“Programa EduGat”: el componente educativo de un proyecto para la conservación del gato andino

Abstract

The EduGat Program arose from the urgent need of conserving the Andean cat (Oreailurus jacobita), which is threatened of extinction and forms part of the natural and cultural heritage of Argentina. It is a conservation education initiative aiming to support the conservation of this felid through the participation of local communities. Here we analyze the first phase of this project, revising its planning and implementation, and carry out an evaluation of its tools, activities and strategies against its specific objectives, to provide feedbacks for its next phase. The program has already completed seven campaigns in the high-Andes communities located within the potential distribution range of the Andean cat in the Argentine provinces of Jujuy, Salta, Catamarca and Tucumán. Until the moment, we visited 39 localities, carried out formal education in 18 schools (reaching 393 students), no-formal activities, 5 participative community workshops, festivals and informal interviews. Each target public was reached by a different set of activities. Evaluation was carried out using a range of quantitative and qualitative tools, including questionnaires, observations, and external evaluation. The analysis of the evaluation process suggested that our activities for school-age children were particular successful, but also revealed the need to increase efforts to guarantee teacher and adult participation in conservation plans. To improve the effectiveness of the Program, we are implementing new initiatives: workshops aiming to create a network of educators; new educational materials to improve the comprehension of ecological concepts; a community conservation centre to increase the presence and interaction of our project with local people; facilitate capacity building for the development of a community-leaded ecotourism initiative that will provide an example of sustainable, and profitable, use of natural resources. We are also developing a new set of evaluation tools, to increase our ability to correctly evaluate progresses of the EduGat Program.