Communicating for Nature:
The Rare/University of Texas – El Paso Partnership

Margie Tabunakawai first set her eyes on snowfall just a few weeks ago.

Born and raised in Fiji, she is more familiar with diving into the crystal clear waters of the Pacific and swimming alongside sea turtles than plowing through the cold winters of Washington, D.C. But now, Margie, a Fisheries Assistant at the Fiji Locally Managed Marine Areas Network, is half way around the world at Georgetown University learning how to use communication skills to permanently change destructive behavior toward the environment. And, through an unprecedented partnership with Rare and the University of Texas – El Paso (UTEP), she along with 38 others around the globe, will earn a Master’s degree in Communication upon completion of this two-year program.

This collaboration is the first of its kind. Coordinated out of the Sam Donaldson Center for Communication Studies at UTEP, conservationists who enroll in the Rare/UTEP M.A. program tackle real issues harming the environment, like illegal bush-meat hunting and dynamite fishing. The conservationists (known as campaign managers) learn social marketing tools aimed to engage the community to combat and change destructive practices. “Rare believes that conservation is all about people, and the root cause of every major environmental challenge is human behavior,” noted Rare President and CEO, Brett Jenks.

UTEP is home to Dr. Arvind Singhal, one of the top researchers in the field of social marketing. By combining academic theory and on-the-ground field work, Dr. Singhal believes that Rare's Pride program and the Rare/UTEP partnership “is a model of strategic alliance for conservation and beyond. It is a model of how social change should happen.”

The M.A. in Communication curriculum draws on an important blend of social and behavioral science theories, core communication practices, and guidance from the top conservation leaders. The primary objective of the curriculum is to teach the campaign managers how to use this knowledge to design and execute a social marketing campaign that is tailored to their target community and, most importantly, produce measureable conservation results. Campaign managers spend two years alternating between coursework at their university and actual campaign work at their conservation site.

With a B.A. in Marine Affairs, Margie has already identified a major ecological threat in the Fiji Islands: illegal poaching of marine-life. “It’s a constant issue identified by our communities,” she said. Her goal is to reduce illegal fishing, advocate for prosecution of illegal fishers, and increase awareness of “no-take zones.” To do this, she needs to empower her community, learn how to engage an audience, and influence behavior.

“We don’t want to teach [the students] conservation – they are already conservationists. We want to give them the capacity, skill, and human resources to communicate conservation in such a way that it becomes a priority for society,” said Jenks.

Rare and UTEP offer the M.A. program in four languages; English, Spanish, Mandarin and Bahasa Indonesia, and campaign managers study at a partner university specific to that language. This year nine conservationists are enrolled in the English language program, housed at Georgetown University; 11 in the program in Bogor, Indonesia; 11 in Latin America at the University of Guadalajara; and seven at the Mandarin language program in Kunming, China. The program plans to increase the number of participants at each training program every year.

A UTEP faculty member oversees the implementation of the curriculum at each global training site. Dr. Singhal will be the representative for the English-language training program in Washington, D.C.; Dr. Stacey Sowards for Bahasa Indonesia; Dr. Frank Perez  for the Spanish-language program; and Dr. Kenneth Yang for the Mandarin based program.

These professors have worked with Rare extensively and have already made several visits to the training sites they oversee. “The collaboration between UTEP and Rare helps to bridge the academic and professional realms. Academics gain first-hand experience and knowledge of the developments in the field,” said Dr. Frank Perez, who is also Chair of the Department of Communication at UTEP.

Wendy J. Paulson, the Chairman of Rare’s Board of Trustees  agrees this program is an ideal partnership. “Rare and UTEP have succeeded in finding a place to work together for social change: a place where theory meets practice, strategic business acumen meets the world of communications, and global efforts meet community based endeavors."  

For conservationists like Margie Tabunakawai, the partnership is a culmination of education and resources in the field that would have been difficult to obtain otherwise. “It means a whole lot of opportunity for me,” she says. “I can do so much in my community with the skills I am learning and I know everyone will benefit from that. “