Awareness and perception on wildlife and conservation of teachers and college students in Los Baños, Laguna Philippines
Paper Details
Awareness and perception on wildlife and conservation of teachers and college students in Los Baños, Laguna Philippines
Abstract
The Philippines is considered as a biodiversity hotspot, however, different threats could cause the demise of its biological treasures. One of these threats could be the lack of awareness and the negative perception of the people towards wildlife and conservation. In this study, 303 students and 52 teachers from Laguna State Polytechnic University-Los Baños Campus (LSPU-LBC) were randomly selected to answer a questionnaire designed to assess their awareness and perception towards wildlife and conservation in the Philippines. The results of the study showed that the respondents have poor to intermediate awareness and knowledge about Philippine wildlife and conservation. Moreover, the students have a higher familiarity of randomly selected wildlife species compared to the teachers (T-test; p=0.741), and students enrolled under the College of Fisheries have the highest familiarity of the wildlife species (ANOVA; p=0.000) compared to students enrolled in other colleges. However, despite the poor awareness of most of the respondents towards Philippine wildlife, the results show that they have a generally positive perception towards the conservation of these animals. This could further mean that the respondents have concern and willingness to conserve the remaining biodiversity in the country.
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