The Project Enua – Knowledge Attitudes and Practices(KAP) Survey interview will be conducted in Māori or English and anticipates200 respondents. It aims to capture community views on the state of theenvironment, key threats to biodiversity and potential strategies forprotecting natural ecosystems. Project Enua will also explore linkages betweenbiodiversity and three critical development sectors – agriculture, tourism andinfrastructure.
Dr Sascha Fuller, senior research associate from the Universityof Newcastle, says the purpose of the interview survey is people’s values,their attitudes towards conservation and the impacts of tourism, agricultureand infrastructure. “We are really keen to sit down with people and have aconversation ..
. capturing their qualitative responses, stories, theirexperiences, and also the knowledge people have of their own biodiversity whichisn’t just this technical-scientific knowledge,” says Dr Fuller. “The project is focused on enhancing biodiversity andconservation and key development sectors that impact agriculture, tourism andinfrastructure.
“Cook Islands, Rarotonga is developing and we want itto develop sustainably, not having a cost to the environment, they can both gohand in hand one doesn’t have to cross out the other.” Dr Fuller says in collecting the quantitative datathat’s needed “we hope it will be really valuable”. “The data is for the government of Cook Islands toshare among the sectors and for decision-maki.