Conservation education is a fundamental process to ensure conservation of nature through citizen participation at different levels. This process creates a learning community that shares knowledges and experiences, coming from different backgrounds and life views. Local communities’ action in the conservation education process is key for the process but challenging in some ways. Socio political, economic and ecological dimensions of the local context where the conservation project or research is been done are sometimes overlooked. It is time to assess the conservation and environmental education as a socio-political process just like conservation is. The goal of this symposium is to provide a conceptual synthesis and evidence of interdisciplinary work in conservation education. In order to do that we will explore and discuss experiences from Madagascar, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Brasil y Estados Unidos. Conceptually our framework for the discussion defines conservation education as a participatory, intercultural, multidimensional and multilevel process. We will analyse the opportunities and challenges of working together in conservation education with local communities, scientists, conservationists, government, and different sectors in challenging contexts. The scope of the symposium will bring together practitioners and scientists to challenge a paradigm of blueprint for conservation education and to propose a context-based and political approach to conservation education.