The secret to more effective conservation may be right under our nose

What we already know about people’s behavior can be a key to improving the success of conservation initiatives.

The predictability of human behavior – for instance – how we make quick decisions, can unlock a range of effective strategies to achieve conservation outcomes, says Prof Josh Cinner, a highly acclaimed social scientist at Coral CoE.

In an invited article published today in the high impact journal Science, Prof Cinner highlights how decades of learnings about changing people’s behavior from the volumes of social psychology and behavioural economics literature can help make conservation strategies more effective.

Focusing on two influential areas of experimental research, “cognitive bias” and “social influences,” Prof Cinner provides examples of how the different related approaches can be carried out in the real world.

But he cautions, one size does not fit all. Likewise, use of existing behavioural insights depends on an array of variables including who’s leading the change, their audience, cultural mores, and conservation targets.

Read more here: http://science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi/10.1126/science.aau6028

Check out Prof Cinner’s most recent research here.

Listen to his talk “The gravity of human impacts mediates coral reef conservation gains,” here.