Biodiversity

The effect of knowledge, species aesthetic appeal, familiarity and conservation need on willingness to donate

NEW PAPER! Out in Animal Conservation and led by Piia Lundberg, this research looks into the drivers of online donations for species and ecosystem conservation in Finland. See the abstract below and get the PDF here: https://goo.gl/tN5TtS Abstract Environmental non‐governmental organizations (ENGOs) largely select flagship species for conservation marketing based on their aesthetic appeal. However, … [Read more…]

Costing the Earth Podcast – Talking about the illegal wildlife trade

I was lucky to be part of the last episode of the latest episode of the BBC’s Podcast “Costing the Earth“, which is dedicated to the impact of Chinese Traditional Medicine on Wildlife Trade.  I talked about the potential impacts of the expansion of the use of Traditional Chinese Medicine around the world and the … [Read more…]

Characterizing efforts to reduce consumer demand for wildlife products

EXTRA! EXTRA! Just out in the journal Conservation Biology is a review of of demand reduction interventions for wildlife trade products. My co-author Anita Wan and I reviewed more than 200 campaigns and look at they were distributed through time, space and in terms of biological groups (see below). We also looked at what information … [Read more…]

Evaluating impact the qualitative way

Recently I had a paper out in Conservation Biology (led by Gabby Salazar) that focused on a qualitative method to evaluate the long term contribution impact of a social marketing intervention. Gabby used General Elimination Methodology, a theory driven qualitative evaluation method, to assess the long-term impacts of a social marketing campaign on human behavior … [Read more…]

When donors are distracted, flagships matter (a lot) less

NEW RESEARCH! Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play a key role in biodiversity conservation. The majority of these organisations rely on public donations to fund their activities, and therefore fundraising success is a determinant of conservation outcomes. In spite of this integral relationship, the key principals for fundraising success in conservation are still guided by expert opinion … [Read more…]

Bushmeat, Radio and Evaluation

Fresh of press is a new article in the journal Animal Conservation (FULL TEXT HERE). In it we describe an intervention to reduce demand for bushmeat in northern Tanzania. The intervention was centered around the 1-h radio show My Wildlife – My Community which included 15-min episodes of the radio drama Temboni, designed by PCI … [Read more…]

Harry Potter is not so bad after all

For years there have been reports in the popular press of the impact of the Harry Potter phenomenon in the UK on the demand for owls as pets. This narrative became so popular that it led even JK Rowling to issue several statements on this issue asking fans to not keep owls as pets. But … [Read more…]

To save the planet, this scientist says ‘stay optimistic’

In a recent interview for Oceana‘s blog, I talked about the importance of positive messaging in conservation and discussed how I think my Lost & Found storytelling project could help address some of the challenges we are currently facing in connecting with the public Read all about it here: http://oceana.org/blog/save-planet-scientist-says-%E2%80%98stay-optimistic%E2%80%99-0