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2004 IZE Conference Keynote

Education, its Vital Role in Conservation

by Edward J McAlister
AO Chief Executive Officer, Royal Zoological Society of South Australia Inc., and President, World Association of Zoos and Aquariums

It gives me great pleasure to be addressing this group of educators attending the IZE Conference and also addressing delegates attending the SEAZA Conference. Not only because I am addressing you in my capacity as President of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which I think may be a first, but because in the audience I have three of my staff. In addition to the Director of Adelaide Zoo, Mark Craig, I have John Gardner from the Education Department of Adelaide Zoo, who for the next two years, will be representing the Australasian region on the IZE Council and Ian Walton, Education Officer from Monarto Zoological Park who later this week will be presenting a paper on his activities at that property.

I stand before you as someone who is committed to education and someone who has no formal qualifications in the area of education. However, I do believe that I have a role in educating young, and not so young, people and this is a point I will return to later in this paper. Those of you who know me will know that I am fond of using a quote, or even two quotes, in any paper which I deliver, and this one is no different. In fact, I intend to use three quotes.

The quote with which I intend to commence is indeed an old one. It is a statement attributed to Kuan Tyu, a Chinese poet who in 500BC said.

If you are thinking one year ahead ¡V sow seed.
If you are thinking 10 years ahead ¡V plant a tree.
If you are thinking 100 years ahead ¡V educate the people.

That statement was true then and it is no less true today, approximately 2,500 years later. It would be wonderful to think that something I say today would be remembered in the year 4,500 AD, but I don¡¦t think that is likely to happen!

While many zoos throughout the world have had education programs for varying periods of time, the chapter on education in the World Zoo Conservation Strategy produced by the International Union of Directors of Zoological Gardens (now WAZA) in 1993 really focussed attention on the topic of education. The whole conservation strategy is being revised and the chapter on education re-written and given more emphasis than ever before. This is a recognition by the world¡¦s top zoo body that education is fundamental to our mission.

One of the goals of education, both in Botanic Gardens and in Zoos is to create an awareness of the necessity for a balance between our needs as a species and those of the other species with whom we share this planet. In other words, we need to create a balance between human development and maintaining a balanced ecosystem. To do this, we need to know something about the world around us.

The importance of this mission was eloquently stated by the Senegalese conservationist, Baba Dioum who said ¡§in the end, we will conserve only what we love. We will only love what we understand. We will understand what we are taught.¨

Humans have been interested in, or aware of, animals since the dawn of time. Initially, animals were simply regarded as food, as competitors for food or, as predators. Later in the development of Homo sapiens, animals became companions in the hunt and even today, in some parts of the world, animals are still used to help people catch their food. Eventually, the concept of having animals simply as companions or as pets took hold.

Humans have kept animals in captivity for years. Early zoos were maintained by Aztecs and Chinese emperors. Among the earliest records of captive animals are those at Luxor in Egypt. These date back 3,500 years and include paintings of bears, leopards, monkeys and giraffes. Although it is true that, to some extent, the animals were recognised by some scholars as ¡¥libraries¡¦ of living things, this opportunity was not offered to ordinary people. In those days, the main reason for keeping animals in captivity was to show one¡¦s wealth and power and to demonstrate our dominance over them.

The world¡¦s oldest existing "modern" zoo is the Tiergarten Schonbrunn in Vienna. Opened on 31 July 1752, by Franze Stephan von Lothinger, the husband of Empress Maria Theresia, it was opened to the public in 1779 but reflected the interests of the rulers at the time, rather than any desire to edify the public, and, once again, demonstrated their power and influence. Much has changed in that zoo today, a zoo which I have had the pleasure of visiting twice.

A number of zoos quickly followed around the world, in Paris, in London and in other capital cities throughout Europe. Eventually, the fashion to have a zoological garden or a botanical garden moved further afield and, I believe it was felt by early colonists in Australia that the possessions of a Botanical Garden and/or a Zoo showed a degree of civilisation, somewhere to promenade on Sunday and to be seen to one¡¦s best advantage.

Many of these early zoos were established to serve the interests of Society members and were therefore very exclusive. For example, Peter Olney notes in his Article on London Zoo in ¡§Great Zoos of the World¡¨, the Zoological Society of London was chartered ¡¥to create a collection of living animals such as never yet existed in ancient or modern times¡K. To be applied to serve useful purpose, or as objects of scientific research, not of vulgar admiration.¡¨ This statement, written in 1826, to my knowledge is the first statement giving a reason other than "vulgar admiration", or the demonstration of wealth and power, for the keeping of animals in captivity.

Time does not permit, nor is this the appropriate place to discuss the evolution of zoos. Their evolution from a menagerie or living Natural History Cabinet, which was all the rage in the mid-19th century, through the Zoological Park concept or Living Museum, where many of our zoos currently are, up to the Conservation Centre which some zoos have achieved and others are on their way to achieving. An Environmental Resource Centre which does not try to go it alone but which is involved in the building of partnerships and conservation, both ex-situ and in-situ.

Most, if not all modern, responsible zoos give as their charter today, in one form or another, four reasons for their continued existence, these are:-

1. Conservation Programs
2. Research
3. Education
4. Passive Recreation

I will not dwell for long on objectives 1, 2 and 4, suffice to say that Objective One ¡V Conservation Programs; can be both ex-situ in the form of conservation breeding programs or in-situ with involvement in release-to-the-wild programs or assisting to conserve species in their natural environment. No matter which of these sub-objectives are taken there is a golden opportunity to use this involvement to educate the general public.

Objective Two ¡V Research; can quite clearly improve our knowledge about the animals we hold in trust and/or their wild counterparts. This sharing of information, usually with centres of higher learning, is education at its highest level.

Objective Four ¡V Recreation. Sometimes we tend to become too focussed on what we regard as our ¡§real roles¡¨ and see this objective almost as something of a nuisance. We can almost hear staff saying ¡§this would be a great zoo if it weren¡¦t for the public.¡¨ However, we all know that the vast majority of our visitors, excluding school groups, who come for a specific purpose, do NOT waken on Sunday morning and decide to go to the Zoo to learn about our captive breeding programs or our research efforts. They come to enjoy a day with the family, to enjoy recreation. It is our task to ensure that, when they leave, they are better informed than when they entered our properties. If they do not, we have failed in one of our core responsibilities. Also, we have missed out on sending, literally, millions of advocates into the general community.

While still on the matters of recreation, before moving on to that other objective, Education, let me ask you a question.

Are Children¡¦s (or Petting) Zoos a source of education? Some educators have argued that this is not education, rather a pandering to the masses and being ruled by the turnstile. I disagree. With more and more people becoming urbanised, 75% of the world¡¦s population to quote one statistic. In Australia, the situation is even worse, with more than 85% of the population living in cities. Most children today never getting to touch or even see, in the flesh, an animal apart from common household pets. I believe a Children¡¦s Zoo can be a life-changing experience. We have all seen the look of wonder on a child¡¦s face as he or she holds a day old chicken or sees a wallaby or something similar up close. This is education and may stimulate a lifelong interest in the Natural World.

And what is thing called Education? I have had, sometimes vigorous, discussions on this topic in relation to zoos. A scattering of species signs wired to cages in one of our zoos would not be regarded by me as education, simply paying lip-service to the idea. However, in some developing countries, it would be a start. Are animal shows a form of education? The answer is yes and no, depending upon the content and how the animal is displayed and portrayed. Often simplicity is the answer. Allowing the animal to exhibit its natural behaviours will be of greater benefit than taking the risk of trivialising or demeaning the animals in our care by asking it to do things which it would not naturally do.

Who are the educators? We all are, can be, or should be. Education is not the province alone of trained teachers. No-one can deny that trained teachers can put across a message about the natural world and about the environment such that it fits in with the school curriculum. However, the real reason that people come to a zoo for this component of their school education is because we have something that no-one else has ¡V living animals. I believe that the change in title from ¡§teacher¡¨ to ¡§educator¡¨, which occurred some years ago, reflects this idea that we all have something to offer in the area of education. I would like to think so because, as I stated in the second paragraph I am not a professional educator, but I hope I can add something to the advancement of the role of zoos in the general community and thus have a positive impact on the environment.

I am sure that the professional educators amongst you would agree that you do not have a mortgage on education. We have all seen the effect upon a group of young people, or not so young people, and I will return to that comment in a moment, when a Keeper enters the room or the open-air venue with a python in his/her hands, or a bird of some sort or a small mammal that people can get close to. What the Keeper has to say is regarded as something akin to words written in tablets of stone.

I said that I would return to the matter of the effect upon ¡§not-so-young¡¨ people. As part of the Education Services at Adelaide Zoo, we have a mobile Zoo called ¡¥Zoophoria¡¦, not ¡¥Zoophobia¡¦ as one of our television announcers called it at its launch some years ago. I have seen, on television, the joy which this Outreach Education service brought to a group of young adults suffering from Down¡¦s Syndrome. I make no apology for the fact that I had tears rolling down my cheeks and I promised myself then that whilever I am CEO, we will find the funding for this worthwhile project.

I am also aware that our ¡§user-pays¡¨ system of taking our mobile zoo to Retirement Villages and Old Peoples Homes has been very popular. While it could be argued that this particular part of the program may not change the views of this constituency in relation to the environment, nevertheless it is still worth doing as it shows the zoo¡¦s connection with the broader community. Our visits to kindergartens are possibly more fertile ground for influencing people and may have an impact on the environmentalists and decision makers of the future.

And lastly, we must not forget our volunteer guides, or docents, as they are called in some parts of the world. Firstly, let me say that I am totally supportive of this group of people, we in Adelaide and Monarto certainly could not undertake the programs we do without them and they also assist our Education staff in a number of areas, including the Mobile Zoo. I believe it says something good about an organisation if people are willing to give of their time to assist it in its goals and objectives.

To a large extent, the information given by the Guides or Docents must be fairly basic as they are usually not dealing with people who have come with an education purpose specifically in mind. Often they are talking to a group of adults who are simply trying to learn a little more about the zoo and its operations. It behoves us to ensure that the message given is accurate and delivered in a way that will hold the attention of this particular audience, who have come to visit purely for recreation purposes.

Who Benefits from Education?
We all do. I am firmly of the belief that to be truly successful in running a modern zoo, one must have empathy for the goals, ideals and objectives of the organisation. Being a good administrator is not enough. We all know that there are things which we do, which if we were doing them on a purely financial basis we probably wouldn¡¦t do. Running a zoo is not like anything else I have ever done. There certainly is at least a triple bottom line, financial, environmental and societal. By the last point I mean how we are regarded in the community in which we exist.

Our public benefit from education; it makes them better global citizens. Certainly, those young people who come as part of the school curriculum benefit from education as they become the decision-makers of the future. Our staff benefit from education, better trained staff, better career opportunities and hopefully, a more stable workforce.

As I said at the ARAZPA Conference last year, all of our staff benefit from the education message we deliver, not just the Keeping and/or Horticulture staff who one tends to think of first. The effort should be made to make our Maintenance Staff, Gatekeeping Staff, Catering and Retailing Staff better informed. They also can be our ambassadors. As they usually wear a uniform, just like the Keepers, the organisation will to some extent, be judged by how they interact with the public. Well-informed and polite staff can do wonders for our image.

The organisation as a whole benefits from education, as does the whole zoo community. Educating our visitors, more than 600 million world-wide each year, about the legitimate roles of zoos will mean that they will be less likely to accept or believe negative or ill-informed criticism from animal rights groups or anti-zoo campaigners.

I sometimes think that we in the Zoo World are the victims of our own success. As I said at the beginning of this talk, the original zoos were simply menageries and people were happy to come and gawk. Gradually forward-thinking people within the zoo community recognised that the living sentient beings in their care deserved better. Thus began a worldwide move to improve conditions for the animals in our care. The public began to expect this demonstration of caring, sometimes faster than some zoos could, or would, change. This led to an increasing amount of pressure to change and we often find ourselves defending our right to hold animals.

I make it quite clear that I could not have become involved in this profession or remained in it for so long if I did not believe we have higher ideals than simply having animals in captivity for ¡§vulgar admiration¡¨. Our role is to leave people with a sense of wonder and a desire to help save our vanishing wildlife, each one of which is a ¡§living work of art¡¨.

Who then is our Audience?
The theme of this conference is the encouraging of stewardship through conservation education in a multi-cultural and inter-generational approach. I have touched a little on the fact that we deal with visitors, or go to see people right through from kindergarten to retirement villages. So much for the students, but what about the teachers or educators. We should not forget that these people need to be able to relate to our audience and it is essential that we use educators from across all age classes; from the very young to more mature or retired people.

The use of school age children to talk to other children is an idea I stole from the San Francisco Zoo and it works wonderfully well. Both student and teacher benefit from this approach, the one because he/she can relate to the young person giving the information; the other because self confidence is built up and a feeling of great self worth can be engendered. The use of these young people with older people sometimes works as well as there is often a natural empathy or rapport between young people and grandparents.

The bulk of our educators will tend to be in those years between 25 and 55 or 60 years and they have the task of dealing with visitors or students in all age classes. However, most of our volunteers tend to be of more mature years and they can certainly speak with authority to young people, with whom as I said already, they have great empathy. They are also well regarded by mature age visitors. This resource should be capitalised upon.

Australia is, I believe, the most multi-cultural country on Earth. Despite our small population, only 20 million people, I believe that there are people there from more than 170 countries. This being said, most Australians, unless they are first generation Australians born to non-English speaking migrants, are not comfortable speaking anything other than English. Thus while we try to recognise cultural differences in our audiences, we still tend to encourage the students to become little, English-speaking, Australians. There is nothing particularly wrong with this but I believe we could do it better.

One group which requires different treatment is our aboriginal people who are without doubt among the most disadvantaged groups in the country. These people require a different skill set, but I will leave this to later in the week when Ian Walton from Monarto Zoological Park will address this issue.

Regardless of race or ethnicity, one thing which will work for most people is using the things which we have and no-one else has. I refer of course to the animals which we hold in trust for future generations. I realise that I am something of a dinosaur or even a troglodyte, but I worry when I see vast amounts of money spent on electronic wizardry and gadgetry and the animals become an adjunct to the technology. It must be the other way round. We should instil the sense of wonder using the animals and regard the computer screens, etc., as an adjunct to our charges, something which can be used to glean more information once the imagination has been caught by the living animal.

We must be aware of and inform people about the effects of global warming, we must extol the benefits of solar energy and wind farms, we must encourage reduction and recycling, we must discuss the problems caused by destruction of habitat, we must discourage the use of plastic bags. All of these things are good, but must be delivered within the context of the animals we serve. Some of these messages may be gleaned from books or, increasingly, the Internet. What cannot be obtained from these sources is the ¡§wow¡¨ factor of being up close and personal with a lion, a bear, a kangaroo or whatever.

I repeat what I said a few moments ago. We must never allow technology to replace our point of difference ¡V the animals we hold in trust. We must continue to connect with our public; this means giving the story in simple, clearly enunciated terms. This is not the time to be spouting sophisticated education theory, this is the time to enthuse. This is not the time to show how erudite and well-read we are, this is the time to involve our visitors. Remember, we may be the experts, but if we lose our audience, we lose our chance to be effective. Our audience may be better educated than they were a generation ago, but their attention spans have shortened and we need to grab them and hold them. The use of simple language and things they can see around them is more liable to bring success than the use of abstract theories, no matter how worthy.

We must not be prophets of doom but we must be realistic in the way in which we use the stories we tell. We must not give the public a sense of complacency, a feeling that all is well; a balance is necessary and when we put out our good news media stories, we have a wonderful opportunity to educate the public about the real situation and gain their support. Every media story should have a conservation angle to it. The birth of lion cubs gives an opportunity to mention the threats lions face as well as emphasise their cuteness.

The role of zoos has changed. It has changed from being simply a series of ¡§stamp collections¡¨ to being institutions with important conservation and education ideals and responsibilities. This change has come both from within and without the zoo profession. More and more species are being driven towards extinction, mostly as a result of burgeoning population, and zoos have joined forces with government and non-government agencies to reverse, or at least stop the decline.

Public perception and requirements have also assisted in this transition process. This change has been welcomed and has had a positive effect upon the lives of the animals we hold in trust.

As I approach the end of this address, I wish to leave you with a quote. This quote comes from a book called ¡§The Prophet¡¨ which was written in 1923 by the Lebanese writer, poet and artist, Kahlil Gilbran and concerns teaching:

No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise, he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.
The astronomer may speak to you of his understanding of space , but he cannot give you his understanding.
The musician may sing to you of the rhythm which is in all space, but he cannot give you the ear which arrests the rhythm, nor the voice that echoes it.
And he who is versed in the science of numbers can tell of the regions of weight and measure, but he cannot conduct you thither.
For the vision of one man lends not its wings to another man

In short, it is your task, no, our task, to enthuse those whom we address; to give them the tools to undertake further learning. This then is the task for all of us. Never, unfortunately, has there been a greater need for zoos. We must get this message across clearly and use the message to assist in the conservation goals to which we are all committed. The role of the conservation educator has never been more vital than it is today.