Education works in changing attitudes through providing information regarding the conservation of sea turtles and also allowing people to directly interact with these creatures.
Credit: WWF-Canon/Marc-Antoine Dunais
In Bali, the Turtle Conservation and Education Center (TCEC) organizes a string of educational outreach programs for both locals and tourists. Many local schools organize fieldtrips to the turtle center where the young students get the opportunity to meet sea turtles and watch an educational film regarding the endangerment of sea turtles (Jensen, 2009). The TCEC also organizes the “foster turtle” program where school children take on the role of siblings of the sea turtle for a low charge and watch their growth after hatching. School children are then educated about sea turtles and the children are allowed to release the turtle back into the ocean after the turtle is able to survive on its own (Nakad, 2008).
This constitutes to be an affective component of environmental education where people gain a direct experience with nature and this can then have a strong impact on one’s attitude and behavior. The interaction with sea turtles at the TCEC enables people to first share an empathic connection with sea turtles housed at the center and this connection and desire to help sea turtles can then gradually be extended to sea turtles in the broader ecosystem. Furthermore, in allowing children to share an affiliation with nature from young, it might aid in the development of their environmental identity. This would then influence them to engage in environmentally protective behavior when they are older (Clayton & Myers, 2009).
In Sukabumi, talk shows that disseminate general information on sea turtles and relevant conservation issues are aired on radio. There was positive response from the public in terms of their eagerness to know more about the issue- reasons why sea turtles are being protected and why sea turtle eggs should not be consumed (Pilcher, 2006). This form of information program can serve to engage listeners as they can call in to the radio station to raise questions they have. However, this form of information program can be relatively passive in engaging people to commit to conservation efforts as listeners who choose to tune in to the program typically already possess a certain degree of interest in conservation issues. As such, the radio program might fail to engage people who show low or little interest in conservation.
Credit: David O. Brown
To reduce the incidental catch of sea turtles, WWF- Indonesia initiated the observer program in 2005. Observers are tasked to record and collect information regarding fishing activities onboard commercial fishing fleets and they spend a few months with the fishermen throughout the process of data collection. It is recommended that the observer program be further developed as it is a potential channel to conduct educational and informational talks with the fishermen regarding conservation issues. This is especially critical as the fishermen spend large amounts of their time onboard fishing fleets and have little time to attend any educational or training programs onshore. Since the observers have a long period of interaction with the fishermen, they can take the opportunity to raise their awareness regarding conservation issues and teach them proper fishing techniques to reduce the by catch of sea turtles (Zainudin, Pet-Soede, Hitipeuw & Adnyana, 2007). As the majority of fishermen have already expressed willingness to release sea turtles caught, teaching them the necessary information to reduce by catch and release sea turtles using the proper technique would reduce the internal knowledge barrier to action, prompting the fishermen to take action in protecting sea turtles.
While education can be a viable approach in encouraging environmentally friendly behavior, it cannot cause a quick change in ethics and values. Education also only works when the barriers to action are low. As such, when there are strong external barriers in the form of economic forces or social and political institutions, the effect of education is very much limited. Thus, education needs to be combined with other approaches to be effective (Gardner & Stern, 2002).