Thailand consumer demand reduction

Environmental Investigation Agency, UK (EIA)

EIA investigative products on the trade in tigers and their parts and derivatives, profiling individuals and networks involved in this trade, combined with EIA’s analysis of open source information, assists stakeholders to identify relevant consumer groups and to further target their campaigns to reduce consumer demand – see above description in the law enforcement support section.

Freeland

Freeland teams up with Thai government agencies, NGOs and private companies (media, marketing and hospitality) to conduct social behavior change campaigns in Thailand to reduce consumption of shark fin, elephant ivory, pangolin, rhino horn, big cats, exotic pets, and rosewood. Campaigns are usually conducted with the use of KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders) and with the support of local advertising and social media marketing companies to achieve maximum reach and impact. “Fin Free” and “iTHINK” have been run in the region since 2011. iTHINK is a campaign support platform that provides financial and technical assistance to partner campaigns that strategically engage the audience to join and grow the conversation about wildlife crime, building social pressure on and around the consumer.

TRAFFIC

TRAFFIC has been helping improve policies and legislation at the national level, engage public-private partnerships, and drive a suite of interventions to catalyze behavior change efforts with partners to reduce demand in major consumer markets in Southeast Asia and China. TRAFFIC hosts the Wildlife Consumer Behaviour Change Toolkit www.changewildlifeconsumers.org and provides a suite of services for the ‘Demand Reduction Community of Practice’ that uses the Toolkit as an information and coordination hub – services include an element of Webinars, learning and experience exchange events, Expert Roundtables on key topics and Good Practice Guidelines on measuring the impact of behavioral change.

Working closely with WWF, TRAFFIC has been providing technical guidance on the implementation of the new legislation that regulates the Thai domestic ivory trade, including efforts to reduce demand for ivory products – additional citation of this initiative in the national level law enforcement support section above.

United for Wildlife (UfW)

UfW has grown a large and engaged social media community through a variety of digital campaigns and activities aimed at young people across the world. With a growing online community to share news with and raise awareness of illegal wildlife trade, United for Wildlife shares unique content and activities enabling young people to engage with the issue of illegal wildlife trade while learning more about conservation in general.

United for Wildlife has also developed a platform for the delivery of online learning material and provides online courses that enable self-paced learning on a number of general and specialized topics relevant to conservation, including a short course focusing on illegal wildlife trade. At the end of 2016 over 8,500 people from 196 countries had registered on the platform and more than 170,000 people follow the course and its content on social media with marketing focused on the priority countries identified by UfW in regards to consumer markets. The platform won a highly regarded Learning Technologies award in 2016.

United for Wildlife further works with the online gaming sector to expand the audience of conservation messaging, with 100,000 downloads of the UfW “We Are The Rangers” Minecraft map, and over 2.6 million YouTube play-throughs. This included content created by popular Minecraft YouTubers in Thailand and initial player generated map events submitted from Vietnam.

United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)

The UNDP-supported, GEF-financed project “Combating Illegal Wildlife Trade, focusing on Ivory, Rhino Horn, Tiger and Pangolins in Thailand” being implemented by the Department of National Parks, will focus on consumer demand reduction as a third component of the project, with a specific focus on changing public attitude and perception regarding ivory. The project is currently in project development phase and expected to will be likely to conduct campaigns to reduce demand for both illegal ivory and tiger products.

USAID Wildlife Asia

USAID Wildlife Asia will reduce consumer demand for wildlife parts and products by communicating, mobilizing and advocating ways to change behaviors and build new social norms around the use of wildlife. Planned activities include communication campaigns using proven social and behavior change communication (SBCC) approaches and technical assistance to strengthen capacity of organizations to use SBCC in planning and implementing demand reduction campaigns. Year 1 activities include conduct of a situational analysis to identify priority consumer segments, demand drivers and influencing factors underlying the purchase and use of wildlife products in China, Thailand and Vietnam; development and preparation for implementation of new campaigns in these three countries; as well as providing support to align existing campaigns with USAID Wildlife Asia messages, and SBCC capacity building of organizations involved in wildlife communication. The USAID Wildlife Asia Activity is implemented by the International Resources Group (IRG) – which is owned by RTI International – with a consortium of organizations and companies including FHI 360, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Freeland and Integra.

WildAid

WildAid conducts a consumer demand campaigns targeting ivory (commenced 2016) to address the lack of awareness of Thailand as a destination and transit hub for the illegal ivory trade and poaching crisis, build more pro-conservation attitudes, persuade consumers not to buy ivory and support government efforts to end the ivory trade. The campaign uses a combination of strategies including press/media outreach/education, celebrity-driven media campaigns (TV PSAs, billboards, print), online and social media campaigns including social media influencers, business leaders pledge, government officials and policy makers, media influencers, and briefings and consultations with relevant government agencies. The target audience includes medium to high income consumers, business leaders, government officials and policy makers, media influencers. Over the past year, the campaign has included sub-campaigns involving a wide range of international and Thai celebrities, and has expanded the Business Leader Ivory Free pledge with top CEOs. In 2017, the campaign continues to communicate the importance of ending the consumption of ivory, strengthening enforcement and the urgency of ending the poaching crisis. Ongoing efforts include awareness raising and new demand reduction TV PSAs, media reports on poaching/reduced demand, social media, etc. It will also assist enforcement agencies as they communicate seizures, arrests, prosecutions and sentences to highlight the wildlife crime aspect of the ivory trade and government enforcement efforts.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

WWF has conducted public outreach campaigns, e.g., the Chor Chang campaign, to inform Thai citizens about the link between the ivory trade in Thailand and the poaching of elephants in Africa.