Combining formal and non-formal education in order to promote conservation and sustainable development: The experience of the Program of Landscapes Conservation

The Program of Landscape Conservation (PCP) is the initiative executed, between 2006 and 2009, by the consortium of Organizations conformed by USAID, International Conservation, Federation of Municipal Associations of Bolivia, Fundation Friends of Nature and the Bolivian Association for Conservation – TROPICO. The PCP´s objective is to maintain the values of biodiversity and to promote sustainable development in the Corridor Amboró – Madidi, which is considered one of the areas with the greatest biological and cultural richness within the country.

Along these guidelines, TROPICO was in charge of one of the PCP´s components addressed to the “Contribution to developing know-how techniques, capacities, favorable attitudes and practices addressed to the conservation of biodiversity and the sustainable use of natural resources”.

Our multidisciplinary team designed an alternative model, in which they combined practices of formal and non-formal education. In the first case, we worked together with the Institutos Normales Superiores – INS (Institutes for the Superior Education of Teachers), where future teachers for children and youth are educated. In the case of non-formal education, we performed a variety of activities together with children and young people.

In the field of formal education, we organized intensive training journeys in biodiversity, conservation and sustainable management at the Institutos Normales Superiores in Trinidad, Santa Cruz, Cochabamba and La Paz. We managed to provide training to more than 300 teachers and 2000 students through conferences and pedagogical practices in the classroom. With a small number of teachers and students from the Normal Simón Bolívar in La Paz, we visited some projects of communal and indigenous production for biodiversity handling and environmental services in the areas of Rurrenabaque and San Buenaventura –allowing us a first close-up of the future school teachers of productive education.

Complementary to these processes, the PCP has designed and performed, jointly with CAM teachers, the Projects for Educational Units (PEN) and the Project for Educating the Tsimane – Mosetene Indigenous (PEI), all of them implemented in the educational units of the municipalities of San Buenaventura (La Paz) and Rurrenabaque (Beni), respectively.

In the ambit of non-formal education, the PCP has designed, constructed and implemented the so-called “Green Tents”. These are itinerant exhibitions arriving at schools in the campesino and indigenous communities as well as at educational units in urban centers. They count on educational games in themes related to biodiversity conservation, protected areas, climatic change, waste management as well as topics in environment rights and duties. Since their creation, the Green Tents have had more than 50 presentations to over 1.500 children and young people.

To strengthen processes of non-formal education and to be able to reach other social actors as well, the Centro de Interpretación de la Reserva de la Biosfera y Tierra Comunitaria de Origen Pilón Lajas (Centre for the Interpretation of the Biosphere Reserve and the Communal Land of Origin Pilón Lajas) was implemented, specifically the “area of natural resources and environment”. This permanently exhibited Centre shows the biological and cultural diversity of the Tsimane – Mosetene inhabitants of the Reserve.

Similarly, we have reinforced the non-formal environmental education with the design and implementation of the Sendero de Interpretación Ambiental Caquiahuara (Path to Environmental Interpretation in Caquiahuara) inside the National Park Madidi. The park is visited by students, from the secondary cycle of education, of educational units in the CAM region. To help them with the environmental interpretation, they count on the “Guide for Young Adventurers” (dowloand PDF) and the experiences of indigenous experts of the Community´s Eco-Loging House San Miguel del Bala. This one-day visit aims at enhancing the significance of biodiversity conservation, the Tacana culture, the existing threats and the probable consequences in the event the biological and ecological balance is affected.

Taking into account that young leaders are essential for the conservation, we have given support to “Eco-Clubs” --organizations of young volunteers, concerned about the problems of their environments. The Eco-Clubs in Rurrenabaque and San Buenaventura have been basically equipped and their volunteers trained in the subjects of their interest; however, always in relation to the PCP´s objectives. Currently, these environment´s new leaders are conducting several awareness campaigns such as schools cleaning; street theatre presentations; television campaigns; informative environmental patrols; and, puppetry plays addressed to children all delivering messages that motivate favourable practices towards the environment.