The Future of Conservation Communication

Communicate, an international conference on Conservation is held annually in Bristol. You can now read summaries of presentations and view slides from the 2006 conference on the Communicate website. Video clips from the conference will also be available soon.

Of particular interest was the session entitled "Dreaming of Tomorrow" which starred non other than Neil Nightingale, head of the BBC Natural History Unit. You can read more about what Neil had to say on the relationship between the broadcasting industry and conservation communication here

Neil's words on the Future for Broadcasting Conservation:
The future for broadcasting is all about interactivity and engagement. Springwatch and Autumnwatch demonstrate how the BBC are applying this approach. The programmes have a related web survey encouraging citizen science – this is the biggest public engagement study of seasonal climate change in the world. The associated message board is turning the issues into a conversation.

Learning to date has given the BBC the tools required to launch the Breathing Places campaign with committed partners. The BBC will undertake mass marketing and partners will engage individuals in their locality. The aim is to get 1 million people involved with conservation action in their local environment over next 3 years.

Audiences are changing and broadcasters are changing accordingly. Climate change is actually affecting us and audiences are finally becoming interested in receiving conservation messages.