Russian affiliate members address forest fire problem

ACE’s new Russian affiliate held its first professional training session July 2 at the Press Video Center, Ministry of Agriculture, in Moscow.

ACE charter representative Vladislav Temnikov offered an official greeting to the participants, including ACE members, as well as representatives from the World Wildlife Fund and Russia Radio. The seminar, presented by ACE members Ludmila Liamets and Eric Abbott, focused on communication aspects of the five-year, $20 million Forest Project, part of which is designed to reduce the number of human-caused forest fires in Siberia and the Far East.

The project, with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, has created a partnership with Russian foresters and communicators to address the serious problem of forest fires in the region. In a typical year, more than 20,000 forest fires are reported in Russia; nearly 80 percent of them are due to human activity. The fires threaten huge virgin forest tracts that constitute 23 percent of the world’s forested lands.

At the seminar, Liamets, who is the communication manager for the project, explained three activities now under way in Khabarovsk, a territory of spruce, Korean pine, larch and hardwoods that also contains the habitat of the endangered Siberian tiger. The three include:

• An initial public awareness campaign to reach the 1.5 million people in the territory;
• A special communication training program for the territory’s foresters;
• A school education program to introduce forest fire protection into the biology curriculum for grades K-11.

Liamets has developed a network of TV, radio and newspaper journalists to whom she supplies information in the form of fact sheets and news tips. She also has worked with communicators at the Ministry of Natural Resources Far East directorate to launch the regular reporting of forest fire danger levels to the public as part of local TV and radio weather forecasts. In addition, she and fellow ACE member Dimitry Piven have worked with leading TV and radio stations in Khabarovsk to produce a series of PSAs (known in Russia as social messages or social advertising) and to erect large billboard messages that will be combined with handouts to the public at safety checkpoints during times of high fire danger.

At the seminar, Abbott and Liamets showed examples of the new TV and radio PSAs, school posters and fact sheets. Abbott, who is communication research director for the project, discussed its communication strategy. One goal of the project is to demonstrate how communication research and strategies, combined with the technical and communication expertise of Russian counterparts, can lead to effective and measurable communication results.

Research began in February with a baseline survey of 1,000 scientifically selected adult residents of Khabarovsk to determine how often they visit the forest, specifically what they do there, media use habits, and attitudes and knowledge about forest fire prevention. Results showed 80 percent of the population visits the forest at least once each year, and 90 percent believes forest fires are the most serious problem in the region.

Next, the team designed general messages to address the human causes of forest fires -- careless smoking, use of matches and campfires. It was decided to try to reach people each Thursday and Friday during the fire season because many people go to the forests on weekends. Regular reporting of fire danger levels and PSAs were used to attract public attention to the topic.

A second survey of 1,000 residents of Khabarovsk will be conducted in November to see how much learning and behavior change has taken place. The project’s goal is a 10 percent reduction in human-caused fires over the five-year project period.

Focus groups also will be conducted early this fall to identify specific risk behaviors that can be targeted in the second year and their possible solutions. For example, smoking in the forest during times of high fire danger is an important risk factor, but simply telling people not to smoke is not very successful. Finding safe ways to smoke that could be acceptable to smokers, and then emphasizing these methods, is the goal.

The project, which is being carried out by Chemonics International under a subcontract with Winrock International, will be expanded to Siberia next year and will gradually be introduced in the remaining parts of Siberia and the Far East over the remaining project years.

Eric A. Abbott
Iowa State University

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