Blog: It Still Hurts Doesn’t It? – Storytelling for Conservation Education

Did you rejoice when Fox, Badger and the other Animals of Farthing Wood finally reached White Deer Park nature reserve? Do you remember the sting of Bambi’s mother dying? Were you exhaling in relief when Peter Rabbit escaped from Mr McGregor?

I know I felt all those emotions very vividly, although I was too much of a goody-goody to be on Peter Rabbit’s side – Benjamin Bunny was far less reckless.

Our first exposure to the natural world as children is often through stories. There are specific learning objectives teachers aim for when reading to children: promoting understanding, enquiry and empathy. Stories are tools to help anyone, but especially children, to learn to interpret and understand the feelings of others, the world and their own ideas and responses to situations. This is gift-wrapped for conservation education.

Animals have been central to stories across the world throughout history, allowing readers or listeners to glimpse the world through an animal’s eyes. Along the way, they can learn about their habitat, adaptations and, where appropriate, about issues that affect that species, but it’s the personal connection to the animal character that makes the story memorable. To many children, all hornbills are called Zazu and no amount of interpretation will ever change that. They feel a connection to animal protagonists and this can be an incredibly powerful tool for developing empathy towards animals. In turn, empathy towards animals is, of course, vital in promoting behaviour changes that work to protect the environment.

Zoos are often wary of overly anthropomorphising animals, but discouraging this can sometimes bring some distance between animals and the public. There is no such issue with stories. In my own series of ‘Tilgate Tales’ YouTube videos, the distinct personalities created for our animals provide a cast of characters for young children to get to know and develop personal connections to. Would those children like to go through the same experiences as that animal did? Did the animal behave as they would? If they were different to their peers, like nocturnal Fezziwig the barn owl to her diurnal friends, would they feel left out or special? Were they surprised, like Tyson the harvest mouse, to learn that most bats do not drink blood? Children can evaluate their own feelings and thoughts, whilst also developing relationships with our animals. I try to include both accurate information about the species involved, alongside clear morals for the animals that children can apply to their own lives, so that an animal’s growth in the story encourages the child’s own personal, emotional growth.

Stories are also a safe, controlled way to introduce conservation issues to young children. They initially establish connection to biodiversity through the characters and then allow exploration of habitats that children might never see in real life, like rainforests, the poles or the Rainbow Fish’s ocean in a far more personal way than photos or video might allow. Following this context, threats to nature can appear as drivers of the story’s conflict. The example stories at the start could well be a child’s first exposure to issues of habitat destruction (as happened to the animals of Farthing Wood) or poaching (RIP Bambi’s mother). Many children, far removed from agricultural life, may have never considered their food’s origin (poor Wilbur from Charlotte’s Web) or how farming can lead to conflict between humans and animals (as Peter Rabbit found out). These difficult issues are then discussed in a way that children will want to engage with, rather than reject them out of sadness or apathy.

Young children are a difficult audience for hard-hitting conservation education, but they gravitate to good stories and few are as enduring and beloved as stories of animals. Characters, setting, exposition and conflict are baked into the fabric of stories. When the characters are animals, the settings are habitats, the exposition is animal facts and the conflict is a conservation issue, you create a delivery system for conservation education that may be far more emotionally affecting – and so remembered far better – than you might give credit for. This is not likely to surprise anyone, but I think the power of stories as a tool for conservation education can sometimes be overshadowed by more direct discussions of conservation issues, when the latter may not be what really sticks with people, especially children.

It feels too clichéd to finish with ‘the end’, so let me bring this to a close by apologising for reminding you of Bambi’s mother. It still hurts, doesn’t it? Thank goodness I didn’t mention Mufasa.

Richard Bourton

Education Officer

Tilgate Nature Centre

All blogs reflect the views of their author and are not a reflection of BIAZA's positions.