ID: 2143
Presenting Author: Yıldıray Lise
Session: 532 - Simple, Evidence Based Communication Approaches for Successful Biodiversity Conservation and Management
Status: pending
Simple, evidence-based communication secured community support for biodiversity offsets, enabling inclusive grazing planning and national replication through participatory approaches.
The TANAP Resilient Steppe Offset Project demonstrates how simple, evidence-based communication can enable long-term stakeholder support in biodiversity conservation. Developed by WSP and partnering NGO, the program engaged 9 villages across three offset sites, where traditional grazing and ecological degradation posed challenges to biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Teams met with mukhtars, livestock owners, and agricultural authorities using locally tailored language, visual materials, and field demonstrations. Rather than technical prescriptions, biodiversity management was framed as a shared solution to local concerns, like declining pasture productivity, water scarcity, and erosion. Ecological survey results, grazing pressure maps helped show degradation and benefits of holistic grazing. These materials helped communities visualize the impact of current practices and the rationale behind proposed interventions. A technical visit to a pilot site built trust, especially in initially sceptical communities.
Villager surveys shaped site-specific plans, infrastructure support (solar powered water systems, fencing, mobile shelters), and training programs for herd owners and government staff, which addressed community needs and strengthened adherence to grazing plans. Inclusive communication approaches, including gender-sensitive meetings and youth engagement, programs at schools, ensured broad participation. Community satisfaction scores averaged 4.18/5, and the model has since been adopted in a national GEF project on nature-based solutions in agriculture.
Yıldıray Lise is Director at Nature Conservation Centre, an NGO in Türkiye, with expertise in biodiversity conservation, steppe and forest ecology, and participatory planning at the landscape scale.
Coauthor 1: Meliha Beyza Kozak