Life. Nature. The Public. Making the Connection

This handbook is a resource for groups who communicate with the public on biodiversity. It is intended as a guide for non-profit leaders who are developing a communications strategy and crafting messages about biodiversity.

The handbook contains the following:

• Information and advice on communicating a complex issue in ways that an audience can link to their everyday experiences.
• Tips on language to use and on methods to make biodiversity real and meaningful to an audience.
• Creating a communications strategy, and critical steps to follow in designing a strategy to communicate biodiversity.
• How to reach the public with biodiversity messages, working through news media, non-news media, and popular culture to foster biodiversity awareness and appropriate actions.
• How to telling the story of biodiversity through issues of suburban sprawl, forests, rivers, wetlands, and endangered species.
• A discussion of some of the key audience segments to reach, and message themes on how to reach them.
• A Biodiversity Communications Resources section that lists books, public opinion research firms and resource centres, media firms and associations, and communications consultants and trainers.