Let’s break it down: Community Engagement.

National Geographic project: part three.

The third part of this project was definitely the most challenging for me personally. Organising a training course in primatological field methods and environmental education for Paraguayan forest guards from different conservation organisations across the country.

Equipment that would be used during the course.

Course Guides - every protected area received a guide.

National Geographic, the International Primatological Society (through a second Lawrence Jacobsen Education Development Award awarded to PLT’s executive director) and PRO COSARA and Hans and Christine Hostettler (who provided the accommodation and space to carry out the course at Nueva Gambach) supported this course.

The course ran from the 10^th-14^th December 2018. It was the most wonderful display of teamwork I have ever been a part of. Myself, Jorge Ayala, Joseph Sarvary and Jack McBride worked like a well oiled machine to make sure everything went smoothly and the real hero of the week was Rocio, who wonderful, spot-on cooking delighted everyone.

After I had spent the two weeks leading up to the course not-so-silently stressing that it would be a disaster and no one would come I was delighted and amazed when we ended up with 41 participants from six different Paraguayan organisations. Forest guards from MADES (the ministry of the environment), Guyra Paraguay, OPADES, Guardaparques Voluntarios, PRO COSARA and Fundación Moises Bertoni came from reserves as far away as Defensores del Chaco in the far north of the country.

Welcoming everyone to the course. Lectures took place in PRO COSARA's salon.

Jorge preparing his group to learn about habitat surveys.

The first day of the course consisted of lessons about South America’s primates, the primates of Paraguay, why research is important for conservation and how to design a behavioural study.

The following days we broke into three groups and carried out different practical activities. Participants learning about census and survey techniques from me, habitat survey methods from Jorge and VHF telemetry and how to use a blowgun from Joe. These practical activities were great fun and still challenging as December in Paraguay is the height of summer and every day temperatures exceeded 40C!

The final day was led by Joe and focused on environmental education using the Voces de la Naturaleza methods. Once again our attitude was “learn by doing” and watching 40 adults running around like children as they learned different educational games was wonderful to watch!

Once the course finished I created a WhatsApp group of all the participants so that they can share GPS locations when they find wild primates in their reserves. Over time, I hope that this will give us enough information to conduct the first census of primate populations in Paraguay’s protected areas for more than three decades. In addition to this the guards are sharing photos and stories from when they carry out environmental education.

The whole experience really pushed me out my comfort zone. And I’m so glad it did.  

Let’s break it down: The education.

The second part of my National Geographic project is education. Education is one of the most important parts of Para La Tierra. We understand that if people do not understand nature, they are not going to care about it. And if they don’t care, why would they want to save it.

PLT’s education program is called Voces de la Naturaleza, run by Joseph Sarvary, Jorge Ayala and Bridget Tam. Voces is a program of Eco-Clubs were children can come and learn about nature through games, arts and crafts and stories, participatory activities where they learn that it is ok to question, to think outside the box and to gain confidence in their own abilities.

 In 2016 I was award a grant from the International Primatological Society (Lawrence Jacobsen Education Development Award) that allow me to develop a series of primate conservation focused lessons for the eco-club curriculum including a children’s book about a baby monkey stolen for the pet trade, games with monkey costumes and art activities.  When I was awarded the National Geographic grant this provided the means and opportunity to take these lessons to even more children.

During this project I will visit 23 schools in three communities bordering San Rafael “National Park”. In April 2018 (before the project officially began) I carried out a set of lessons at seven schools in Alto Vera, the community closet to or field site Nueva Gambach. I visited these schools with Jaime, a forest guard from MADES (the Paraguayan ministry for the environment) and Gustavo, a forest guard with PRO COSARA. In each school, Jaime gave the children a presentation about San Rafael and then I played two games with them, one about the effects of deforestation and one about water contamination. Both games had a message that linked back in to the important of protecting San Rafael.

Learning about water contamination through games.

These lessons also acted as hands-on training sessions for the forest guards in our participatory education methods. They both quickly realised how much easier it is to engage children (and keep their attention) when teaching in an active manner, rather than sitting them in front of a power point in a 36C classroom!

One school in particular was a particular challenge for me. While I can teach in Spanish, Mberu is an indigenous community where the children only speak Guarani. I have been trying to learn Guarani and this was my first attempt to teach a lesson in this incredibly difficult language! With a bit of help from their teacher (Claudio, an ex-forest guard from PRO COSARA) I did manage it and the kids seemed to fine me hilarious and appreciate the attempt at Guarani.

Trying my best at teaching in Guarani.

In September and November we carried out our first set of primate conservation lessons in the first community at the northern end of San Rafael. Stay tuned to hear about how it went!