Образование и биоразнообразие: опыт ОФ «САМР Алатоо» по внедрению концепции ОУР

Education and Biodiversity: Experience of the СAMР Alatoo PF in Implementing the ESD Concept

The СAMР Alatoo PF presented its successful experience in developing and implementing the concept of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) at the regional seminar of the ESD-2030 Network for Central Asia, Iran, and Pakistan. This network brings together a broad community of ESD practitioners who collaborate through knowledge exchange, mutual learning, cooperation, monitoring, and evaluation.

Aliya Ibraimova, Manager of the Environmental Education Program at the СAMР Alatoo PF, shared the stages of formulating and implementing the ESD concept in Kyrgyzstan with seminar participants, emphasizing the bottom-up approach used throughout the process.

According to her, the initiative to create the guide “Education for Sustainable Development and Biodiversity Conservation” arose from a lack of accessible information on the ESD concept and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for school and university students — despite Kyrgyzstan's formal commitment to the SDGs. The guide’s uniqueness lies in its local context: three out of its four chapters are dedicated to forests, pastures, and climate change within Kyrgyzstan’s specific conditions.

A key role in the development and dissemination of the guide was played by training school teachers from Jalal-Abad region and engaging experts from the Kyrgyz Academy of Education. Through this collaboration, the content, format, and methods for integrating ESD into school and university curricula were defined.

Simultaneously with the pilot testing of the first version of the guide in schools in the Jalal-Abad region, teacher training was conducted to enhance skills in delivering materials during geography and biology lessons. As a result, educators adopted modern methods: simulation games, interactive exercises, and the development of students’ critical thinking became part of the learning process.

In the next phase, the project expanded to the national level. The Arabayev Kyrgyz State University, its Institute for Teacher Training, the Republican Institute for Teacher Retraining, and Osh State University incorporated the ESD guide into their academic courses. The guide was approved by the Academic Council of the Kyrgyz Academy of Education for use in general education schools across the country.

One of the significant outcomes of the project was the training of approximately 1,200 educators, who in turn reached over 80,000 school and university students from 600 schools and 6 higher education institutions with knowledge about the SDGs and sustainable development.

“We are proud of these results, especially considering that the key achievements occurred after the project formally ended,” said Aliya Ibraimova.

Upcoming plans under the Environmental Education component include developing an additional chapter of the guide focused on the development and management of protected natural areas (PAs) and its integration into academic programs and training courses. It is also important that biodiversity conservation specialists and PAs staff — who often need to improve their knowledge — receive this training.

Following the presentation, seminar participants gave positive feedback on the results, particularly highlighting the effectiveness of the bottom-up approach and the importance of equipping educators with a modern understanding of climate and environmental challenges to effectively pass this knowledge on to their students. The high responsiveness of national partners was also noted — many are already using the developed materials in practice.

The development and implementation of the guide “Education for Sustainable Development and Biodiversity Conservation” was carried out under the project “Biodiversity Conservation and Poverty Reduction through Community-Based Management of Walnut Forests and Pastures”, supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Government of Germany.