A training course entitled “Environmental Educations for National Parks and Nature Reserve of Vietnam” was funded by the Buck Kingsman Small Grant of College of Natural Resources, University of California, and organized by Wildlife At Risk (WAR) and Dong Nai Culture Nature Reserve in Dong Nai province to raise capacity of environmental educators on nature conservation.

Photo: WAR

The course provided a great forum to share environmental education experiences among national parks and nature reserves. In additions, the training course provided financial supports to some participants to implement their excellent environmental education initiatives at their national parks and nature reserves.

It is participated by nearly 30 environmental educators from 20 national parks and nature reserves in the South and Central Highland of Vietnam. All of them have at least three years of experience on environmental education. Some of them held high position in their national parks or nature reserves.

The training course was designed and delivered by Ms. Do Thi Thanh Huyen, WAR’s Wildlife Education Manager and Ms. Susan Lynn Carpenter, professor from College of Natural Resources, University of California. The trainers have rich experiences in training on environmental education, leadership and environment mediation. Especially, Ms. Susan Carpenter voluntarily participated in designing and delivering this training course.

The training program was carefully developed to meet specific needs of environmental educators from national parks and nature reserves of Vietnam. In addition, the training course included a serial of creative and active learning activities to encourage participations from every trainee.

A few study tours and field trips were also included to comfort the experience sharing such as the study tour to Cu Chi Wildlife Rescue Station and Cu Chi tunnel for the participants to learn about environmental education for tourists and endangered wildlife rescuing activities.

At the Dong Nai Culture and Nature Reserve where the training course was organized, the participants took part in a field trip to the forest to learn about environmental education for students and tourists, joined a community club to learn how to organize environmental education for local people and visited environmental education activities for secondary school students. One highlight of the training course was collaborative leadership content that helped the participants to become a more effective leader when coming back to their national parks and nature reserves.

Right after the course ends, three best small projects with a total budget of up to approximately USD2,500 will be awarded to three national parks and nature reserves in order to educate children, teachers, local people and tourist on nature conservation.

“Currently, there is almost no official environmental education course in Vietnam. All environmental education staff learn about it through their jobs. This training course is a special opportunity to hand on experiences, skills and tools in order to improve effectiveness of environmental education in national parks and nature reserves in Vietnam. We expect that every people who work on environmental education will be connected in order to be more effective in their works and thus contribute greater to the nature of Vietnam,” said Ms. Do Thi Thanh Huyen.

After the training course, the participants will keep sharing their experience within the network. They will also get further supports from WAR in implementing environmental education activities. WAR will also seek for financial supports in order to conduct similar training courses for other national parks and nature reserves in Vietnam./.

( Compiled by VNF )