A new book for communicators - and more

Good morning everyone:

A new book for communicators and some good news from WWF, one of our international organisation partners - read on!

"Enabling Ecoaction: a handbook for working with the public on conservation" is a joint publication by the Humane Society International, WWF Australia and IUCN's Commission on Education and Communication (CEC). The authors, Les Robinson and Andreas Glanzig, have produced the handbook to assist the intended users - environmental educators, managers, local government environment officers and others - to move away from traditional brochures and posters for the public to participative community-driven approaches to conservation that focus on enabling collective action for change. Designed especially for the many people with natural science degrees now involved in community projects to conserve species, habitats and ecosystems, the 176-page springbound book is written in an informal style and provides a wealth of ideas, strategies, techniques and checklists to design and implement education and action projects. Here's just a taste of the topics covered:

Part 1 - Reaching the Public: covering a range of areas such as Getting in touch with people's values; Making the leap from awareness to action; Why people act or don't act; Useful change models etc. Part 2 - Implementing a successful project, covering Audience participation design; Making your program measurable; Know your audience; Planning your programme; Crafting strong messages; Communication pitfalls etc. Part 3 - Further information, including 9 appendices on topics such as: Making a communication plan; Findings from New South Wales Research; Findings from interesting US attitude research; Glossary of key communication terms; as well as a list of further reading and useful websites.

The book is available in PDF format and can be downloaded from CEC's web pages at http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/other_news/news.cfm?uNewsID=892
5. You can also purchase a hard copy from WWF Australia at a cost of US$25.00 (this allows for air mail postage). Contact their publications office at publications@wwf.org.au for further information.

Good news from WWF - they have announced a new five-year partnership with HSBC, one of the largest banking and financial services organizations in the world. They will be working together on global freshwater systems with a focus on reversing the decline in freshwater habitats in Brazil, China, the UK, and the US. Read more here http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/other_news/news.cfm?uNewsID=892
5 - and take some time to follow the link to WWF's Living Waters Programme which has brought many benefits to wetlands in general and Ramsar sites in particular over several years.

Best wishes for the weekend, Sandra Hails, Ramsar Secretariat

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Sandra Hails, CEPA Programme Officer
Ramsar Convention Secretariat
Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 999 0176; Fax: +41 22 999 0169
E-mail: hails@ramsar.org
Web Site: http://ramsar.org
CEPA mini-Web site: http://ramsar.org/outreach_index.htm