Over the last decades, the Government of Rwanda together with environmental stakeholders worked tirelessly to engage local communities in sustainable protection and management of protected areas. To achieve that, many public awareness programs were implemented to raise knowledge and skills, inspire positive attitudes and behavior, and motivate community members to become conservation partners. However, there was a gap in understanding the holistic impact of these awareness programs. Hence, in 2020 Nature Rwanda conducted a study with the aim to assess the level of awareness, attitude and community participation in supporting biodiversity conservation around protected areas in Rwanda using seven main indicators developed in the previous project (Suitable Indicators for a baseline study of public awareness campaign in Rwanda). The level of awareness, attitude and community participation in supporting biodiversity conservation was found to be generally low at all protected areas, but lower at Rugezi wetland and Nyungwe National Park (NNP) (6.713% each), and lower among church leaders (0.00%). Therefore, in 2021 Nature Rwanda enhanced religious identities in biodiversity conservation of Areas of Zero Extinction (AZE) sites in Rwanda, case of NNP. The project’s target audience was the local communities in their respective religious service categories. To achieve the target, 60 religious leaders from two sectors (Gatare and Nkomane) which are adjacent to NNP were trained, so as to be able to reach the community through their religious services. The trained religious leaders subsequently conducted awareness campaigns at their respective worship houses. Awareness campaigns prioritized the use of more inclusive modes of communication, such as the use of Kinyarwanda language, and educational materials, such as posters, banners and green bibles verses... The message was technically and scientifically relevant in order to bridge the skills and knowledge transfer gap in order to inspire community commitment and participation in addressing conservation issues at the local level. After conducting Pre- and Post- assessments, it was seen that the level of awareness, attitude and community participation in supporting biodiversity conservation has gradually increased.
