Zoos can play an important role in promoting sustainability and conservation. They can increase their "handprint" by encouraging positive sustainable actions among visitors and staff. Some ways zoos can do this include practicing sustainable energy, waste management, and resource use within their own operations, and educating the public about sustainability issues and solutions through their programming. Leading by example and sharing their sustainable practices can help zoos influence visitor attitudes and behaviors to be more environmentally friendly.

1. Increase your Handprint and Decrease your Footprint Presentation by Meena Nareshwar, CEE

3. It is proposed to weave sustainable action generated by all programs of the Zoo as a Hand Print. This is possible by promoting all sustainable action at Zoo as Hands for Change; this will also enable enumerating positive actions by visitors at Zoo. These will highlight a variety of sustainable action messages identified in line with the overall sustainability strategy of the Zoo.

4. Zoos in India are viewed as a place for animal displays, a place of cheap entertainment, child-centric and a boring place for adults. For this, an urgent need is to change the mindset of people and bring a paradigm shift by developing interesting programmes and activities for all categories of audience and popularizing the zoo with proper marketing and public relations strategies Zoos can make an impact on visitors’ attitudes & mindsets about environment conservation. Zoo messages should not only concentrate on conservation education but environment education as a whole.

5. Need for a Strategy Zoos are universal, inspirational, and educational and they care for their animals. But, in addition to conservation, education, welfare and research, zoos are about fun, and conservation and fun are not mutually exclusive. The strategy should include networking and information sharing with other organizations (for marketing and benchmarking) and increasing, through training, the professionalism of staff communication skills. Zoos should use the full range of communication media available and recognize that all staff and volunteers need to be well informed, so they can act as message bearers in their families and communities.

6. contd….. Probably the most effective way that zoos can encourage attitude and behaviour change for a sustainable future is by example. Zoos should strive to become environmentally sustainable in all their activities - from evolving policies to management style, from use of resources to public relations. Zoos should celebrate and share these activities with the public visitors as well as non-visitors.

7. Zoos and Sustainability Zoos have the potential to be extremely important agents of change in creating a sustainable future and ensuring the conservation of species and habitats on a global scale. Use the zoo's educational resources to help people understand why changes are important and what they can do personally to live in a more sustainable manner.

8. A few ways of doing this in a Zoo …