How useful is end-of-pipe advice?

Most communication decisions were already taken, but still we were asked to give some communication advice to the global protected areas community assembled in Granada at their Climate Change Summit. After three days of listening to presentations around their new publication we were invited to share our impressions with the WCPA leadership. We expressed our doubts about the functionality of the publication to influence the process in Copenhagen. Oops - that did not feel good with them. Luckily we also had three main recommendations for the short term. To use the preface as an instrument for an e-campaign to all WCPA members and ask them to send it to the relevant policy makers in their country. To have a short article by the chair in the IHT, aimed at decision makers. To publish photos of Summit participants with testimonials of the main things they had learned. And to publish photos on the WCPA website illustrating examples of mitigation and adaptation in protected areas, each with a clear subtitle e.g. floods, landslides, storms, drought, water, food, fire, health etc. For the longer term we advised to use more personal communication, e.g. joint working groups with Climate Change experts or other groups. When my colleague shared our ideas in the plenary on the last day, only a few participants showed active interest, most seemed fully satisfied with their own communication efforts, inlcuding a long statement to feed into the Copenhagen process (even at this very late stage). It made us reflect on how useful end-of-pipe advice really is.