Reach and messages of the world's largest ivory burn

Abstract

Recent increases in ivory poaching have depressed African elephant populations. Successful enforcement has led to ivory stockpiling. Stockpile destruction is becoming increasingly popular, and most destruction has occurred in the last 5 years. Ivory destruction is intended to send a strong message against ivory consumption, both in promoting a taboo on ivory use and catalyzing policy change. However, there has been no effort to establish the distribution and extent of media reporting on ivory destruction events globally. We analyzed media coverage of the largest ivory destruction event in history (Kenya, 30 April 2016) across 11 nation states connected to ivory trade. We used an online-media crawling tool to search online media outlets and subjected 5 of the largest print newspapers (by circulation) in 5 nations of interest to content analysis. Most online news on the ivory burn came from the United States (81% of 1944 articles), whereas most of the print news articles came from Kenya (61% of 157 articles). Eighty-six to 97% of all online articles reported the burn as a positive conservation action, whereas 4-50% discussed ivory burning as having a negative impact on elephant conservation. Most articles discussed law enforcement and trade bans as effective for elephant conservation. There was more relative search interest globally in the 2016 Kenyan ivory burn than any other burn in 5 years. Ours is the first attempt to track the reach of media coverage relative to an ivory burn and provides a case study in tracking the effects of a conservation-marketing event.

Management options for addressing the persistent and unresolved CITES issue of Madagascar’s rosewood stocks and stockpile

“…• destruction of the stocks: Randriamalala et al 2011; several African countries (e.g., Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe) have burnt stocks of ivory in an attempt to stem trafficking and to reduce further poaching of elephants (Braczkowski et al 2018). Randriamalala and Liu (2010, Suppl.…”

“…As suggested by 't Sas-Rolfes et al 2014, the destruction of ivory stockpiles does not meet the precautionary principle (sensu Dickson 1999), since the objectives achieved by this option are unknown. The burning of ivory stockpiles, as for example undertaken by the Kenya Wildlife Service in 1999 and 2011 was widely broadcasted through the media in order to convey a message of zero tolerance towards trafficking (Braczkowski et al 2018). However, the confiscation and destruction of stocks can also be viewed as having a negative impact, because poachers may want to compensate for their losses, which potentially instigates more slaughtering of elephants (Collins et al 2017).…”

Elephants never forget, should art museums remember too? Historic ivory collections as ambassadors for conservation education

“…While history cannot be re-written, the belief that the future need not mirror the past drives many of today's elephant conservationists to work for a reduction in the demand for ivory. But as Braczkowski et al (2018) conclude, passing on a conservation message, or indeed any thoughtful message, is a challenging and complex undertaking.…”

“…The event caused a dramatic spike in online, print and social media support for its message against the resurgence in poaching and the ivory trade that has seen African elephant populations plummet over the previous decade (Chase et al 2016;Wittemyer et al 2014). But a recent study exposed the media reaction as not only fleeting, but also failing to reach the intended global demographics of consumers, dealers, poachers and traffickers (Braczkowski et al 2018).…”

Increase anti‐poaching law‐enforcement or reduce demand for wildlife products? A framework to guide strategic conservation investments

“…However, alternative antipoaching interventions are increasingly gaining donor and government support-ones that attempt to indirectly curtail poaching by reducing consumer demand for wildlife products (Sato & Hough, 2016;Veríssimo & Wan, 2018). From educational and advertising material (Chaves et al, 2018;Veríssimo & Wan, 2018) to the public destruction of ivory and rhino horn (Biggs, Holden, Braczkowski, & Possingham, 2016;Braczkowski et al, 2018), these actions aim to stigmatize consumer purchases as part of multipronged demand reduction campaigns. Despite organizations moving forward with these interventions, and scientists exploring drivers of demand (Gao & Clark, 2014;Hanley, Sheremet, Bozzola, & MacMillan, 2017;Olmedo et al, 2017), there has yet to be any rigorous study on the effectiveness of demand reduction campaigns for securing populations of poached species compared to enforcement.…”