Park expands education programme for students

The Port Moresby Nature Park in a sister-zoo partnership with Zoos Victoria in Australia is expanding its education programme for students.
Nature Park life science manager Ishimu Bebe said the expansion caters for the increasing number of students visiting the park.
The expansion of the education programme follows the arrival of education officers Geriant Sterling and Hilary Hughes from Australia.
Both officers were expected to spend two months with the park to review and develop new programmes to manage the growing number of children who visit the park.
The park’s main focus this year is to expand education programme to cater for the 24,000 children visiting each year on school excursions and monthly themes.
It aims to reach 40,000 students by the end of 2020.
Bebe said the sister-zoo partnership would help them to share information and ideas about education programmes for students.
In 2018, Nature Park was awarded with a prestigious international zoo educators award from the Zoo and Aquarium Association of Australia for its conservation programmes “City kids don’t eat bush meat” and “Don’t buy native animals as pets”.
The school education programme at the park is supported by ExxonMobil, NCDC, Zoos Victoria, The National and the United Nations Development programme.
Spread over 30 acres of tranquil tropical gardens, the park is home to over 450 native animals and hundreds of plant species, many of which are rarely seen outside of Papua New Guinea.