The South African government has around 16,437 kilograms of stockpiled rhino horn and a further 2,091 kilograms more is in private hands. In recent months the South African government has stepped up its pro-trade argument and undoubtedly there will be some private rhino owners who are pro-trade. Pro-trade requires the value of the horn to be maintained. Toxin infusion in to the horn is a devaluation strategy. Why would a government want a commodity devalued when it is pushing hard to legalise trade? Do you think this could be the reason the only rhino protection method which devalues the horn is being singled out for criticism? Well a lot of South Africans and people around the world seem [...]

The Breaking The Brand is delighted to let all our supporters know that our demand reduction campaign went live in Viet Nam 15th September 2014. Over the next 10 weeks, we are running 19 full and half page adverts in 5 magazines including 2 consecutive months in Heritage, The Vietnam Airlines magazine. Our first advert (shown below) is from a magazine called ‘Investment Bridge’. It is a weekly magazine targeted at businessmen and has a circulation of 65,000. To our supporters around the world, thank you for helping the BTB team in Melbourne make this happen. […]

South Africa is currently pushing a pro-trade agenda in rhino horn, in the hope of getting a trade legalisation decision at a CITES meeting to be held in South Africa in 2016. The stated objective is that only legalising trade will stop the poaching by driving down black market prices for rhino horn. This is being justified by claiming that all other anti-poaching and demand reduction measures must have failed since the poaching rate is still increasing. With a complex issue such as legalising the trade in a currently illegal wildlife product it pays to analyse the motivations of the various players involved, as the so-called ‘rational’ (economic) arguments put forward can be adjusted [...]

An unborn rhino foetus removed from its dead and dehorned mother. In this poaching incident a wildlife ranger was also killed. It is not good enough for Vietnamese businessmen to try to disassociate themselves from this killing spree by saying “We don’t do the poaching, we only buy the horn”. This destruction is carried out to fulfil their personal desire for status, bestowed through their ability to obtain a rare, expensive product – genuine rhino horn. It is common for the wealthy to feel the need to demonstrate their worth by the luxury goods they own, but there is a difference between buying Rolex watches and obtaining illegal wildlife products. The need to demonstrate status goes too [...]

Of the series of adverts created for the pilot campaign have been tested, one in particular has generated more comment than all the others put together: In this test advert we use the term “to medicate” and people feel that this may give the use of rhino horn legitimacy. As more campaigns are developed to target the consumers of a range of illegal or endangered wildlife product, we thought people may be interested in the psychology behind creating the advert in the way we have. We do want to capture the attention of users who do consider rhino horn a medication/supplement; and to get the attention of these users we [...]

The people of Viet Nam like many countries throughout Asia have developed an interdependent self-concept vs. the independent self-concept more typical in Western cultures. As a result, it is much harder to set yourself apart from, challenge or put personal preferences before the norms of your group. To do so would cause a loss of face and would likely result in rejection by your peer group. This is captured in a recent factsheet published by TRAFFIC which gives an example of a typical user of rhino horn in Viet Nam: http://awsassets.panda.org/downloads/viet_nam_consumers_factsheet.pdf Mr. L a 48 year old property developer: He is focused on his social status and is therefore potentially vulnerable to outside influences He puts [...]

Richard Hargreaves’ update on the Lion Bone Trade from South Africa 24 April 2014 I recently read that the South African provincial records with regard to South Africa’s dead lion exports are a ‘complete shambles’. Based on the latest data now published for 2012 I’m inclined to agree…. DEAD LION EXPORTS FROM SOUTH AFRICA TO CHINA IN 2012 In December 2013 the South African Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs advised that South Africa exported the following dead lions to China in 2012: 36 trophies 15 bodies 2 skeletons By contrast, South Africa’s ‘official’ CITES records now show dead lion exports to China in 2012 of: 21 trophies 1 skin 12 bodies China’s ‘official’ CITES records for 2012 own up [...]

The opportunity to present the Breaking The Band campaign to over 120 delegates at the 2014 Zoo and Aquarium Association (ZAA) Conference was exciting if a little daunting. The conference, hosted by Auckland Zoo, brought people together to share ideas and, to quote the ZAA Australasia President Karen Fifield, take stock of the conservation outcomes and sustainability initiatives occurring in the region and worldwide. Certainly the conference confirmed that a lot of effort is focused on developing behaviour change initiatives. Often what is not realized by people in the conservation space is that they are asking “How can we get people to think and behave like us?”, which is not a helpful approach. The Spiral Dynamics [...]

As we approach the Global March for Lions on March 15th the Breaking the Brand team would like to highlight how the model we have used to create the rhino campaign can help design behaviour change adverts targeting the canned hunting industry and its ‘supply chain’, namely lion cub petting and walking safaris with lions. As a group of people the BTB team find wildlife enthralling and we can understand why unsuspecting tourists, who feel the same way, could think of nothing more thrilling than getting up close to one of the world’s most captivating animals. We are sure that these same people would be truly mortified if they knew that in the case of lion farms what they [...]

There are a lot of initiatives under way to stop the relentless increase in rhino poaching. Unfortunately, we are not seeing any discernable success as rhino poaching continues to grow at a rate of around 50% a year. In order to properly understand the problem we need to look at the link between customer demand for genuine rhino horn (which currently mostly comes from Viet Nam) and the complex supply chain that has been put in place to satisfy this rising demand. In essence, there are only three possible approaches to saving rhinos in the wild: Destroy the supply chain, Break the demand, or Legalise the product and trade. The third strategy is highly contentious because there is [...]