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Description
The project focuses on decreasing the negative impact of human activities on the water quality in the agricultural areas. It mainly focuses on water pollution caused by pesticides and pesticides cocktails, as this is the main cause of aggravated water quality according to the scientific studies. The overall goal of this project is therefore to improve water quality in the agricultural areas affected by the pesticides. The goal of this project is to communicate the topic of water quality in the agricultural areas and the possibilities of improvement. The project activities will be designed to attract selected target groups which are landowners and a so called "light green" segment of public.
The main activities of the project include: an ongoing online information campaign, videos with celebrities, podcasts, an info list, popularization articles and popularization-educational debates.
The expected outputs include informing the target groups of the project in a way that also contributes to the creation of project outputs (awareness campaign, podcasts, debates, videos, information sheets, e-book etc.) that are widely usable even in the period after the project implementation. We anticipate minimum 669 000 direct and indirect impacts of the project activities on the public.
Hnutí DUHA is in the long term focusing on the communication of the environmental issues and negative impacts of the human activities on nature, landscape and climate. It has realised tens of communication campaigns in which hundreds of thousands of people have been contacted. Nadace Partnerství has an experience with the target group of landowners, for whom last year it created the web portal Adviser for Landowners.
Summary of project results
Pollution of our waters due to human activity remains a major problem, even though the situation has been gradually improving for a long time. The main sources of pollution are currently industrial discharges, runoff from fields and other agricultural land and inadequate wastewater treatment. We have therefore focused our project on reducing the negative impact of human activities on water quality. In particular, we focused on the occurrence of pesticides and so-called „pesticide cocktails“. Our aim was to disseminate information on the topic of water quality, especially in agricultural areas. We directed the project activities to reach a segment of the public that is interested in environmental and water protection issues in agricultural landscapes and identifies the potential for increasing their involvement, e.g. by changing their consumption patterns (the so-called light green segment). We also targeted farmland owners.
In particular, we used those communication tools that have the potential to promote a change in landowners'' and farmers'' attitudes towards pesticide use and to strengthen public interest in the topic. We were able to meet and exceed the project objectives for some of the communication tools.
In a project aimed at informing the public about pesticide-related problems, we engaged in several key activities. First, we carried out a detailed analysis that served as the basis for almost all further work. On the basis of this, we created 4 video spots that dynamically presented the pesticide problem. We shared these intensively on social media, effectively drawing people''s attention to this important issue.
Along with the analysis, we created a popular educational handbook "Guide to Pesticides in the 21st Century", aimed at the general public. This guide–downloaded more than 1,500 times–provides an easy-to-understand overview of pesticide issues.
Another of our outputs was a leaflet on pesticides for landowners, which we distributed to hundreds of Czech municipalities. We also produced educational articles, two of which were published in the print magazine Evergreen and others were published online.
For those interested, we created podcasts and organised debates with experts and the general public. We’ve spread these activities extensively through social media, newsletters, etc.
Initially unplanned but important outcome was the publication of the analysis, which at first served only as internal material. However, it turned out to contain a lot of quality information about public interest in pesticide issues. Through the project we‘ve made a significant contribution to raising awareness of pesticide issues and improving the availability of information for everyone.
We ensured the spread of information on the topic of water quality in agricultural areas and how to improve it. We have used communication tools that have the potential to encourage a change in landowner and farmer attitudes towards pesticide use and to increase public interest in the topic. We based our communication on current scientific knowledge combining a range of innovative channels and tools.
We expect that these targeted education and awareness raising activities will contribute to behavioural change regarding consumer behaviour and civic participation. The project has been too short to bring about this change and the overall impact on society will only be observable over several years. Judging by the response and the great wave of interest that our activities have generated, we can assume that the change in attitudes and behaviour in society has already started. We will continue to address the issue of pesticides and its communication in our organisation and in the partner organisation to ensure continuity.