Education, restoration, and community action in Catalina Island, California

Santa Catalina Island is a small island community off the coast of Southern California that receives more that a million visitors each year.  For the last 35 years, the Catalina Island Conservancy has managed 88% of the Island as open lands.  In the last two decades, extraordinary efforts have been conducted to reintroduce endangered species, recover damaged ecosystems, remove invasive species of plants and animals and engage the resident community of nearly 4,500 people to participate actively in these restoration processes.  Environmental education has played an increasingly important role in fulfilling the Conservancy’s mission, primarily as a tool to engage residents and visitors in learning about the uniqueness and fragility of the Island’s ecosystems and commit to their restoration and preservation.  In late 2006, the Conservancy began a process of integrating its various interpretive and education programs into a focused approach to address critical conservation issues.  Among various initiatives, the Conservancy is designing new programs for the Island’s student population (roughly 800 students) which take the students out in the field and put them in contact with the researchers, wildlands managers and the natural habitats that comprise this complex and unique Island ecosystem.  Drawing heavily on the tenets of community-based social marketing, these programs are involving families and other community groups and addressing desirable environmental behaviors to deal with conservation issues. The main goal of the programs is to create the next generation of Island Stewards that will continue the long term goal of preserving and sustaining a healthy, functioning ecosystem.