A greater emphasis on environmental education in schools is needed to improve children’s understanding of the risks facing the environment, including the conservation of endangered species such as the African Savannah Elephant.
That is the finding of a new study by Bournemouth University, published in the journal Diversity, co-authored by Dr Katie Thompson and Professor Genoveva Esteban from the Department of Life and Environmental Sciences.
Researchers carried out surveys amongst children aged 10 to 16 at schools in Kenya, South Africa and England which revealed a lack of knowledge about the importance of elephants to the natural environment and indifferent attitudes towards conservation work as a profession.
“This study came about because when I visited a school in South Africa during earlier research into elephants, I was struck by how few of the children had never seen an elephant in the wild, even though they were right next to a game reserve,” explained Katie Thompson, Research Associate at Bournemouth University who led the study.
Katie previously travelled to South Africa to research elephant conservation“As this is the generation who are going to shape conservation efforts in the future, we need to know more about how they perceive wildlife conservation now,” she added.
The results of the surveys showed that children in South Africa and England were more likely to fear elephants and were not aware of the important role that they have in the environment, or how they benefit other species.
“This was a very powerful finding in the study, if children do not understand why elephants are important now, why should they care about learning how to protect them in the future,” Katie said.
The study also revealed that children in all three countries did not have a clear understanding of the threats that elephants face in the wild or the reasons behind their declining numbers.
Another important finding was how the children perceived wildlife conservation as a career choice. “It was apparent that the children did not regard it as a rewarding career or recognise that it can be highly impactful and achievable. This was true in the UK but most notably amongst the children who are living next to reserves,” said Katie.
Concerningly, many girls in Kenya referred to wildlife guides as ‘he’ when answering questions about the job, so there appears to be an assumption that it is a job for men which is something that the researchers believe education could help to change.
Katie and the team also note that the results are in line with some of the narratives around elephants that come out of each country. “Kenya and the UK do a lot of work around anti-poaching campaigns and combatting the illegal wildlife trade which perhaps explains why children in those countries recognised that as a threat to elephants. In contrast, in South Africa it is more of a space management problem and a feeling that they need to constrain the elephants. It was surprising to us that this came out in children in this age group,” Katie explained.
The researchers conclude that education of environmental and conservation issues needs to start early, not just in the three countries in this study, but globally and for all species.
“These findings came from just looking at elephants which is obviously a flagship species in Africa. So if they do not have the understanding about these striking animals and their importance to the natural world, it will be even more difficult to highlight conservation of smaller, less familiar species,” concluded co-author Genoveva Esteban, Professor of Microbial Ecology at Bournemouth University.
The full study has been published in scientific journal Diversity.
