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Presidential Quarterly Update

By IZE President Chris Peters

October 2003

Rotterdam Zoo, Netherlands
c.peters@rotterdamzoo.nl

Dear IZE members,

I would like to inform you about some interesting zoo and aquarium educator’s conferences that have been conducted recently. The first, in which I participated, was the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) Conference in Columbus, Ohio. Rotterdam Zoo allowed me to attend in my capacity as IZE President-Elect, to get an inside view of how the AZA works, to introduce myself as incoming IZE President, to solicit a stronger cooperation between IZE and AZA, and to promote IZE Institutional Membership. I also wanted to announce the next IZE Biennial Conference, which will be held in Hong Kong in September 2004, and to interact as a colleague and an IZE partner. I would like to thank Rotterdam Zoo, especially Robert van Herk, Head of the Education Department for giving me the opportunity to attend. It was a wonderful experience.

The conference was held from 7-11 September 2003. It was very well attended with more than 1,700 participants including zoo directors, curators, veterinarians, educators, zookeepers, PR/Marketing employees, and NGO's. The conference was very well organized.

Below are several interesting items for IZE members.

On Saturday 6 September 2003, the day before the conference started, I was invited to join a meeting of the AZA’s Conservation Education Committee (CEC). My thanks to Barbara Revard, our excellent host, and IZE Regional Representative for North America for making the arrangements. The CEC held a meeting, which ran approximately four hours. Jackie Ogden, who was a very capable Chair, allowed about 10 minutes for me to give a brief report about IZE. During the 10 minutes I spoke about:

• IZE’s membership and organizational structure.
• IZE’s 2002 Conference in Vienna (I informed them that there were very few American educators in attendance).
• WAZA’s reaffirmation that IZE is its official education arm.
• Promotion of IZE’s Institutional Membership worldwide, especially in North America. I stressed that IZE needs the expertise, dedication, cooperation and financial support of the strongest zoo organizations in the world (such as AZA).
• Re-writing of the education chapter for the new WZCS.
• WAZA Conference 2003 in Costa Rica.
• Upcoming IZE Conference 2004 in Hong Kong.
• The need for illustrated articles for the IZE Journal.

The group was very interested, and I hope we can expect good representation of American educators in Hong Kong.

Other contacts of interest made at the AZA conference:

Thank you to a very enthusiastic Louise Bradshaw (former North American regional editor of IZE). She is one of the very dedicated teachers of the AZA Conservation Course, a course for all kinds of zoo disciplines. Even zoo educators from China, Central America and Uganda have taken these courses. The Central and South American zoo organization AMACAZOOA is allowed to translate the American Conservation Course into Spanish and make it their own. When they need assistance, American docents assist them. It is interesting to note that AZA offers scholarships for one international student per year to attend any of their training courses. People who are interested should look at the AZA website (aza.org) under professional training for more information.

I spoke with Cynthia Vernon (former IZE Regional Representative for North America). She has become a member of the AZA Board. She still is very positive about IZE and I think she can be of great value for future contact with AZA.

I had several talks with Dr. Bruce Carr, AZA’s Director of the CEC Education. We discussed many topics including future cooperation between our organizations. Perhaps the most important issue was to find a way to incorporate the AZA educators group as a subsidiary organization of IZE, just as is the case with AZOREN and ARNIZE. Several CEC educators will investigate the possibility of creating an official structure, supported by AZA, which is linked to IZE. Dr. Carr told me that there already were discussions and that AZA was considering forming an official partnership with IZE. Watch for further developments on this.

Barbara Revard arranged for me to speak during the WAZA breakfast. Breakfast was attended by American zoo directors who are members of WAZA. Alex Rubel, Chair of WAZA was also present. I gave a brief report about IZE and asked the directors to support their educators in IZE participation. I promoted IZE’s Institutional Membership in connection with sponsoring conservation educators from developing countries. I strongly expressed the idea that IZE needs the dedication, expertise, cooperation and financial support of AZA. I also promoted the IZE Conference 2004 in Hong Kong.

Barbara Revard promised to send a mailing to the AZA directors encouraging them to become IZE Institutional Members. I hope that this will result in many more IZE institutional memberships.

I also spoke with Dave Morgan the new president of the PAAZAB (Pan African Association for Zoos, Aquaria and Botanical Gardens. They plan to do a survey to determine how many zoos and reserves there are in Africa. He is keen to work together with IZE and especially with AZOREN, and would like to be a partner in organizing the next AZOREN-Conference, or perhaps the IZE Conference in 2006. The IZE Board will discuss this at either the WAZA Conference in Costa Rica or at our own Conference in Hong Kong.

Chris Peters
IZE President-Elect