Papua New Guinea

A cuscus comes to class

As a nation that is guardian of high biodiversity, unique fauna and flora, and large areas of intact rain forest, Papua New Guinea (PNG) is a high priority area for conservationists. The nation’s unique landholding system, in which the government owns less than 5% of the total land area, poses unique challenges for conservation. Because of this landholding system, education must play an even larger role in conservation for PNG than for many other countries.

WCS has been one of the most active conservation organizations in PNG for more than 20 years. WCS’s Education Division began working in PNG in 1997 through contacts established by the Bronx Zoo’s Bird Department and WCS’s Asia Program.

WCS’s education program in Papua New Guinea is a model in terms of how an international conservation organization can plant seeds that flower into a long-term, sustainable effort managed and implemented by an in-country NGO. WCS’s primary partner, the Research and Conservation Foundation of PNG had virtually no education program in 1997. Because of the collaborative effort launched in that year by WCS, RCF now: 

Deforestation drama in WCS workshop

• is running its own teacher workshops based on WCS’s Pablo Python Looks at Animals and HELP curriculua

• has expanded the program from three to five provinces

• has written and published a PNG version of the Pablo Python curriculum

• has built its own Teacher Resource Center

• has collaborated with a local teacher college on a course that uses HELP and Pablo Python to train pre-service teachers in materials and methods of environmental education

• publishes a quarterly teacher newsletter.

Teachers trained through this program work in some of the most remote schools in the world. Some are located in villages accessible to the outside world only by air or boat. Students at these schools and others in larger PNG cities are receiving the first environmental and school-based outdoor education of their lives. In many instances, teachers in PNG do not receive government curricula for years in a row. Some of the teachers we have trained are using the WCS curricula to teach all subjects.

Flower dissection

AREAS OF PROJECT ACTIVITY: The project is based in Goroka,  Eastern Highlands Province. Participants in the in-service workshops have come from five provinces. Participants in the pre-service college course have come from throughout PNG, as well as the Solomon Islands.

CURRENT COLLABORATORS: Research and Conservation Foundation of Papua New Guinea; Goroka Teachers College

YEAR INITIATED: 1997

TARGET AUDIENCE: In-service and pre-service