knowledge sharing and
transfer of lessons learned at regional level. In order to maximise the networking
and exchange of knowledge, the project relied on already established regional
networks of local partners, well grounded in the targeted areas: this allowed to build
on what has been already achieved and implemented and to further strengthen the
regional networking, cooperation and mutual trust. The project promoted
cross-fertilisation of ideas also across different regions. ICIS supported and foster
exchange of knowledge, lessons learned and best practices beyond the regional
boundaries, particularly through the e-learning platform.
(b) Demand-side and participatory approach
The regional and inter-regional coordinated approach did not prevent to keep
into duly account also local specificities. In practical terms, training modules were
tailored on the specific needs of each region and, as far as possible, country. As
previously described, the assessment of local specific training needs was carried out
according to a participatory demand-side approach. Such a method better addressed
local specific needs, keeping into account their past experiences, the existing level
of knowledge, the difference among institutes operating in bio-related issues (either
private or public), thus ensuring both the ownership and sustainability of the pro-
ject. This entailed, for example, the possibility to translate key training materials in
local languages, especially in those countries where English is not widespread. The
Knowledge Dissemination and Best Practice Transfer on Biosafety … 333

participatory approach was also reflected in the ‘train-the-trainer’ method, which

transforms the trained people from passive users to active actors in the process of
knowledge exchange, putting the grounds to deliver training beyond the time span
of the project.
(c) Holistic and multidisciplinary approach
This project addressed a wide variety of bio-related issues spanning from
bio-related international and national legal aspects, bio-related environmental and
ecotoxicological aspects, to bio-ethical aspects, accreditation, implementation and
the CWA standards and laboratory bio-risk management. Through such a multi-
disciplinary approach, the project aimed at filling the knowledge gaps in the region
and at maximising existing capacities and knowledge in different fields.
(d) Establishment of a sustainable training method
The sustainability of the project’s training method was ensured firstly by the
train-the-trainers model, not new in most of the countries involved, which was
complemented by a modern methodological tool for training, i.e. a web based
e-learning platform. The platform constituted an interactive tool favoring the active
participation of both trainers and trainees (e.g. through a Question/Answer section,
virtual classrooms, live sessions, etc.) within the same region, but also across
different regions. Through the platform, experts from different regions had the
possibility to interact and confront each other on common experiences, so as to
increase inter-regional cooperation and networking and the exchange of knowledge.
Moreover, by making training materials available on-line before the start of
intensive training courses in presence, the e-learning platform guaranteed a pre-
liminary common ground of knowledge among all participants to the training
courses in preparation for the subsequent intensive course, so as to maximize the
effectiveness of training. The most important feature of the e-learning platform is
that it remains available as a tool to experts, to continue using and updating it. In
this way, the e-platform represents a concrete legacy of the project, which will
continue to favor information sharing and will put the basis for the potential
organization of further intensive courses (both theoretical and practical) ensuring, in
this way, the long-term sustainability of the project, by generating further positive
effects in the regions and also increasing the number of beneficiaries beyond the
project’s direct users.

5 Lessons Learned

Basing on this experience, some lessons learned can be highlighted so that these
could be useful for future similar projects, aiming at knowledge development, also
not necessarily in the bio-field. It is of outmost importance to:
• Apply and foster real participatory approaches: this methodology requires time,
patience and understanding of mutual needs and institutional structures. To
334 C. Argiolas et al.

guarantee ownership and commitment, it is necessary to devote efforts and

energy especially at the beginning of the project;
• Transfer the importance of a multidisciplinary approach and the importance of
bringing together experts with different backgrounds;
• Stimulate the use of simple and, where possible, open source tools that don’t
imply financial costs to be supported also after the end of the project, tailored on
the users’ real capacities and needs; it is important to evaluate the opportunity to
use IT tools and adapt them to the local situation, taking into consideration the
difficulties some countries may face with the internet connection;
• Create tailored didactic tools and training sessions, considering local needs and
priorities, the cultural background, the importance of the human factor and
interaction among experts with different skills and experiences;
• Produce/translate didactic materials in local languages, which is also a very
important element in terms of sustainability and impact, since these can be
shared and distributed also to non-English -speaking experts;
• Enhance awareness raising on bio-related issues and support synergies among
the scientific community and institutions within each country;
• Create an international network of experts, fostering knowledge sharing and best
practice exchange within and among regions;
• Last but not least, remain constantly engaged in the biosecurity and biosafety
issues and on the biorisk evaluation and metrics aspects, due to the continuous
development of the life sciences.

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