The protection of large carnivorous mammals (bears, wolves, lynxes), threatened throughout Europe, is a major challenge for environmental protection policies in the European Union. This protection is almost everywhere the subject of important debates, of regular questioning, and sometimes strongly opposes the stakeholders. In this context, European non-governmental organizations active in the field of wildlife protection play an important role in conservation policies, and sometimes oppose other stakeholders or even public authorities. The action of these NGO's is essential to ensure the high level of protection provided by the international (Bern Convention), European (Habitats Directive) and national regulations. It is based to a large extent on the commitment of motivated volunteer activists, who act in the field alongside the salaried experts and have a real potential for scaling up actions across Europe. While the issue of protection of large carnivores is very regularly raised at the European level and is the subject of numerous cooperation initiatives, the question of increasing the skills of volunteers and the development of an european training offer to reinforce and standardize the quality of associative initiatives across Europe has not yet been raised. However, if the commitment and motivation of volunteers is an essential driver for community action, the protection issues of large predators often require scientific, technical and social skills that are not well mastered by most volunteers. The European Popular University of Wildlife brings together under the leadership of the association FERUS, 5 conservation NGOs committed to the protection of large predators in 4 countries (Germany, Belgium, Spain and France) to initiate a Qualitative training and validation of the achievements of European volunteers active in the preservation of wildlife. The project proposes to establish a competency framework for the European volunteers, which can be adapted according to the situations on the ground, the needs of the associations and the profiles of the volunteers themselves. This competency framework will be associated with an evaluation framework based on a quality approach, enabling the recognition of the skills of volunteers involved in wildlife protection associations at European level. An intercultural and multidisciplinary training course will be established, based on the complementary expertise of the partners, to meet both the need for the acquisition of technical and scientific skills and the reinforcement of the human and social skills required in field situations (debates with opposing stakeholders, public information, etc.). The course will also identify the training needs of the trainers / technicians of the associations that accompany and work with volunteers in the field and provide answers to these needs. It will be tested in a transnational training workshop in France in June 2020 and will be recorded in a four-language MOOC designed both to record resources for trainers, to enable the training of trainers online, and to enable self-training and self-assessment of volunteers. The European Popular University of Wildlife will thus contribute to improving the quality of the action of European associations involved in the protection of large carnivores, to make their intervention more reliable in the eyes of the stakeholders and in particular of the public authorities, and to reinforce the European cooperation between associations active in the field, alongside major lobbying networks already established at European level, identified by the general public, but not very active in the field. In addition, the project contributes to the European lifelong learning challenge by addressing the issue of recognition of volunteering, the acquisition and validation of transversal skills related to active European citizenship, participation in European environmental policies, and more broadly personal development.
The protection of large carnivorous mammals (bears, wolves, lynxes), threatened throughout Europe, is a major challenge for environmental protection policies in the European Union. This protection is almost everywhere the subject of important debates, of regular questioning, and sometimes strongly opposes the stakeholders. In this context, European non-governmental organizations active in the field of wildlife protection play an important role in conservation policies, and sometimes oppose other stakeholders or even public authorities. The action of these NGO's is essential to ensure the high level of protection provided by the international (Bern Convention), European (Habitats Directive) and national regulations.It is based to a large extent on the commitment of motivated volunteer activists, who act in the field alongside the salaried experts and have a real potential for scaling up actions across Europe. While the issue of protection of large carnivores is very regularly raised at the European level and is the subject of numerous cooperation initiatives, the question of increasing the skills of volunteers and the development of an European training offer to reinforce and standardize the quality of associative initiatives across Europe has not yet been raised. However, if the commitment and motivation of volunteers is an essential driver for community action, the protection issues of large predators often require scientific, technical, and social skills that are not well mastered by most volunteers. The European Popular University of Wildlife brings together under the leadership of the association FERUS, 4 conservation NGOs committed to the protection of large predators in 4 countries (Germany, Belgium, Spain, and France). The objective is to initiate a qualitative training of European volunteers active in the preservation of large carnivores. First, a competency framework for the European volunteer was drawn up, based on a survey conducted among European NGOs, which made it possible to identify the situations in the field with which volunteers are confronted, their profiles and the training needs in terms of knowledge, know-how and life skills. Based on this competency framework, an intercultural and multidisciplinary training program was defined, and its contents established to meet the needs identified. This training program is based on 2 tools: - a MOOC, an online and autonomous learning tool, allowing the acquisition of solid scientific knowledge - a week of field experience for volunteers, through supervised and collective learning workshops on different topics (breeding and protection means - monitoring of large predators - communication - conflict management). These online courses and field activities are complementary, allowing us to offer, for the first time in Europe, a complete training program on large predators. The MOOC Large Carnivores is available in 4 languages (FR-ES-GE-EN) at www.mooc-large-carnivores.org for free, upon registration. Nearly 2400 people have already registered, a dozen courses are available, and others are already being prepared for the fall of 2021. These courses allow people to learn independently, at their own pace, and to test their knowledge through exercises and quizzes. The partners' intention is to regularly enrich this tool with new live courses/conferences. Several contacts have already been established with scientists and a Swiss association to develop content for the end of the year. Concerning the field workshop that was supposed to gather volunteers from the 4 partner countries to test our training course, it could not take place because of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the partners wish to develop this tool, even after the end of the Erasmus program, and a transnational workshop should take place in spring 2022. Thanks to these two tools, The European Popular University of Wildlife will thus contribute to improving the quality of the action of European associations involved in the protection of large carnivores, to make their intervention more reliable in the eyes of the stakeholders and of the public authorities, and to reinforce the European cooperation between associations and scientifics active in the field. In addition, the project contributes to the European lifelong learning challenge by addressing the issue of recognition of volunteering, the acquisition and validation of transversal skills related to active European citizenship, participation in European environmental policies, and more broadly personal development.