Conservation Education for Advancing Natural Resources Knowledge and Building Capacity for Volunteerism
Natural resource agencies increasingly need to engage nontraditional stakeholders for public support and financial resources, especially considering a decline in traditional activities such as hunting and fishing. Conservation educators recognized this need, and they are creating new
networks of outreach and service programs. The Michigan Conservation Stewards Program (CSP) was designed to reach new stakeholders for natural resource management as an adult conservation education and volunteerism program, similar in format to Master Naturalist programs. We observed these
benefits of the CSP for learners and agencies: (1) increased ecological knowledge; (2) improved attitudes toward management practices and toward the natural resource agency; and (3) an initial corps of volunteers with specific conservation skills. This education program advanced knowledge
and transformed volunteer capacity, producing detectable short-term positive impacts. An anticipated value of conservation education programs such as CSP will be long-term support from nontraditional stakeholders in natural resource management.
Keywords: adult conservation education; public support; stakeholders; volunteerism
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1: NOAA National Sea Grant College Program, Silver Spring, Maryland, USA 2: Partnership for Ecosystem Research and Management, Department of Fisheries and Wildlife, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA 3: Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA
Publication date: 01 February 2011
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