Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA)

This toolkit, published by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (SCBD) and the World Conservation Union (IUCN), is designed to support implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAP).

From the website: "Communication, Education and Public Awareness (CEPA) are important instruments for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. CEPA provides the link from science and ecology to people's social and economic reality. It supplies the oil for the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). CEPA deals with the processes that motivate and mobilize individual and collective action. It comprises a range of social instruments including information exchange, dialogue, education, and marketing. The CEPA instruments work best when part of a broader instrument mix - e.g. combined with legal, financial and other instruments - that is used to develop, implement and manage the National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans (NBSAP)."

The toolkit consists of 4 sections that contain guidance and tools for CEPA interventions by NBSAP coordinators.

• Section 1. What is CEPA and how to get started
• Section 2. How to network and raise awareness?
• Section 3. How to engage stakeholders and mainstream biodiversity?
• Section 4. How to plan communication strategically?

From the introduction: "The sections and the issues in each section are based on surveys exploring the questions of end users. Most of the content is organized on the basis of the question 'how to'.

As NBSAP coordinators are busy people and have little time to read, the content of each 'How To' aspect of CEPA in all sections is presented in three different ways:

1. Fact sheets
2. Examples
3. Checklists

 

As an example of the contents, from the section on how to engage stakeholders, the fact sheet section includes when to use formal and non-formal communication. The example section includes the following: a case study of a government intervention in Russia which involved local residents protesting a proposed nature preserve, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Biodiversity Knowledge Fairs project of the Equator Initiative, and a World Conservation Union (IUCN) initiative called "Leaders for Nature" that was designed to help corporate leaders understand their role in the protection of nature.

Included in the website are links to videos, PowerPoint presentations and brochures, documents for further reading, and links to useful websites.

There is also a CEPA toolkit blog by Frits Hesselink available: the Art of Positive Change. The printed version of the CEPA toolkit will be distributed to the CBD focal points for NBSAP coordinators (contact person: David Ainsworth, david.ainsworth@cbd.int).

Click here to download the English version (310 pages) in PDF format.
Click here to download the French version (314 pages) in PDF format.
Click here to download the Spanish version (312 pages) in PDF format.