Conservation Behaviour Change
The field of conservation behaviour change is a new and exciting discipline which aims to help practitioners to apply social science tools to conservation problems and promote sustainable coexistence between people and wildlife. Specifically, conservation behaviour change provides a systematic approach for understanding why people carry out certain behaviours, and how people can move away from these behaviours. However, whilst these tools and approaches do exist and are increasingly widely used across conservation, they are inaccessible for many practitioners. In the field, some practitioners struggle to understand how these approaches can be applied to their work without seeing similar examples, and cannot access relevant and affordable training on these skills. In this project, Laura and her team plan to address both of these barriers and promote effective use of behaviour change approaches across elasmobranch conservation.
Key Objective
This work will help marine conservationists to use behaviour change tools and approaches more effectively and better integrate these tools into their projects. In practice, this means supporting coastal communities to make pro-conservation choices and behave sustainably, allowing people to coexist with nature.
Why is this important
Most threats to the natural world stem from human behaviour, but few conservationists are equipped to incorporate behavioural science approaches to resolve these issues. Indeed, many conservation projects working on sharks and rays struggle to engage communities in conservation-friendly behaviour, such as alternative gears, catch and release protocols, or sustainable harvest. Behaviour change offers applied, effective methodologies to encourage people to adopt certain behaviours and cease others, and is hugely relevant for shark conservation efforts.
Background
Around the world, the primary threats to sharks and rays revolve around people and their impact on marine ecosystems. From unsustainable offtake, to accidental bycatch, to damage to critical habitats, these species experience the full diversity of man-made threats, and are increasingly endangered as a result. Whilst there are many cutting-edge projects which focus on reducing these direct threats, there is limited work on addressing the underlying cause: human behaviour. The discipline of conservation behaviour change exists to address these underlying issues, and behaviour change approaches have proven effective in helping people to make choices that are more compatible with conservation. However, very few marine practitioners currently make use of these tools and approaches.
In this project, we are working to provide the conservationists who on sharks and rays will better tools for changing human behaviour. By collaborating with practitioners to produce a useful set of examples from shark and ray projects around the world, and also developing specific training on behaviour change designed with marine conservation practitioners in mind, this project will help to ensure that marine conservationists have the right knowledge and training to use behavioural science to secure better conservation outcomes.
Aims & objectives
This project will support wider and more effective uptake of conservation behaviour change approaches across the Save Our Seas Foundation network. By providing conservation practitioners with a stronger understanding of human behaviour, and advanced skills with which to design and use behaviour change techniques, this project will contribute to more effective, community-centric conservation efforts for sharks and rays around the world.
PI: Laura R. Perry
Project Team: Hollie Booth, Mina Hatayama, Rafid Shidqi, M Said Ramdlan, Ghofrane Labyedh, Hannah Medd, Jill Brooks