Communication, Education and Participation
(CEPA) Strategy 2008-2012 for the
Galapagos National Park Service

Galapagos, 2007-09

The Galapagos National Park Service's new Management Plan called for a reevaluation of the way it managed its relationship with local, national and international communities.

To this end, between 2007 and 2009 I worked on drafting and implementing the institution's new five-year Communication, Education and Participation (CEPA) Strategy.

This type of work becomes very real indeed, when what you are trying to fix looks like this:

For at least the ten years prior to 2005, the management of land and marine protected areas was gravely affected by events, largely related to the sea cucumber trade, which culminated in a series of violent demonstrations and other actions against the Galapagos National Park Service.

In 2004, the Park Service went through a notorious institutional crisis which saw no less than a dozen Directors - fully appointed and temporary - try to stabilise a volatile and politicised situation.

In the meantime, the growing pace of human development on the islands posed new conservation challenges, and a fast-growing population threatened long-term sustainability.

A new vision

This was, very roughly, the backdrop against which the Park Service's new Management Plan was drawn up, which explains to a great degree why such a big emphasis was placed on a new concept for its work, a shared vision of the future of the archipelago in which the local communities are conscious of the value of their natural capital and develop incentives for an active participation in its conservation.

This formally extends the National Park Service's work beyond the protected areas to include the environmental impact of any and all human activity on the islands.

To put it concisely, the National Park Service has to have good relations with the local communities if its work is to be successful.

Basic Objetive 4

To obtain greater support to the Park Service's work by the local communities through communicating the socio-economic importance of nature conservation, promoting their participation in the conservation work and making use of the protected areas for environmental education and interpretation.

To achieve this Objetive, the new Management Plan presents new Communication, Environmental Education and Participation activities, and my job was to lead the efforts in the development and implementation of the new institutional strategy to carry out those actions.

Challenges for change

This was not the first time that significant changes were proposed in these areas. Throught the years, many workshops and studies had documented the Park Service's social shortcomings and proposed solutions for them, and yet change within the institution never came.

This time, with a new Management Plan calling for institutional changes across the board, we had the best change in a long time to introduce long-lasting improvements.

This was tricky from the start. I quickly became aware of the reasons behind a strong reluctance for change within the Communication and Environmental Education departments, reasons that went beyond the drafting of any kind of document.

In such an institutional environment, any important change would necessarily be a gradual process, which would require strong diplomatic skills as well as technical know-how.

Drawing up the Strategy

Araucaria XXI, the project of the Spanish International Aid Agency in Galapagos, of which I would become the Head of Communications, was asked by the National Park Service to lead the efforts to draw up the new Communication, Education and Participation Strategy.

We first asked for the input of Javier Benayas, Environmental Professor at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, who had participated in the creation of the Park Service's new Management Plan two years previously.

A team was then put together to carry out the necessary research and produce the Strategy document itself: Tania Villegas from the National Park Service (later to become the Environment Minister's Galapagos advisor), and Joaquín Carrasco (then Head of Communications for Araucaria XXI), Olga Ibarmia (environmental education specialist) and myself, all three from Araucaria XXI.

Having been revised by the Park Service's Communication and Environmental Education staff, the final document^[1] was approved by its Director as official document on the 4th of July 2007.^[2]

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Implementation

The Strategy, as well as the Park Service's new Management Plan, calles for a reorganising of the Communication and Environmental Education deptartments into a single unit, which included a strong Participation component, and which had a presence in all inhabited islands.

More importantly, it also calles for a redefinition of what the work itself entails, in which each product or action is strategic in nature and follows a set of fundamental principles and ideas previosuly identified, prioritised and cuantified. This is the only way to make sure the work can be realistically measured, and its budget justified according to its results.

These kinds of changes, especially within public administration, are notoriously difficult to achieve. We were able to make progress by following several processes a the same time.

Firstly, we had to work to make sure the new ideas behind the Manegement Plan, this new shared vision of the future of the archipelago that includes all local stakeholders, was understood by the Park Service staff.

At the same time, the institution-wide restructuring that was taking place in all areas had to be managed so that this new, single Communication, Education and Participation unit was properly included in these changes.

Thirdly, we worked to improve the professional quality of the work that was already being carried out, both in the quality and strategic nature of the products and actions undertaken by existing staff.

Eventually, work in all three areas started to produce results, made visible through a series of communication products of a strategic nature that reflect a new, single vision of the importance of nature conservation for all.

Presentations

I carried out a number of internal presentations to try and put across some of the main points around the need for a new Strategy.

Below are some of the visual aids I used for these presentations.