More information
Description
The goal of the project is to active involve the young people and general public in environmental protection using so-called ""citizens science" in protection and monitoring of large carnivores in the Czech Republic.The young people (not only) will be directly involved in improving the environment and protecting endangered species through educational and field activities. This also includes the realization of and extensive educational campaign using modern and classic communication tools which should primarily dispel myths and prejudices, refute hoaxes and publish scientifically verified objective information about the large carnivores in the Czech Republic.
Necessity of the project is based on the insufficient public awareness and intolerance of large carnivores in our country. Our solution is to involve as many people as possible in the volunteer activities of "citizens science", which will allow them to actively participate in the direct protection of the environment and endangered animal species as well as intensive educational activities. The main activities are the promotion of volunteering, training for new volunteers, field courses for the public, education and awareness in the videos, podcasts, popular science articles in magazines and on web, information on social networks, publishing popular science publications.
The aim is to involve young people and the public in active participation in the protection of endangered species, increased awareness and orientation in this topic.
The target group is young people and the general public, the goal is their interest in volunteering, meaningful spending of leisure time, education and objective information leading to interest in state of environment in the Czech Republic and direct participation in its improvement.
Summary of project results
Large carnivores are among the specially protected species protected by Czech and European legislation. Czech legislation classifies them as critically (wolf, bear) or highly endangered species (lynx, wild cat). Our long-term vision is to facilitate the return and presence of large carnivores in the Czech landscape and to reduce the potential conflict in the coexistence of these rare species with humans and thus the potential risks of their endangerment. For all species of large carnivores, the biggest threat is the negative public opinion, which leads to lower acceptance of these species and, consequently, to poaching. In areas of recent occurrence (especially of wolves), there is often fear among the general public, fuelled by false or misleading information, deliberately causing fear and uncertainty in people when in the countryside. In particular, young people still do not have enough relevant information and, in the vast majority of cases, do not even have their own experience of being in the countryside. The lack of information and involvement of the young generation, and the consequent lack of interest in this environmental topic, may lead to the reappearance of these endangered species from our landscape, a reduction in biodiversity and a general deterioration in the systematic protection of nature and landscape for future generations.
The activities of the project deepened the awareness of the general public about the way of life of large carnivores. The public was introduced to the topic of large carnivores and the need for their protection. Through articles, articles, videos, podcasts and publications, we have provided scientifically verified and objective information that can be used to refute misinformation and prejudices. We have increased her participation in large carnivore conservation and engaged new people in monitoring through training and invitations to submit findings, thus contributing to a greater interest in the environment and encouraging efforts to improve it and a willingness to volunteer as such. We supplemented existing field mappers with training in monitoring methods, poaching investigations and protecting livestock from attacks by large carnivores. Through the implemented activities, their presentations and results, we focused more on the effective possibilities and development of fundraising methods, which until the project implementation had been applied only to a very limited extent. We have established intensive cooperation with our partner 7G with a view to the future. The partnership allowed us to present our topic in the printed media and thanks to the implementation of podcasts has developed new horizons for our media work.
The project resulted in the implementation of a comprehensive nationwide awareness campaign focusing on the development of volunteering and raising public awareness of large carnivores in the Czech landscape. This goal was gradually fulfilled by sub-activities that ran continuously until the end of the project implementation. Within the project we trained a total of 199 new persons at 11 initial trainings of Wolf and Lynx patrols, the so-called „Zavýjení“, 597 volunteers joined 126 field courses focused on monitoring of large carnivores, 43 persons participated in 5 summer meetings, 260 activated persons sent us their own findings and observations on the basis of calls. We have trained existing mappers at a total of 3 workshops/excursions. We supported the awareness raising activities with media work. The Large carnivores podcast was viewed by 3,686 people and played by 912 people on the Spotify platform, and had a total of 1,107 plays on the YouTube platform. Articles on the topic of large carnivores were read by about 4,800 readers on selmy.cz, 6 popular educational articles in the printed magazine and on the 7G website were read by about 2,681 readers, the beast e-newsletter was opened by 18,138 subscribers, 7 viral videos were viewed by 23,184 viewers on YouTube and 205,128 viewers on FB and IG social networks, and articles on social networks were viewed by 113,342 people. We have published a popular educational publication in the form of an e-book focusing on the most common myths, superstitions and hoaxes about big beasts and their explanation, debunking and clarification. It is available free to the public, downloadable at https://www.selmy.cz/ebook/ . The number of downloads of the publication as of the end of March 2024 was 5,381. The publication of the e-book was supported by a media campaign in public transport in Brno (14,541,666 passengers/month in tram transport), Olomouc (1,583,333 passengers/month in tram transport) and České Budějovice (4,253,417/month in bus and trolleybus transport). All these activities were aimed at increasing public awareness, education and willingness to accept large carnivores as an integral part of our nature. At the same time, the project strengthened the capacity of the organization -we recruited a new 0.4 time fundraiser, who was trained in 4 professional trainings focused on individual and corporate fundraising.We ran 3 fundraising campaigns and one PR/awareness campaign for a new publication, established regular donor care, and created donor registers.