Promoting community reporting of peri-urban wild dogs: a partnership approach to behaviour change

Abstract

Wild dogs contribute to a range of negative economic, environmental, social-psychological and public health impacts in Australian peri-urban regions. There are limited conventional control options in these environments. A behaviour change project has been undertaken in the Gold Coast area to promote community participation in peri-urban wild dog management.
Following the guidelines of Community-Based Social Marketing we consulted with experts to identify 15 behaviours that could be adopted by the community to reduce impacts of wild dogs in peri-urban areas. Each behaviour was assessed on: (1) expert-rated effectiveness, (2) likelihood of community adoption, and (3) current penetration rates within the community, and were ranked in terms of overall projected impact. The top-ranked behaviour, ‘Reporting wild dog sightings and impacts to local council’, was the target behaviour selected for the project. A barriers and benefits analysis identified that two main perceived benefits driving reporting were beliefs that reporting would benefit native wildlife and community safety. Two main barriers to reporting were beliefs that reporting takes too much effort and wild dogs should be left alone. Based on these results a Communications Strategy field experiment was developed to focus on shifting social norms about reporting wild dogs, framing messages around protecting native wildlife and making reporting easier to do. We will be reporting on the impact of the field experiment in this presentation.
Effective behaviour change projects take the form of research partnerships that transcend formal disciplinary boundaries, explicitly acknowledge that many different perspectives are relevant to the resolution of complex problems, and actively involve the users of research. Robust partnerships with local and regional government bodies are therefore required. We will report on the examination of processes, behaviours and relationships that fostered collective learning and decision-making in this project.