Carla Wilson

Preferred presentation format: Unrefereed Paper

Affiliation(s): (1)APEN

(2)New Zealand Association of Social Science Researchers

(3)New Zealand Association for Environmental Education

Title: Carla Wilson Position: Social Scientist Organisation: Department of Conservation, New Zealand Contact email: chwilson@doc.govt.nz Contact phone: 64 4 471 3123

Keywords: conservation, community, partnerships

‘Conservation with Communities’ is the title of a new strategy released by the Department of Conservation in New Zealand. The purpose of this Strategy is to improve the ability of the Department to work with communities to achieve conservation outcomes. In order to implement the Strategy, research was commissioned to review the current types of partnerships the Department has with communities and the key lessons that can be learnt from these partnerships in order to improve practice. The research reviewed a range of rural and urban community partnerships focused on species protection, pest control, recreation, education and awareness. This paper reviews the key lessons that can be learnt from the Department’s current partnerships with communities and considers the innovative ways the Department can support communities to develop the skills and capability they need to do their own conservation work.

The Department of Conservation is the central government organisation charged with conserving the natural and historic heritage of New Zealand on behalf of and for the benefit of present and future New Zealanders.

Key learning points:

• When developing partnerships with ‘communities’ it is important to consider who is included, and possibly excluded, from these ‘communities’.
• Often conservation projects are initiated and run by people in communities who are already committed to conservation goals and who have the time, resources and skills and capability to do something about it.
• Many of the current partnership projects may deliver on ecological goals but may not always contribute to the Department’s goals of supporting a range of communities (including particular socio-economic and ethnic groups) to develop the skills and capability they need to do conservation work. It is therefore important to consider new and innovative ways of working with different communities to achieve conservation goals.

Poster abstracts

		page
Blackshaw et al.	Grapecheque: Having an impact in Victorian grapegrowers	72
Borschmann	Tree growing in rural landscapes	73
Breen	Budworm watch program: more than monitoring	74
Connor et al.	Investigating innovative communication strategies to reach hobby farmers and lifestyle landholders	75
Day	Biodiversity extension: using community engagement	76
Hogan & Raphael	Developing rural grapegrower communities through CRCV extension	77
Kaine et al.	The uptake of integrated pest management by apple growers	78
Lewis	Green wedges: planning towards extension	79
Lucas et al.	New approaches to enhancing participation in natural resource management	80
Mesiti & Vanclay	Extending extension through styles of farming	81
Quarisa	FarmWise: education and extension in the MIA	82
Richards	Bi$Link: A project promoting farm business management training for horticulturalists from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds	83
Stewart	Border and boundaries	84
Stewart et al.	The low rainfall linking project	85
Tijs & McCaffery	Community engagement: changing the focus for WUE	86
Wadley & Hollier	Responding to the needs of a stressed community in times of drought	87
Wilson	Making quantitative information useful	88