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About Fauna in Focus

What is Fauna in Focus?

Fauna in Focus is a small 501(c)3 non-profit NGO that is working to build a better world for people and wildlife in biodiversity hotspots all across Earth. We do this through world-class projects in environmental education, nature discovery and wildlife media. From designing and building interactive nature discovery centers and interpretive facilities, to producing inspirational nature films and high-quality e-learning, digital media and wildlife science training programs, there is so much that Fauna in Focus is doing to help inspire a new generation of nature lovers and conservation leaders across the planet. Read on to learn more about our mission, vision, values and work history.

Why We Exist

Wildlife in Crisis

All around Earth, nature is in peril. Tropical rainforests are home to 50% of all terrestrial biodiversity, despite only occupying 5% of the planet’s surface. Today, these forests are vanishing. Illegal logging for timber and slash-and-burn agriculture for animal agriculture and agroforestry are consuming these cathedrals faster than they can recover. Marine ecosystems too face ever-growing pressures from pollution, destruction and over-fishing. Mangroves and coral reefs play a critical role in climate change and provide critical breeding grounds for the world’s fisheries, yet a quarter of all mangroves and half of Earth’s reefs have been destroyed in just the last 50 years. 

Biodiversity hotspots all over Earth are in peril, and the wildlife that live there is in crisis. The natural world provides countless fundamental values to humanity; our civilization depends entirely upon a healthy and stable natural world. Yet despite the dire situation, conservation efforts around the world often lack the impact that is needed to enact real conservation policies.

The Missing Link

Reconnecting People with Nature

In many of the world’s most biodiverse regions, natural science education and public awareness is desperately lacking. As a result, there is little public support or engagement in conservation. This disconnect between people and nature is directly responsible for the suffering of humanity, natural places and wildlife all around Earth. Without widespread public support, conservation efforts in these critical regions will continue to struggle.

That’s where we come in!

At Fauna in Focus, we approach conservation with this in mind. We work to change the fundamental attitudes towards nature and build national discussions among the general public to build support for wildlife conservation. We believe this is a critical foundation and first step for any conservation effort. To achieve this, we leverage the power of social media in the digital age to promote positive conservation messaging to millions of people. 

We develop high-quality environmental education programs, materials, training and teaching curricula that can systemically improve schooling on natural science. We use film, art, and other forms of visual media to engage with audiences in new and exciting ways, and inspire positive attitudes far beyond our classrooms. We develop multi-media, digital learning and e-learning platforms that take advantage of new technologies like VR, mobile gaming and online learning. And finally, we design and build world-class interpretive learning spaces trail signage or educational pavilions. These interactive learning facilities offer hands-on experiences to all, and help to build the knowledge and attitudes that can inspire real world change.

Our unique approach helps reconnect people with nature, inspires a new generation of nature lovers and conservation leaders, and reaches and educates key audiences all around the world.

“People protect the things love, but love only what they know and understand.”

– Baba Dioum

Nature Discovery

Bringing People to Nature

Nature discovery is all about reconnecting people with nature through first-hand experiential learning. This side of our work includes developing amazing educational field expeditions, eco-tourism programs and multi-day field courses that bring students and visitors out into the wild. On these educational field trips, students learn and work alongside local conservation experts, participate in ongoing reforestation, wildlife research or sustainable development work, and learn directly from the people at the forefront of conservation.

Bringing Nature to People

When we cannot bring people to nature, we bring nature to people. We do this through the design of world-class natural science learning facilities. At Fauna in Focus, we design and build nature centers, interactive exhibitions, nature trails and park signage, learning gardens, classrooms, along with all the associated programs and teaching materials. These installations can help make nature and wildlife science learning more accessible to some of the most critical communities in biodiversity hotspots across Earth. Exploration and discovery-based learning can be the key to win hearts and minds as we build more positive cultures, customs and ideas around wildlife and environmental conservation.

Environmental Education

Education & Outreach

Our first set of education programs are designed to train and inspire students and the general public. We develop inquiry-based natural science lessons, curriculum and custom teaching resources for school students of all ages, from primary to university level. We carry out these programs for the classroom, and for rural communities, cultural centers and public awareness events. All of our lessons include special teaching resources, biofacts, games, interactive media, student-led challenges and other hands-on activities that help make for a memorable learning experiences. We design our lessons to facilitate the development of critical thinking and teamwork skills, while also building more positive attitudes towards wildlife and conservation.
Most importantly, each program can include comprehensive monitoring and evaluation systems to track the impacts of the lessons.

Teaching Resources & Training

At Fauna in Focus, we aim to make sure our methods, materials and resources can have the greatest possible reach and impact. As such, we run advanced training and capacity development workshops for school teachers, forest rangers, community leaders, conservation activists and other like-minded organizations who would like to improve the quality or impact of their efforts. These training programs help set new standards in environmental education for places that need it most.

Wildlife Media

Film & Video

Media offers conservation a tool to reach and inspire audiences far beyond the classroom. At Fauna in Focus, we produce award-winning nature films designed for local audiences. Narrated in the local language, our use of positive storytelling can effectively inspire changes in key communities where biodiversity is most at risk. 

Art & Graphic Design

Art, photography and graphic design are powerful tools that we use to build love and pride in biodiversity, or inspire conservation action. From didactic info-graphics to board games, to public awareness signage, to children’s coloring books, there is so much potential to engage the public in wildlife learning.

Digital Media

At Fauna in Focus, we are setting out to bring conservation communications into the 21st century, and are already setting new standards. We develop world-class interactive kiosk activities, digital learning apps, field guides, and so much more. Through social media campaigns we spread positive conservation messaging to millions of people. We are even exploring AR & VR learning, educational video games and mobile applications. This approach brings natural science and conservation learning to people in exciting new ways unbound by the laws of physics.

Quality Program Impact

Fauna in Focus believes that changing knowledge and attitudes is an under-represented area of work in the conservation space. The importance of this work is difficult to measure, and securing funding for it is even more challenging. However, the costs of running these programs are tiny when compared to the costs of direct conservation efforts, and the potential benefits are enormous. At Fauna in Focus, we believe that spending a little bit of money and a lot of time and energy on high-quality education, discovery learning, social media, film, art and other forms of mass-media can have a disproportionately large impact. Our work can inspire real change in the world at a fraction of the cost of traditional conservation methods. Most importantly, our approach helps build the public and political will to support the important efforts of other conservation initiatives. 

We also believe in transparent monitoring and evaluation. Every one of our programs can be measured to effectively to gauge the impacts of our work. By designing these using scientific standards and collecting quantitative and qualitative data on changes in our audiences knowledge and attitudes, Fauna in Focus can demonstrate real-world changes in our students and the general public, and identify precise areas in our programs than need improvement. This commitment to improvement and transparency in our impact assessment sets us apart from many organizations.