Communication strategies for parks: a vital step for effective conservation outreach

A com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy is essen­tial to the suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion of man­age­ment plans and, ulti­mate­ly, nature con­ser­va­tion. In ear­ly May, FZS organ­ised train­ing for the Carpathi­an pro­tect­ed areas, launch­ing the devel­op­ment of comms plans to sup­port the achieve­ment of goals out­lined in the PAs’ man­age­ment plans.

The train­ing began with defin­ing clear com­mu­ni­ca­tion goals and cre­at­ing prac­ti­cal plans tai­lored to spe­cif­ic audi­ences. Direc­tors and staff learned how to iden­ti­fy their institution’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion objec­tives and build con­crete action plans that involve tar­get­ed mes­sages and chan­nels. This hands-on approach high­lights the fact that effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion requires ongo­ing effort and skill devel­op­ment.

Fol­low­ing the train­ing, the pro­tect­ed areas con­tin­ue work­ing on the strate­gies with con­stant con­sult­ing sup­port from the FZS com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist. Once final­ized, each park will devel­op an action plan for the fol­low­ing year. The effec­tive­ness of these mea­sures will be mon­i­tored annu­al­ly in terms of achiev­ing orga­ni­za­tion­al goals. Addi­tion­al­ly, long-term com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies will empow­er con­ser­va­tion teams to bet­ter engage their audi­ences and achieve sus­tain­able results.