Abstract

We are experiencing unprecedented destruction of the natural environment, leading to an unraveling of ecosystem services supporting human existence. Scientists predict that environmental destruction will cause human suffering and loss over time. Humans are causing these problems. Yet, little is being done at the individual, organizational, or global level to make massive changes in decision-making or behavior that would reverse environmental destruction. The interdisciplinary field of environmental conservation aims to protect Earth’s natural resources for current and future generations through promoting awareness, knowledge, skill building, and behavioral changes so that recipients take action on environmental issues. According to the United Nations Belgrade Charter definition developed in 1975, “The goal of environmental education is to develop a world population that is aware of, and concerned about, the environment and its associated problems, and which has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations and commitment to work individually and collectively toward solutions of current problems and the prevention of new ones.”2 Environmental educators and communicators are charged with educating and informing their target audiences and motivating them to take action or behave in an environmentally conscious manner. Despite these goals, environmental professionals and organizations fail to realize outcomes that produce behaviors at the necessary level of consistency or scale to address the current crisis of unprecedented destruction of the natural environment. In this presentation, we examined factors for this failure, including historical teachings in the field, changes in mass communication and marketing, and a lack of strategy and measurement. Only some of these concepts are covered in this abstract.