Public Engagement Working Group

The guidelines comprise modalities of involving people in order to raise awareness, share knowledge and findings, create opportunities for engagement and increase or achieve tolerance for the species and for the project. Furthermore, by collecting and summarizing good practices and lessons learned from different conservation projects and organizations we want to illustrate possible (successful and unsuccessful approaches). While acknowledging that there is no one-fits-it-all approach and often solutions are context-dependent and need to be tailored to specific conditions, we believe that there is a big potential to learn from existing initiatives and previous approaches.

Public Engagement is understood hereafter as applying different approaches of information and communication in the scope of translocation programmes. The approaches range from unidirectional transfer of fact-based information over consultation (i.e. collect information from the public and all those concerned) to collaboration (i.e. actively working together to identify challenges and create solutions). 
We explore ways of integrating stakeholders and interest groups in lynx conservation projects, with a particular emphasis on understanding the perspectives of traditionally polarized groups that hold extreme viewpoints, both positive and negative. We also give attention to questions of how to develop communication strategies, including the who, what, and how of effectively communicating with different stakeholders, and how to implement communication strategies. 

The target group for these guidelines are conservationists who are planning and implementing lynx conservation translocations in west and central Europe.