Five psychological principles of codesigning conservation <i>with</i> (not for) communities

Abstract

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 conserve wildlife. Many who attempt to codesign 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 paper, a validated psychometric instrument called the Five Factors of Sustained Engagement (Five Factors) was used to analyze community engagement projects from two AZA-accredited institutions, highlighting how the leaders of each project believe they have fostered each factor in their projects. Professionals can use the Five Factors as guideposts and evaluation criteria to increase the long-term motivation of community members to engage in conservation efforts over time. The discussion offers strategies that psychological research has shown to increase long-term motivation for wildlife conservation and suggest how to implement them in the codesign of conservation programming with the communities that are impacted by it the most. Together, this synthesis offers an innovative, psychology-based approach to fostering and evaluating the success of sustainable community engagement for conservation Wildlife conservation projects are rarely su long-term engagement from the humans who are most impacted by those projects.