32 - Integrating Science and Puppetry to Inspire Teenagers in Rural Asia to Value Slow Lorises

Summary

Inspiring people to value their local wildlife is vital to promoting the conservation of native fauna (Padua, 2010; Savage et al., 2010). Conservation education has historically tended to focus on enhancing people’s knowledge about animals and the threats to their survival as a means of promoting pro-conservation behaviours. Educators have identified that people need both factual knowledge and an emotional affinity for animals as precursors to developing positive attitudes and behaviours towards them (Cheng and Monroe, 2012; Jacobson, 2010; Kuhar et al., 2010). There is a growing recognition that initiatives using positive messages to highlight nature’s positive aspects are more inspiring than negative communication about loss of species that can instead make people feel helpless (IUCN-CEC, 2010). A key component to inspiring people to care for wildlife is building empathy and pride (McCauley, 2006; van der Ploeg et al., 2011).