Four Simple Questions: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Half-Day Community Workshops Designed to Increase Awareness of Coastal Cetacean Conservation Issues in Sarawak, Malaysia

Abstract

Community workshops were held in coastal locations in Sarawak to raise awareness of cetacean conservation. Interviews were conducted up to 2 years later in four “workshop communities” as well as four villages where workshops were not conducted. Comparison of responses between respondents who had attended workshops (n = 127) versus those who had not (n = 233) indicate that workshop attendence led to significantly higher rates of “correct” responses on all three basic measures of cetacean conservation awareness. However, fishermen demonstrated a low level of knowledge of how to handle accidental entanglements, indicating a need for more effective communication strategies for this target group.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The community workshops and follow-up interviews described here were made possible through funding from Sarawak Shell Berhad. Work conducted by the Sarawak Dolphin Project is facilitated by permissions and cooperation from the Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) and the Forestry Department of Sarawak.