Conservation Education for Advancing Natural Resources Knowledge and Building Capacity for Volunteerism

Natural resource agencies increasingly need to engage nontraditional stakeholders for public support and financial resources, especially considering a decline in traditional activities such as hunting and fishing. Conservation educators recognized this need, and they are creating new networks of outreach and service programs. The Michigan Conservation Stewards Program (CSP) was designed to reach new stakeholders for natural resource management as an adult conservation education and volunteerism program, similar in format to Master Naturalist programs. We observed these benefits of the CSP for learners and agencies: (1) increased ecological knowledge; (2) improved attitudes toward management practices and toward the natural resource agency; and (3) an initial corps of volunteers with specific conservation skills. This education program advanced knowledge and transformed volunteer capacity, producing detectable short-term positive impacts. An anticipated value of conservation education programs such as CSP will be long-term support from nontraditional stakeholders in natural resource management.