Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Oxford Martin Programme On The Illegal Wildlife Trade, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2021 Mar 24;16(3):e0248144. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248144. eCollection 2021.
Interventions to shift the behaviour of consumers using unsustainable wildlife products are key to threatened species conservation. Whether these interventions are effective is largely unknown due to a dearth of detailed evaluations. We previously conducted a country-level online behaviour change intervention targeting consumers of the Critically Endangered saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) horn in Singapore. To evaluate intervention impact, we carried out in-person consumer surveys with >2,000 individuals pre- and post-intervention (2017 and 2019), and 93 in-person post-intervention surveys with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) shopkeepers (2019). The proportion of self-reported high-usage saiga horn consumers in the target audience (Chinese Singaporean women aged 35-59) did not change significantly from pre- to post-intervention (24.4% versus 22.6%). However, post-intervention the target audience was significantly more likely than the non-target audience to accurately recall the intervention message and to report a decrease in saiga horn usage (4% versus 1% reported a behaviour change). Within the target audience, high-usage consumers were significantly more likely than lower-usage consumers to recall the message and report a behaviour change. Across respondents who reported a decrease in saiga horn usage, they cited the intervention message as a specific reason for their behaviour change significantly more than other reasons. Additionally, across all respondents, the belief that saiga is a common species in the wild decreased significantly from pre- to post-intervention. TCM shopkeepers, however, cited factors such as price and availability as the strongest influences on saiga horn sales. In sum, the intervention did significantly influence some consumers but the reduction of high-usage consumer frequency was not significant at the population level. We explore reasons for these findings, including competing consumer influences, characteristics of the intervention, and evaluation timing. This work suggests our intervention approach has potential, and exemplifies a multi-pronged in-person evaluation of an online wildlife trade consumer intervention.
干预消费者使用不可持续的野生物产品的行为对于受威胁物种的保护至关重要。由于缺乏详细的评估，这些干预措施是否有效在很大程度上是未知的。我们之前针对新加坡消费者对极度濒危的赛加羚羊角（Saiga tatarica）的消费行为进行了一项国家级的在线行为改变干预措施。为了评估干预措施的影响，我们在干预前后（2017 年和 2019 年）对超过 2000 名个人进行了实地消费者调查，并对传统中药（TCM）店主进行了 93 次实地干预后调查（2019 年）。目标受众（年龄在 35-59 岁的新加坡华裔女性）中自我报告的高使用率赛加羚羊角消费者的比例从干预前到干预后没有显著变化（24.4%对 22.6%）。然而，干预后，目标受众比非目标受众更有可能准确回忆起干预信息，并报告赛加羚羊角使用量减少（4%对 1%报告行为改变）。在目标受众中，高使用率消费者比低使用率消费者更有可能回忆起信息并报告行为改变。在报告赛加羚羊角使用量减少的受访者中，他们引用干预信息作为行为改变的具体原因的比例明显高于其他原因。此外，在所有受访者中，认为赛加羚羊在野外是常见物种的信念从干预前到干预后显著下降。然而，TCM 店主引用价格和供应等因素作为对赛加羚羊角销售的最强影响因素。总的来说，干预措施确实对一些消费者产生了影响，但在人群层面上，高使用率消费者的频率减少并不显著。我们探讨了这些发现的原因，包括竞争消费者的影响、干预措施的特点和评估时间。这项工作表明，我们的干预方法具有潜力，并例证了对在线野生物贸易消费者干预措施的多方面实地评估。
