Can community outreach alleviate poaching pressure and recover wildlife in South‐East Asian protected areas?

Abstract

Summary Many interventions to stem wildlife poaching have overlooked insights into human behaviour offered by the social sciences. South‐East Asia suffers the world's highest rate of wildlife declines, due mainly to poaching, yet there is little scientific attention on behaviour change, and few evaluations of the effectiveness of different approaches for stemming poaching. We used social‐psychology principles to design a community outreach programme aimed at reducing poaching in a reserve in Thailand, and we monitored biological and social outcomes over 4‐6 years. Outreach aimed to build trust, raise awareness, motivate, offer opportunities for action, increase perceived behavioural control of villagers and generate social pressure against poaching. Behaviour change is promoted when these conditions converge. We conducted 116 outreach events, focusing on adult farmers, children and local leaders. We assessed poaching trends using encounter rates with poaching signs and questionnaires. We monitored population status of six hunted mammal species (five ungulates and one rodent) using sign‐based occupancy surveys and camera trapping. Poaching pressure dropped by a factor of four across the park, with multiple short‐term declines (usually to zero) immediately following outreach in seven of nine patrol zones. Park patrol effort was uncorrelated with poaching trends, contrary to expectations. Questionnaire responses (n = 311) corresponded to empirical observations: 88% stated that poaching declined over previous years; the top reason given for this decline was park outreach. In response to safer conditions, occupancy and abundance of five of the six focal species increased significantly or was stable in all three monitoring sites. Patrol effort was statistically unrelated to wildlife trends. Synthesis and applications. The weight of evidence in our study points to outreach as the main driver of a biologically significant decline in poaching that initiated the recovery of hunted species within the national park. This experiment provides one of the first demonstrations that scientifically designed and proactive park outreach activities might suppress poaching and initiate wildlife recovery in South‐East Asia.