From Awareness to Action: Changing Behavior for Species Conservation

All major threats to wildlife are driven by human behavior. However, despite being a substantial challenge, influencing human behavior remains a largely understudied topic. In this talk, I will outline some of the key lessons from my work over the last 15 years, using techniques such as social marketing to influence behavior, using case studies focused on the illegal trade in wildlife products, in countries as diverse as São Tomé and Príncipe , Singapore or China.

Diogo Veríssimo is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, where he focuses on the design and evaluation of behavior change interventions to conserve biodiversity. For 15 years, he has worked on applying social marketing theory and tools to influence behaviors relevant to biodiversity in regions such as Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and West and Central Africa, on topics as varied as the illegal trade of wild animals, human-wildlife conflicts or overfishing. He is currently the Chair of the IUCN Behavior Change Working Group and on the board of directors of European Social Marketing. He was recently Vice President of the International Social Marketing Association and Co-Founder of the Conservation Marketing Working Group of the Society for Conservation Biology.

Discover more about his work at www.diogoverissimo.com