Environmental Education in Colombia
One of the most important activities that can contribute to the long-term sustainability of conservation work is environmental education. A proper understanding of the natural environment and its importance in our daily lives is key to gaining public support for conservation actions. In Colombia, NPC puts this into practice every day, highlighting the importance of healthy and functioning ecosystems for their quality of life.
In our education activities we aim to promote the conservation of local biodiversity by local communities, with an emphasis on primates and their habitat. We often focus on children, however, we engage in activities with people of different ages.
We achieve this through concerted actions aimed at all levels of society and age groups. In schools around the areas where we carry out community conservation work or research, we regularly run activities for children and young people through games and other play activities. These activities are combined with workshops and events for parents and other adults in the community.
We approach educational activities for children through play, and each game is designed with a specific purpose in mind, whether it is to generate understanding of threats to primates and habitat, to learn about the importance of biodiversity, or to encourage behavioural change to help mitigate issues. We also make visual and audio-visual material to help spread awareness of primates and forests, increasing knowledge of these species and promoting their conservation.
We have worked with hundreds of children in dozens of rural communities and this number is increasing. We are also running longer term education interventions in two areas of the Colombian Pacific.