Parallel universes, awards and acting like wolves

I was at the British and Irish Aquarium and Zoo Association (BIAZA) annual communication and education conference last week. I'm one of the external judges for their education wards - they have categories for formal and general public education. I think the awards are a great idea, they help to promote and share best practice among educators, raise the profile of education within a site and acknowledge the hard work that education departments put into their programmes. Plus of course, winning wards is always great for media interest and for funders to see. Details of the 2005 and 2006 winners are on the BIAZA website.

Other than the award ceremony, there was also four days packed with site visits and paper presentations. Of particular interest were some marketing presentations about using the Internet and creating profiles for sites online - making the most of the Internet as a space to create presence for your organisation. Any institution can make a facebook profile, a myspace page, upload videos onto youtube and of course write blogs!

The Living Rainforest director, Karl Hansen, presented on their plans to develop the world's first carbon neutral glasshouse - a very exciting scheme, and one which fits in very well with the need to improve the sustainability of botanic garden sites. They are looking for corporate partners to raise the final portion of funding to ensure the project goes ahead. Details are on the website.

We also took part in a fantastic 'Speaking Wolf' workshop, by education award winner Wildwood, and heard all about an evaluation programme that Dutch zoos have been taking part in. I spoke about the award scheme and some of the best submissions, along with how to develop a good submission for the 2008 awards.




It would be very interesting to hear how you feel about the idea of awards - do you think botanic garden education staff would be interested in submitting their programmes for consideration if BGCI set up an awards programme? Let us know!

Wining and dining to promote UK zoos

Monday night saw me at the seat of power in the UK - the Houses of Parliament, at Westminster, for a reception to 'celebrate the work of BIAZA and its membership'. BIAZA is the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquaria, a hard working network and conservation, education and scientific wildlife charity.

The reception was to bring the work of zoos and their role in conservation to the attention of UK decision makers. By boosting their profile, and explaining exactly what it is that zoos do, with their complimentary activities of scientific research, CEPA and conservation projects, this helps to ensure that policy makers keep zoos in mind as potential partners when developing ideas. The higher the profile, the higher the regard for zoos and their work and the more they will be involved by policy makers as stakeholders in conservation discussion.

This advocacy role of BIAZA is very important. None of their members can reach politically powerful individuals by themselves, but as part of a network, they benefit from strength in numbers. BIAZA provides a good model for anyone who is a member of a national network, whether of botanic gardens or environmental education etc. By working together, gardens can also benefit by being greater than the sum of their parts, particularly on advocacy.

For more information on BIAZA's role and the way it works, download their leaflet and have a look at their website.