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Example branding for wildlife products. (a) Herbal “turtle jelly” (Gui‐Ling‐Gao, contains turtle plastron), photo by Diogo Veríssimo; (b) shark liver oil capsules, photo by Diogo Veríssimo; (c) and (d) bear bile extract, photos by Amy Hinsley
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Conservationists have long sought to reduce consumer demand for products from overexploited wildlife species. Health practitioners have also begun calling for reductions in the wildlife trade to reduce pandemic risk. Most wildlife‐focused demand reduction campaigns have lacked rigorous evaluations and thus their impacts remain unknown. There is thu...
Citations
... Our interest in messaging is not because we believe it alone is a primary lever of system change; rather, it is likely to be a necessary component of any interventions for system change, such as communication of proposed policies and campaigns. There is a growing body of literature on demand reduction, offering valuable insights into effective strategies for influencing consumer choices and behaviors (Chaves et al., 2018;Doughty et al., 2021;MacFarlane et al., 2022;Moorhouse et al., 2021;TRAFFIC & The Behavioural Insights Team, 2018;Veríssimo et al., 2020;Wang et al., 2020). Although behavioral insights have been extensively used in messaging campaigns, interventions to address the wildlife trade have often failed to reflect the diverse nature of their target consumers and overlooked the importance of audience segmentation based on relational values (MacFarlane et al., 2022; Thomas-Walters et al., 2021;Veríssimo et al., 2020). ...
Advancing transformative change for sustainability requires population‐wide behavior change. Yet, many behavioral interventions tackling environmental problems only examine average effects on the aggregate, overlooking the heterogeneous effects in a population. We developed and preregistered a novel audience segmentation approach to test the diverse impact of conservation messaging on reducing demand for exotic pets (private action ‐ i.e., desire to own exotic pets or visit wildlife entertainment places) and fostering citizen engagement for system‐wide change (civic action ‐ e.g., signing a petition or participating in a protest against the exotic pet trade). Through an online survey with US participants ( n = 2953), we identified 4 population segments (early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards), representing varying levels of commitment to wildlife conservation and then randomly assigned each segment to one of 3 messaging conditions. Messages highlighting negative consequences of the exotic pet trade and the power of collective action for system change effectively promoted private action among all segments except early adopters ( η p ² = 0.005). Among civic actions, only the collective action message motivated early adopters and the early majority to sign petitions ( φ C = 0.193 and φ C = 0.097, respectively). Furthermore, the 4 segments showed distinct reasoning for action and inaction on wildlife conservation, with certain relational values, such as care, serving as both motivations and barriers to action. These findings highlight the need for targeted behavioral interventions across diverse populations.
... Conservationists have increasingly engaged in consumer research to better understand the social, cultural, and economic contexts within which wildlife-products are consumed or used across the world (Bachmann et al., 2019;Chausson et al., 2019;Hinsley et al., 2015;Jones et al., 2019). Given the decision-making component of food consumption, conservationists are also increasingly interested in influencing human wildlife consumption behaviours (MacFarlane et al., 2022;Wallen & Daut, 2018), representing a new frontier for wild meat research in urban settings (Ingram et al., 2021). ...
... Demand-reduction interventions are likely to be more effective if conservation interventions are accurately targeted to consumers (MacFarlane et al., 2022). Social marketing, particularly 'demarketing', that is discouraging a given behaviour through marketing (Kotler & Zaltman, 1971), is one means of attempting to reduce demand. ...
... Social marketing, particularly 'demarketing', that is discouraging a given behaviour through marketing (Kotler & Zaltman, 1971), is one means of attempting to reduce demand. In social marketing, people can be categorised into homogenous subgroups who share similar values, motives, behavioural patterns, attitudes and social pressures (called 'audience segmentation ';MacFarlane et al., 2022), which can be used to identify ways to differentially target behaviour change interventions. In Brazil, a social marketing campaign was shown to reduce consumption of wild meat by ~62% (Chaves et al., 2018). ...
Abstract1. Overexploitation of wildlife is pervasive in many tropical regions, and in addi-tion to being a significant conservation and sustainability concern, it has received global attention given discussions over the origins of zoonotic disease outbreaks. Where unsustainable, consumption of wild meat by urban residents has been identified as a major socio-environmental challenge, given it is a significant driver of wildlife declines. Yet, information on urban wild meat consumers and possible ways to target conservation interventions remains lacking.2. Using one of the largest datasets of urban wild meat consumers (1391) collected through structured questionnaires in 20 towns and cities, we model the demo-graphic, psychographic and spatial factors associated with wild meat consump-tion patterns in southern Cameroon.3. We find that nearly half of the sampled consumers ate wild meat once per week or more, and find that the probability of being a frequent consumer was greater among men, those living in smaller towns, and those who do not consider there to be a link between eating wild meat and disease. Threatened pangolin species are highly preferred among urban consumers, and most consumers did not consider there to be a link between COVID-19 and pangolins.4. Most respondents had eaten wild meat since the beginning of COVID-19 and had not reduced their wild meat consumption due to COVID-19. For the first time, we show that consumers with beliefs against a link between wild meat consumption and disease and those with greater income were less likely to have decreased their wild meat consumption.5. We identified stakeholders including teachers and religious/community leaders as potentially appropriate messengers for demand- reduction campaigns, with tel-evision and radio being the most trusted communication channels among wild meat consumers.6. Crucially, our study advances current scientific understanding of the factors that influence wild meat consumption frequency and change due to COVID-19 by urban consumers (particularly health beliefs and settlement size). We discuss how our results could be used to inform the design of wild meat demand- reduction interventions to bring the consumption of wild meat towards sustainability in Cameroon, and our approach applied pan-tropically
... Conservationists have increasingly engaged in consumer research to better understand the social, cultural, and economic contexts within which wildlife-products are consumed or used across the world (Bachmann et al., 2019;Chausson et al., 2019;Hinsley et al., 2015;Jones et al., 2019). Given the decision-making component of food consumption, conservationists are also increasingly interested in influencing human wildlife consumption behaviours (MacFarlane et al., 2022;Wallen & Daut, 2018), representing a new frontier for wild meat research in urban settings (Ingram et al., 2021). ...
... Demand-reduction interventions are likely to be more effective if conservation interventions are accurately targeted to consumers (MacFarlane et al., 2022). Social marketing, particularly 'demarketing', that is discouraging a given behaviour through marketing (Kotler & Zaltman, 1971), is one means of attempting to reduce demand. ...
... Social marketing, particularly 'demarketing', that is discouraging a given behaviour through marketing (Kotler & Zaltman, 1971), is one means of attempting to reduce demand. In social marketing, people can be categorised into homogenous subgroups who share similar values, motives, behavioural patterns, attitudes and social pressures (called 'audience segmentation ';MacFarlane et al., 2022), which can be used to identify ways to differentially target behaviour change interventions. In Brazil, a social marketing campaign was shown to reduce consumption of wild meat by ~62% (Chaves et al., 2018). ...
1. Overexploitation of wildlife is pervasive in many tropical regions, and in addition to being a significant conservation and sustainability concern, it has received global attention given discussions over the origins of zoonotic disease outbreaks. Where unsustainable, consumption of wild meat by urban residents has been identified as a major socio-environmental challenge, given it is a significant driver of wildlife declines. Yet, information on urban wild meat consumers and possible ways to target conservation interventions remains lacking. 2. Using one of the largest datasets of urban wild meat consumers (1391) collected through structured questionnaires in 20 towns and cities, we model the demographic , psychographic and spatial factors associated with wild meat consumption patterns in southern Cameroon. 3. We find that nearly half of the sampled consumers ate wild meat once per week or more, and find that the probability of being a frequent consumer was greater among men, those living in smaller towns, and those who do not consider there to be a link between eating wild meat and disease. Threatened pangolin species are highly preferred among urban consumers, and most consumers did not consider there to be a link between COVID-19 and pangolins. 4. Most respondents had eaten wild meat since the beginning of COVID-19 and had not reduced their wild meat consumption due to COVID-19. For the first time, we show that consumers with beliefs against a link between wild meat consumption
... To tackle the illegal or unsustainable trade, substantial efforts have been made globally, including trade restrictions through both national legislations and CITES, law enforcement, incentive programs, and demand reduction interventions including campaigns (Challender & MacMillan, 2014). In particular, there has been a growing literature on demand reduction, providing valuable insights into potential strategies to influencing consumer behaviors (Chaves et al., 2018;Doughty et al., 2021;MacFarlane et al., 2022;Moorhouse et al., 2021;Rizzolo, 2021;TRAF-FIC & The Behavioural Insights Team, 2018;Veríssimo et al., 2020;Wang et al., 2020). ...
The exotic pet trade poses a major threat to biodiversity conservation. To combat biodiversity loss, it is essential to reduce demand for exotic pets and engage people in civic actions for wildlife conservation. Although messaging has been extensively used in conservation practice, little is known about how it can influence attitudes and various types of actions pertaining to the exotic pet trade. This study examined the impact of conservation messaging in the context of exotic pet ownership and wildlife entertainment visitation as common practices of the exotic pet trade. We randomly assigned participants in the United States to one of five messaging conditions: biodiversity loss and animal abuse (M1), zoonotic disease risks (M2), illegality (M3), social disapproval (M4), and neutral biological information as a control condition (M5). We found that all conservation messages (M1-M4) significantly decreased people's favorable attitudes toward the exotic pet trade and their desire to visit wildlife entertainment. However, conservation messaging did not influence the desire for exotic pet ownership or intentions to take civic actions. Our findings highlight the potential of conservation messaging for attitude change and demand reduction for wildlife entertainment, but different approaches are necessary for promoting more effortful actions such as exotic pet ownership and civic actions. K E Y W O R D S attitude and behavior change; biodiversity conservation; civic action; conservation evidence; conservation psychology; global wildlife trade; human behavior; messaging; randomized controlled trial; transformative change
... Altogether, it is clear that conservationists must generate more robust evidence on this matter, to better gauge the effectiveness of framing styles and therefore optimise their message designs (Kidd et al., 2019a;MacFarlane et al., 2022). The following research aims to accomplish this, to help settle the debate on the use of message framing in conservation communications. ...
Changing public behaviour is an essential step for successful conservation, and can be achieved through effective use of message framing. However, its use in the conservation sector is not well-studied. We first performed a content analysis to assess what types of framing styles environmental non-governmental organisations (ENGOs) often employ for their social media posts. We then ran a real-world online fundraising campaign to examine the influence of value-framing (‘Intrinsic’ and ‘Extrinsic’) and message valence (‘Positive’ and ‘Negative’) on audience engagement with the advertisements, across five countries. Altogether, ENGOs generally used ‘Positive’ framing for their posts significantly more often than ‘Negative’, but did not use one type of value-framing more than the other. For the fundraising campaign, there were significant differences between countries’ engagement with the advertisements. However, click-through rates did not significantly differ when using types of value-framing nor message valence, and no donations were received to support the campaign. These results may show that message valence and value-framing alone have little influence on audience engagement, if any, at least in the context of social media. To enhance campaign success for the future, it is recommended that conservationists offer concrete information regarding fundraising outcomes, and activate social norms.
... To tackle the illegal or unsustainable trade, substantial efforts have been made globally, including trade restrictions through both national legislations and CITES, law enforcement, incentive programs, and demand reduction interventions including campaigns (Challender & MacMillan, 2014). In particular, there has been a growing literature on demand reduction, providing valuable insights into potential strategies to influencing consumer behaviors (Chaves et al., 2018;Doughty et al., 2021;MacFarlane et al., 2022;Moorhouse et al., 2021;Rizzolo, 2021;TRAF-FIC & The Behavioural Insights Team, 2018;Veríssimo et al., 2020;Wang et al., 2020). ...
The exotic pet trade poses a major threat to biodiversity conservation. To combat biodiversity loss, it is essential to reduce demand for exotic pets and engage people in civic actions for wildlife conservation. Although messaging has been extensively used in conservation practice, little is known about how it can influence attitudes and various types of actions pertaining to the exotic pet trade. This study examined the impact of conservation messaging in the context of exotic pet ownership and wildlife entertainment visitation as common practices of the exotic pet trade. We randomly assigned participants in the U.S. to one of five messaging conditions: biodiversity loss and animal abuse (M1), zoonotic disease risks (M2), illegality (M3), social disapproval (M4), and neutral biological information as a control condition (M5). We found that all conservation messages (M1-M4) significantly decreased people’s favorable attitudes toward the exotic pet trade and their desire to visit wildlife entertainment. However, conservation messaging did not influence the desire for exotic pet ownership or intentions to take civic actions. Our findings highlight the potential of conservation messaging for attitude change and demand reduction for wildlife entertainment, but different approaches are necessary for promoting more effortful actions such as exotic pet ownership and civic actions.
... The rarity and the exotic nature of many trafficked species often draw their demand in both domestic and international markets [8,9], and the potentially lucrative nature of the illegal wildlife trade and the relatively low risk of being caught have attracted motivated individuals to engage in this crime. The growing consumer demand for wildlife and its derivatives continues to incentivize these individuals to engage in illegal wildlife trade [10]. ...
... This means that there is generally no one policy that can solve all species extinction issues. For a broader review of the literature on illegal wildlife trade, see MacFarlane et al. (2022). ...
There is growing evidence to suggest that there is an increase in species extinction occurring globally. In this article, we briefly review the literature on the economics of species extinction, examining what is meant by extinction before explaining how economics has conceptualised this. The initial economics literature on species extinction focuses largely on renewable resources, in particular fisheries, but has subsequently evolved to cover many aspects of biodiversity across all physical scales, employing an increasing array of methodological tools. We also consider aspects of cultural and societal extinctions (e.g. local languages, local knowledge) and how this is positively correlated with loss of biodiversity, as well as an economist’s outlook on the potential to re-capture value post-extinction.
... This is not to say that behavioural decision making and social change have received no attention in the context of biodiversity conservation (Thomas-Walters et al., 2023). Interest has included such issues as managing demand for wildlife products (MacFarlane et al., 2022), the promotion of farmers' pro-environmental practices (Mastrangelo et al., 2014), the application of 'nudge theory' (Nelson et al., 2019), conservation messaging (Kidd et al., 2019), the effectiveness of social marketing campaigns (Green et al., 2019) and the influence of visual media on human-nature interactions (Silk et al., 2021). Nonetheless, it does seem remarkable that, despite being raised at least a decade ago (e.g., St John et al., 2010), it continues to be necessary for recent papers (including in high profile journals) to champion and highlight the role that the behavioural sciences, for example, could play in biodiversity conservation (e.g., Maynard et al., 2020;Balmford et al., 2021;Nielsen et al., 2021). ...
The future of biodiversity lies not just in the strategies and mechanisms by which ecosystems and species are practically best protected from anthropogenic pressures. It lies also, and perhaps foremost, in the many billions of decisions that people make that, intentionally or otherwise, shape their impact on nature and the conservation policies and interventions that are implemented. Personalised ecology – the set of direct sensory interactions that each of us has with nature – is one important consideration in understanding the decisions that people make. Indeed, it has long been argued that people’s personalised ecologies have powerful implications, as captured in such concepts as biophilia, extinction of experience and shifting baselines. In this paper, we briefly review the connections between personalised ecology and the future of biodiversity, and the ways in which personalised ecologies might usefully be enhanced to improve that future.
... In the TCM context for example, health-risk communication is considered as information campaigns to reduce overconsumption of health remedies that contain wildlife ingredients (MacFarlane et al., 2022). In our workshops, all stakeholders highlighted the key role of health professionals (e.g. ...
... For those existing solutions that were enriched by co-design, it may be possible to gather evidence by reviewing the literature, even from other contexts, to assess its effectiveness before implementation. For example, in the health sector, highlighting health risks for reducing consumption has been shown to be effective, while educational approaches have shown mixed results (MacFarlane et al., 2022). ...
Co‐design, an approach that seeks to incorporate the experiences and perspectives of different stakeholders, is increasingly being used to develop audience‐oriented behaviour change interventions.
The complexity of wildlife consumption behaviour makes the co‐design approach an important potential tool for the design of conservation interventions that aim to reduce illegal wildlife trade. Yet, little is known about how to adapt and apply the co‐design approach to the wildlife trade sector.
Here, we applied a co‐design approach to develop interventions aimed at reducing illegal animal‐based medicine consumption in China. We conducted three workshops with key stakeholders: consumers of animal‐based medicines, pharmacy workers who sell them and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) doctors who prescribe them. We then developed a theory of change to ensure the relevance of the co‐designed intervention prototypes.
Our co‐design process identified five main pathways of interventions, including two inclusive solutions that may have been previously overlooked in behaviour change work in this context. These were an intervention to promote the appropriate use of TCM and one to increase consumers' capacity to identify the legality of products. Our prototype interventions also enhanced existing views related to the role of medical practitioners in health‐risk communication.
We used our co‐design process and reflections on its application to this specific market to provide guidelines for future conservation program planning in the broader wildlife trade context. Some intervention prototypes produced during co‐design may need wider stakeholder involvement to increase their feasibility for implementation.
We show that the co‐design process can integrate multiple stakeholders' perspectives in the ideation stage, and has the potential to produce inclusive intervention designs that could drive innovation in conservation efforts to reduce illegal consumption of a range of wild species.
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