Description
Nature protection is a matter of public interest, but in the Czech Republic it is not always perceived in this way. On the contrary, a great majority of the population has labelled it an ideology going against interests of the society. There are several reasons for this. Representatives of nature protection organizations are mostly unable to comprehensibly explain the value of nature and ecosystem services and communicate with the public. The overall aim of the project is to increase public awareness on issues of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services, and to support conservation as a public interest. This will be implemented through a sociological study, a public campaign and an educational campaign. The project focuses both on the general public and their awareness of the value of nature and its functioning and on protectionists and their education. The donor project partner is GRID-Arendal. Its role are activities aimed at working with the public. The cooperation in this partnership is the first ever, but the project itself may generate ideas for future projects and interconnection between Norwegian and Czech experience.
Summary of project results
Conservation of nature is a matter of public interest, but it is not always perceived in this way in the Czech Republic. Therefore, this project focused on improving the image of the role of human in the care of nature. Within the project, the Project Promoter focused on two target groups - the general public and the conservationists themselves. As a part of project activities a sociological study that proved that Czechs prefer nature, but they do not know much about it, took place. To improve the knowledge, a popularization campaign for the public was created. Part of the campaign - the on-line platform coordinates its activities even after the end of the project. Additionally, the film “Planeta Česko” was created, which will go to the cinema distribution in March 2018. Besides the film, other minor outputs continue after the end of project implementation period. The Project Promoter organized excursions for the public, exhibition of photographs and created short videos. During the project, several art workshops focusing on nature and art also took place. To focus project activities also on professionals, web platform The Forum of Nature Conservation aimed primarily at conservationists and interested public, has been expanded with a number of information sources. Summaries of scientific articles, examples of Czech and foreign practice, legislative analysis, and on-line contact seminars were organized. The benefit of the project is the comprehensible set of documents explaining fundamental changes in the Czech landscape and nature as well as enhancing environmental literacy. These documents are available to anyone in the long term. All project outputs continue to be exploited and further developed, and lead to increase of understanding and popularity of nature protection among public.
Summary of bilateral results
The donor project partner was the GRID Aredal. The collaboration between the Project Promoter and its donor partner was based on sharing experiences with public awareness campaigns. It consisted of GRID consultations on how effectively reach the public and how to run social media and promotional campaigns online. During the implementation of the project, the Czech PR agency participated in the implementation of the project reports, but the content and its direction were determined by the experts of the Project Promoter and donor partner. Several educational videos for YouTube have been prepared and translated into English. The project was extended by 7 months, during which the PR agency was not already employed, so the involvement of GRID was stronger. The Project Promoter used GRID communication experts to help with social media and communication with the Czech PR agency. On the contrary, the GRID experts experienced the Czech nature conservation environment and helped to create new approaches to solving the situation. Most of the communication was through mail and skype conferences. During the project one working trip to Norway was organized (where meetings with other potential partners for the continuation of project activities were organized). Norwegian partners participated at meetings in the Czech Republic twice. Good cooperation at both work and personal levels were created. By the end of project, there was no further close cooperation. But the Project Promoter keeps looking for new opportunities for funding of future projects. The initial contact was established at the match-making seminar (organized under Measure A) which took place in Prague in 2014.