A pioneering approach to tackling the illegal trade in saiga antelope horn is now being rolled out in the fight to protect other endangered species.

Professor Dame E.J. Milner-Gulland and her team took a radically different approach to previous efforts to reduce consumer demand for wildlife products, which had often centred on large-scale advertising campaigns, the effectiveness of which was difficult to assess. By bringing together specialists in conservation, behaviour change and computer science, the Oxford Martin Programme on Wildlife Trade designed a behaviour-change campaign that could be tested and evaluated at every stage. 

Working with academic partners in Singapore, lead researcher Dr Hunter Doughty set out to target key consumers of medicines made from the horn of saiga antelope, a species that until recently had teetered on the brink of extinction for several decades. A survey of nearly 3,000 people found that one in five Chinese Singaporeans use saiga products as their go-to remedies for cold and flu symptoms, and the team selected women aged 36-59 as their target group, as they were responsible for purchasing remedies for themselves and their families. The first step of the intervention itself was for Dr. Doughty to secure news coverage in trusted media including the Straits Times, to tackle the assumption that saiga products came from farmed animals. She then further disseminated these stories via targeted advertising on Google and Facebook, enabling the researchers to track link clicks, shares and commentary. 

“The Oxford Martin School support has given us the flexibility to find the most impactful ways of tackling the illegal wildlife trade. We have been able to design highly-targeted behaviour change campaigns that can be scientifically tested and evaluated.” 

The final step was to survey both consumers and retailers on the ground to assess the impact of the campaign on actual purchases. The success of the new framework, where interventions could be evaluated at every stage, led to further funding from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to continue the work in Singapore and also expand it to Japan, another key saiga consumer country. Dr Diogo Verrissimo, the programme’s behaviour change specialist, is now working with NGOs, governments and other universities around the globe to use the programme’s framework in conservation efforts to protect songbirds, turtles and bears.

Professor Dame E.J. Milner-Gulland reflected “The Oxford Martin School support has given us the flexibility to find the most impactful ways of tackling the illegal wildlife trade. We have been able to design highly-targeted behaviour change campaigns that can be scientifically tested and evaluated.”