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Could ‘conservation influencers’ be the way to help communities to perform more conservation-friendly behaviour?
A new paper led by Laura Perry and published in Human Dimensions of Wildlife asked if ‘conservation influencers’ could be the way to help communities to perform more conservation-friendly behaviour? Her study in southern Kenya suggests this might be the case.
By reading study participants a description of other another person’s behaviour, researchers were able to influence the participants’ own plans for managing livestock. When people heard a description of ‘good behaviour’ — activities which reduced conflict with predators or the environmental impact of livestock grazing — they planned to copy these behaviors themselves. This was particularly true when they were told that an older man or a community leader carried out these ‘good’ management activities. In other words, people who were told that their community leader performed wildlife-friendly livestock management behaviors were ‘influenced’ to perform similar behaviour, whereas those who heard about ‘bad behaviour’ or the activities of low-status community members were less likely to do so.
Young people were very subject to influence, and were more likely to plan to copy described behavior than older people, although older people themselves had much more influence on others. In practical terms, recruiting older, high status ‘conservation influencers’ may be one effective way to promote conservation-friendly behaviours. Whether through lipgloss promotions on Instagram or livestock management behaviour in rural Kenya, this study confirms that people are all subject to social influence in similar ways — now, it is up to conservationists to harness this social influence and develop the potential of local influencers to effect real conservation impact. 
Laura R. Perry, Ewan A. Macdonald, Tom Moorhouse, Paul J. Johnson,
Andrew J. Loveridge & David W. Macdonald (2021): Social referents and normative standards
affect perceptions of livestock management behaviors, Human Dimensions of Wildlife, DOI:
10.1080/10871209.2021.1984615
