Co-Designing Conservation With (Not For) Communities
Dr. Kayla Cranston | Executive Director of Co-design Science & Innovation, Conservation Psychology Institute at Antioch University
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A growing number of environmental professionals are realizing that equitable and meaningful engagement of local community members in the development of programming is essential for catalyzing the durable, long-term action needed to reach this mission. Many who attempt to co-design programs with (not for) communities find that choosing the most effective strategies to accomplish this task is crucial and can oftentimes feel daunting. In this program session, we will discuss lessons learned from our first year of a three-year participatory process that we are implementing across 4 zoos in the US to engage their surrounding communities in the co-design of locally relevant programming. We will also discuss our use the Five Factors of Sustained Engagement as guideposts and measurements of success in the co-design of environmental programming with communities and how participants might use them to guide their own co-design processes.
About the Speaker
As Executive Director of Co-design Science & Innovation at the Conservation Psychology Institute at Antioch University, Dr. Cranston leads environmental professionals and surrounding communities through co-design processes to collaboratively create conservation programming with the humans who will be most impacted by that programming. Dr. Cranston designs and implements science-based strategy to increase long-term engagement in conservation programming with an eye to inclusive evaluation practices to promote a sustainable relationship between a diverse population of humans and nature. Visit www.kaylacranston.com for more on the framework she created to integrate the science of human behavior into the development of capacity for biodiversity conservation.
