An Overview Of Our Solution
Even so Brazil is a country that harbors one of the greatest diversity of animals on the planet, exploitation customs towards wildlife has been maintained in society. Every year thousands of animals are trafficked to be sold in urban centers like São Paulo. Our project aims to mitigate the permanent demand in Brazilian society for exotic PET trade by connecting citizens with urban fauna. We focus our activities on two fronts: education and awareness through social media campaigns, exhibitions and workshops; as well as events connecting citizens and wildlife. On social networks, we reached a total of 2,103,159 accounts in 2022. Through 2 exhibitions, we impacted 30,000 people. Additionally, our citizen science actions connecting people with the urban fauna in São Paulo, engagement of more than 500 people and increase participation on citizen science ch
Who is this solution impacting?
Ecosystèmes touchés
Forests
Grasslands
Urban/Built Environment
Type de communauté visée
Suburban
Urban
Additional Information
- Population Impacted: Our action reached a total of 2.103.159 accounts on social media only in 2022, with an average of 22,860 accounts per post. Wildlife Exhibitions impacted more than 30.000 people. Our field action directly mobilized more than 500 people in 2022
- Continent: South America
General Information
Fichier vidéo
Prénom
Mauricio
Nom de famille
Forlani
Type d'organisation
À but non lucratif
Courriel
mauricio@amparanimal.org.br
Challenge
Analyse du contexte
Brazil is a land of biodiversity. Our forests are home to at least 13% of all species on Earth, highlighting the greatest richness of mammals and amphibians in the world, and one of the largest in birds. This exuberant diversity is one of our greatest assets, but not everyone sees it that way. It is no coincidence that Brazil is among the leading countries in illegal wildlife trade, especially to support the country's domestic demand, with more than 100,000 poached animals every year, which exploit more than 500 species of birds, mammals and native reptiles just for the pet trade. One of the consequences of the high acceptance of keeping wild birds and other animals as companion animals, is the demand reinforcement for wild species as pets. This desire to keep wild animals is the main drive force behind illegal wildlife in Brazil. The best way to tackle illegal trade is to reduce demand and promote alternatives for positive interaction between man and wild animals. In this context, AMPARA Silvestre developed the Binóculos da Liberdade project, which aims to broaden citizens' perception towards the fauna around them. Through awareness campaigns on social media and public exhibitions, we bring light to the problems Brazilian biodiversity is facing with illegal trade, considering welfare, one health and conservation issues. In addition to raising awareness and informing society, our project created mechanisms to bring wild animals into people's daily lives, so that they can choose to observe and not own wild animals. We chose São Paulo municipality, the largest city in South America, to focus our actions, including a workshop on urban biodiversity and tools for observing nature in the city, as well promoting the City Nature Challenge.
Solution
Décrivez la solution technique que vous voudriez voir le public cible adopter.
With a solid long-term experience communicating about wildlife, AMPARA Silvestre (AS) has developed a successful mobilization campaign against animal suffering, illegal trade and hunting. Using the AS skills to communicate to society is part of our solution, by delivering weekly content on social media, moving and immersive campaign (exhibition) and in loco experiences to observe urban wildlife.
We focus our content in real cases, the true consequences of poaching thousands of animals from the wild and how animals are suffering and dying because of this cruel market.
Our audience on social media is concentrated in the most populous cities such as São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Belo Horizonte, which are also the main capitals that absorb illegal animals. Promoting awareness for this public through information about animal trafficking and breaking the paradigm by proving the existence of exuberant fauna in cities, we provide a change in behavior and propagation of ou
Décrivez votre intervention comportementale.
Our main action path to reach the population is through information and demonstration of new positive ways to interact with wildlife. In order to make people rethink their willing of buying wild animals, especially illegal ones, we inform all the problems of this activity, either for the individuals or on a broader scale for the environment. We also discuss about criminal and legal aspects of contributing to an illicit market. With this information in hand, we encourage citizens to reflect on their attitudes towards wildlife and the environment.
At the same time, we need to bring alternatives to these consumers, for which we develop couple of materials for the dissemination of the Urban Fauna, such as workshops, events in urban parks, books on urban birds, and a series of digital contents dedicated to teaching and informing citizens how we can enjoy free nature – feeders, citizen science apps (iNaturalist; E-bird), suitable places to see free fauna, etc.
One of the strong ways to encourage behavior change towards wildlife was though free fauna observation activities taking in account aspects of human health and well-being. We noticed that this win-win relationship was strongly accepted by the public.
Leviers comportementaux utilisés
Choice Architecture
Emotional Appeals
Information
Social Influences
Au besoin, veuillez expliquer comment vous avez utilisé le ou les leviers avec plus de détails.
Emotional Appeals-illegal trade is a disruption of welfare. Putting the animal as protagonist we describe and show how trade can be cruel with animals, water deprivation, unnecessary death. Information–delivering information concerning the political aspect, legislation and solutions to the illegal trade. Also, biological aspects, such as the roll of a wildlife in the nature, the lack of welfare in captivity and the environmental impact of poaching wildlife. Social Influences–Brazilians are highly involved with social medias, in 2022 there were 171.5million users in Brazil.So we use this channel to promote the changes on mindsets, by using direct tips, crucial aspect for stop the illegal trade and real cases to influence social behavior. Choice Architecture-showing a way to engage with free wildlife in cities. Promoting these types of activities and bring wildlife for the daily bases of anyone who desire. Animals are not purchases and putting then in cages we are struggling they welfare
Implementation
Décrivez votre mise en œuvre.
We started our actions with a data survey on wildlife illegal trade in Brazil, and what is society’s perception of the existence of wild animals in the city. Based on these data, we designed a communication campaign that had 2 main objectives, to bring awareness and information about trafficking and to improve the citizen's perception about urban fauna.
To bring the theme into people's daily lives, we produced communication content reporting current cases with the most impact on trafficking, major seizures, endangered species, extreme cases in the matter of animal welfare and one health. Another sequence of contents was aimed at raising public awareness, addressing topics such as the legality of trade, the impact and risks to the environment, new digital platforms for trafficking and combating animal trafficking. These actions aimed to bring awareness and reflection on the purchase of wild animals.
We know that wildlife illegal trade consumers are actually people very interested in animals, however what we need to do is to bring alternatives to these consumers to be able to interact with animals in a positive way. We started a sequence of actions dedicated to positive practices that could be an alternative to animal consumption: animal observation. With a focus on urban fauna, we have been developing workshops, lectures, videos and sequences of communication content and observation events to expand the citizen's perception of the existence and possibility of observing a rich diversity in cities.
During 2022, we were able to increase by 40% the participation of people during the Urban Nature Challenge in São Paulo. The material available online from the workshop that we organized related to urban fauna of São Paulo was accessed more than 400 times.
Décrivez le leadership de votre solution. Qui dirige la mise en œuvre?
AMPARA Silvestre is the organization in front of this action, leading by Mauricio Forlani -Research Manager. Both has a long experience in fighting against illegal wildlife, also are commit to construct a better animal policy in Brazil.
Mauricio Forlani, has a master degree in zoology, worked in the academic area in national and international projects dedicated to survey wildlife and conservation. During the last 5 years he is using his technical knowledge in the environmental sector to develop campaign and research strategies to construct polices to prevent wildlife exploitation in Brazil.
The “Binóculos da Liberdade” team, is composed by a set of different leaders, most of the team is female, as AMPARA rise as a women power animal protection organization.
Our leaders comprise a diverse background acknowledgment, such as law, biology, education and marketing.
Principaux intervenants et partenaires du programme
The project works with the idea of people in the power of change. So, our goal is to empower the citizen to became leadership of this cause, to change the acceptability of wildlife as a simple purchase illegally exploited. The wildlife traffic in Brazil specially in big cities can only be stopped if the society sees different ways to interact with the wildlife and stop consuming poach wildlife.
Our digital community is our strong people power strategy. So, we provide a set of information and materials so they can start they on campaign, replicating the message and, thus, reaching large audiences.
To achieveia better success in our project we engaged with different stakeholder such as the government of São Paulo City, Wildlife specialist, Schools, Universities, other NGOs and a range of wildlife observers.
Youth is part of the solution, especially on the ground action, such as the city nature challenge, environmental activities on schools and workshop. They are very important part as they can grow with a better idea of the importance of wildlife and also influence and educate their parents.
The engagement with government was also a key tool in the processes as they have a strong capacity to permeate society, in addition to their direct responsibility in managing green areas in the city. The São Paulo City government was a strong partner in some action, such as workshops, and City Natural Challenge. Together with specialist we could developed free access to information (workshop), activities (observation) and a book.
To get accesses to cases, footage and first direct information conserning wildlife traffic, we created a strong relationship with rescue centers, federal police and federal environment agencies. They also use our channels to publicize actions and big seizures, so they become notorious for the society
Impact
Qui a adopté le(s) comportement(s) souhaité(s) et dans quelle mesure?
We started to monitor the interaction on social media and classify according to the person's response/reaction. We defined 6 different categories:" Acknowledgment", "Learning", "Doubts", "CTA Ideas", "Slogan ", "Awareness and Revolt". For example: Learning comments showing that something new was presented and assimilated is an impact indicative, which can generate behavior change; Doubts comments indicates that individual has gone through a reflection process and also shows that he would like to learn more about; CTA comments that bring ideas and ways of acting, indicate that the person, wants to act and help in the construction of solutions. From these categories, it is possible to associate behavioral changes with learning, satisfaction, reflection, willingness to act, confirmation of the main message and the emotional impact. Selecting and classifying the comments of people reached by the posts we could evaluated and follow that our audience is on the track for change in behavior.
Quel a été votre impact sur la pollution de l'eau?
Although it is not possible to measure how many animals were no longer bought illegally, we believe that our actions have helped to reduce the demand for wild animals. This certainly helped to keep animals in their habitats.
Another relevant point for the environment and its diversity was the incentive and dissemination to society about citizen science apps and places for urban wildlife observation. With the increase of 40% in the engagement considering previous events, we can say that more citizens of São Paulo began to use citizen science apps and thus began to contribute to species conservation strategies, as well as becoming more concerned regarding the maintenance of public natural spaces.
Quel a été l'impact de votre solution sur les problèmes d'équité?
As Brazil suffers from a chronic extreme inequalities, it is hard to target all different layers of our society. Most of our actions include more than one social class, especially social media, exhibitions and workshops. Social media is well use in Brazil, but we know that we are not reaching all layer in our digital community.
To include people from more underprivileged social and racial layer of our society we developed some nature observation activities in the Carmo Public Park, located in a region in São Paulo city with a history of higher social vulnerability and low income.
We also provide a free workshop with different subjects related to wildlife, that are still available on YouTube, making this content accessible to all community.
Quels ont été les avantages connexes de votre solution par rapport au développement durable?
One important aspect of the conservation is knowledge, what is biodiversity or which are the species. So, when we decrease the gap between urban wildlife and society, we are making a bridge for the local community take care about their environment.
When people recognize that wildlife belonging to then, they start to be more aware about the actions and political decisions that can affect wildlife. They have options to see free animal, and not consuming traffic animals – reducing the demand.
Replication and Scale
Durabilité : Décrivez la durabilité économique de votre solution.
Our project was funded by donation and private sector funding. As the project has different action, we are always looking for new private donors to support part of the actions, such as exhibitions, ground activities and workshops.
The communication line is important to maintain a fixed team to standardize language, ton and cadence of the content released.
Our plan is to include for the next years other municipalities engaging government and private sector.
Retour sur investissement : Combien a coûté la mise en œuvre de ces activités?
As our project consist of multiple actions, the total budget consists in operational cost of the communication team and project manager, ground action, exhibitions, footage for communication content and other operational cost.
The total budget for one year project was $ 25.000 USD.
Comment pourrions-nous reproduire cette solution ailleurs avec succès?
Our solution can be replicate in all Latin America as there are no exclusive local aspect.
Online mobilization campaign is a powerful tool to push people to act for some cause or change some behavioral. Definitely, it is important to understand that regionally the main problems concerning illegal wildlife. Our strategy can be applied by any organization who wants to tackle the society’s demand for illegal wildlife.
The connection between citizens and their wildlife is a key process, not just to stop illegal trade, but also to produce a well-reasoned society to fight for conservation.
The Government is a vital stakeholder to the project's success. They can amplify its actions and transform the activities continuous and public. The education sector also plays a decisive role in the development of these long-term activities. Finally, the involvement of researchers and wildlife specialists is essential to stimulate the observation of animals in the wild.