At the Association of Zoos and Aquariums 2019 Annual Conference, Enric Sala, National Geographic explorer-in-residence, discussed 30x30, one part of the Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful initiative of the Biden-Harris Administration. The 30x30 plan has an ambitious goal: to protect at least 30 percent of our lands, waters, and oceans by 2030. It’s a big ask. Right now, there is federal protection for 12 percent of our land and 23 percent of our waters.

What’s different this time is that attention is being paid at the highest levels of government. The 30x30 initiative “validates the messages we have been trying to deliver to the public for years,” said Rob Vernon, vice president of communications at AZA. “Now we’re not just us talking to ourselves.” But the success of 30x30 is still dependent on locally-led conservation efforts.

For most AZA members, conservation outreach is nothing new.

The Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Conn., has long been involved in protecting the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. It’s the only marine monument in the U.S. Atlantic, 130 miles off the coast of New England with an area about the size of Connecticut. Most people will never see the Monument and its four undersea mountains and three undersea canyons. So, Mystic brings the story to them.

“We wanted to educate our audiences about why this area is worthy of protection and activate them to encourage their representatives to protect these special places,” said Katie Cubina, senior vice president for mission programs at the Aquarium. The interactive Ocean Refuge exhibit makes a compelling case for why efforts like 30x30 are so important to ocean conservation, particularly in places like Northeast Canyons and Seamounts. These are deep-water, largely untouched marine habitats harboring unknown species and magical discoveries.

“It takes a lot of effort to just leave something alone,” said Cubina. But that’s a big part of what 30x30 is all about long-term protection. “Besides helping to solve the interconnected biodiversity and climate crises, these living laboratories may hold the answers to curing diseases like cancer or Alzheimer’s.”

Choose Your Own Adventure

For those unsure of how to present the 30x30 message, help was at hand. A 30x30 working group was formed that included Frost Science; the National Aquarium in Baltimore, Md.; the New England Aquarium in Boston, Mass.; the Philadelphia Zoo in Philadelphia, Pa.; the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance in San Diego, Calif.; and the Seattle Aquarium in Seattle, Wash.; as well as advisors from AZA, the Aquarium Conservation Partnership (ACP), National Ocean Protection Coalition (NOPC), and a specialist on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The group is coordinated by The Ocean Project.

One of the earliest actions the working group took was to ask AZA, the American Alliance of Museums, and the American Science and Technology Center to jointly sign a letter of support that was then shared with the Biden Administration.

“These different organizations that don’t often get an opportunity to collaborate came together,” said Vernon. Then two hundred additional associations from across the environmental field signed on. But the letter is a living, breathing document as institutions continue to add their names.

The working group’s main objective was to help AZA member institutions “identify and develop the tools and resources that their colleagues would need to effectively engage visitors on 30x30,” said The Ocean Project’s Douglas Meyer, coordinator of the working group. Zoos and aquariums can engage at the level and in the way that will work best for them. The group called this approach “choose your own adventure” and they offered support in the form of tools and resources that could be adapted to a specific venue and plan.

The Seattle Aquarium chose Help the Kelp as the “adventure” with which to engage their members and volunteers.

“We wanted to introduce kelp forest ecosystems and why they are important,” said Erin Meyer, director of conservation programs and partnerships at the Aquarium. “We screened a video called The Kelp Highway and talked about kelp ecosystems and the species that depend on them—including humans,” said Meyer. Then attendees were invited to share thoughts on why kelp ecosystems were important. The Aquarium video recorded the sound bites with the help of a recording booth set-up created by The Ocean Project.

Get Ready for Your Close-up

More than one institution took advantage of The Ocean Project’s video recording booth. Besides the Seattle Aquarium, the Mystic Aquarium recorded people’s thoughts after they had been through Ocean Refuge. The Philadelphia Zoo asked their guests why conservation was important to them. Clips from around the country were then edited into a single video sent to policymakers in Washington, D.C. 

The New England Aquarium was concerned that their audience might hesitate to participate in an ocean advocacy opportunity but exit surveys proved otherwise.

“We found that visitors were not only willing to join us in these types of activities, but they were also grateful that we had provided the opportunity as part of their visit,” said Taylor Engelsman, associate director of content and evaluation. “They expected us to be engaging on these issues, and they were happy to be a part of it.”

As a result, the Aquarium’s net promoter scores went up with participants.

“We started to realize that maybe we’ve been too timid as a community in talking to visitors and stakeholders as to how they can get involved in conservation,” said Douglas Meyer of The Ocean Project.

Scripts were well thought out ahead of time. Easy questions like “What is your favorite exhibit” gave way to education about local conservation challenges and then a segue to an explanation of 30x30 and its local relevance.

Sign on the Dotted Line

An optimal time to involve guests in 30x30 is when they are exiting the zoo or aquarium.

“We just wanted to get one more ounce of engagement out of them right before they left our Big Time exhibit,” said Dani Hogan, director of mission integration at the Philadelphia Zoo. Big Time portrayed sixty-six million years of extinction. It included animatronic dinosaurs, wooly mammoths, and giant birds. Some of these past extinctions happened without humans; some with humans. The last part of the exhibit presented species that are in danger of becoming extinct today.

“We couldn’t do anything to save tyrannosaurus rex, but we can save the monarch butterfly, since we’re the ones creating climate change now,” said Hogan.

At this point, guests were told about 30x30 and that it would protect wildlife not only around the planet but right in Philadelphia. If they agreed conservation was important, they were asked to fill out a postcard with only their name and zip code.

“We collected over 10,000 postcards,” said Hogan. Except for out-of-state and foreign zip codes, the cards were sent to state and local lawmakers. In addition, visitors were handed seed packets and asked to take some conservation action by creating a pollinator garden.

As guests attended presentations at the Giant Ocean Tank exhibit in the New England Aquarium, they were met with a brief explanation of 30x30 and its importance in maintaining a healthy environment for the animals they could see in the Caribbean coral reef exhibit. Visitors who felt it was vital to conserve these magical places were asked to sign a postcard supporting 30x30 that would be sent to their senator.

For one of their 30x30 activities on World Ocean Day, the New England Aquarium asked visitors to stamp their thumbprint on a large poster if they agreed it was important to protect special places in the ocean. “We had school kids lining up,” said Engelsman. Then the poster, reflecting the enthusiasm of local support for conservation, was taken on a whale watch cruise with policymakers. 

“We were learning that it was important for our representatives to hear directly from their constituents,” said Meyer.

Going Forward

Engaging the public on 30x30 doesn’t have to be expensive. “We have not thrown a lot of money at it,” said Cubina.

“But what is important for any effort to be successful is institutional buy-in,” said Hogan. Support must come from all levels and every department.

In January 2022, the U.S. Department of the Interior spearheaded the development of the American Conservation and Stewardship Atlas. This Atlas will reflect updated information about areas that are conserved and restored and will allow stakeholders to measure the progress toward the goals of 30x30. Meanwhile, the momentum toward the goal of 30x30 continues to grow. In December 2022, 190 countries signed an agreement to commit to 30x30 at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal.

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