O uso da internet como ferramenta educativa para a conservação da fauna

Abstract

The social medias have gained more and more prominence and importance in the academic environment, being used as a primary source of data or in scientific communication, environmental education (EE), and citizen science initiatives. However, the range and real impact of these initiatives on the public are still unknown. To verify the potential of social networks as a tool for wildlife conservation, an analysis of conservationist profiles present on Facebook and Instagram was carried out. We evaluated their engagement metrics, characterized a sample of their audience and identified the impact of their posts. The data were obtained through active data mining and the application of a structured questionnaire. 201 people who follow the conservationist profiles answered the characterization questionnaire. We found that a very specific portion of the Brazilian population follows the profiles, this portion being composed of young, white, female people with a high level of education. We also observed that more than half of the public sample has a direct relationship with environmental areas. When evaluating the engagement metrics of the profiles, we observed that they have low interaction with the public when compared to the total number of followers. In addition, we observed that video posts had great potential to reach more people. In the present study, almost all the participants (97%; N = 194) stated that the publications made by the conservationist profiles were already responsible for new knowledge or for changing their perception of biodiversity. The data presented here corroborate the importance that social media have in today's society and demonstrate that they can be an important ally for the conservation of biodiversity, but the reach of posts to a very limited audience is a problem to be overcome.