Social Norms for Illegal Hunting and Patrolling to Prevent It: Formative Data for Intervention Design and Communication Campaigns

ABSTRACT Community-driven initiatives aimed at curbing wild animal poaching can effectively mitigate species decline, tailor programs to community needs, and align with community members’ preferences. This paper reports on formative data framed within the financial incentives in normative systems (FINS) model. Through in-depth interviews with ethnically Tibetan pastoralists, we find evidence for anti-poaching descriptive and injunctive norms, along with norms endorsing interventions to stop hunting. Our findings indicate that communication regarding wildlife protection is less prevalent within family or friendship groups but more commonly conveyed by governmental and spiritual leaders. The findings suggest anti-poaching efforts could include local community members as well as community leaders and consider existing culturally and spiritually driven attitudes and social norms which are anti-hunting and pro-animal protection.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Environmental Communication

• Publication date

  2025-02-02

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1080/17524032.2025.2458225
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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