Public Communication Practices and Beliefs Among Conservation Scientists and Practitioners in a Midwest U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Program.

Abstract

Public communication is increasingly recognized as a key component in successful natural resource management within government agencies responsible for conservation. However, communication practices and beliefs among government conservation scientists and practitioners are not well studied or understood. Herein, we present the results of a communication survey disseminated to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) employees working for the agency’s Ecological Services program, a program charged with endangered species recovery. We asked respondents about public communication practices and beliefs, and factors that may motivate or discourage participation in public communication activities. Study respondents reported the lowest levels of participation in media-related, one-way communication activities, including writing educational materials and answering media inquiries, and the engaging in one-on-one communication with stakeholders most frequently. While our results suggest respondents engage in frequent two-way communication with stakeholders, our results also suggest they mostly communicate with stakeholders remotely, and especially by email, rather than in-person. Furthermore, only 36% reported they go out of their way to visit people in communities. On the other hand, a majority agreed they learn new things about species and landscapes (80%) from conversations with stakeholders and often use this knowledge to solve conservation problems (89%). With respect to factors that encouraging and discouraging participation, 93% of respondents indicated a desire to produce better conservation outcomes motivates them to communicate with stakeholders and the public. Many agreed that a lack of time was an obstacle to participating in public communication (68%), but an even larger majority (86%) indicated public unfamiliarity with USFWS presented a barrier to public communication. Similarly, majority of employees also agreed public and stakeholder unfamiliarity with themselves and their work, also presented a communication barrier (62%). Our findings suggest agencies responsible for conservation may want to assess whether agency and its employees adequately invest in communication activities that foster public familiarity with the agency and its employees.