Importance of the Public Education and Interpretation in Geoheritage Conservation

The subject of Geotourism is growing rapidly with travel to, and appreciation of, natural landscapes and geological phenomena continuing to grow as a niche area of the global tourism industry. This paper point to public education and interpretation as a tool for heritage conservation. Education play a major role in shaping human behavior and there for helps in developing individuals who can behave in desirable ways and ultimately assume responsible citizenship. One of the key success factors for sustainable conservation is the level of awareness and appreciation on the heritage value of the resources by the local communities, visitors. In this paper some of the educational and research activities introduced in geoparks (such as geotrails, geocenters, museums and conferences) are presented

Keywords:

Interpretation , Education , Heritage conservation , Geopark