Tackling Chinese Consumer Demand for Elephant Ivory in China using Behavioural Insights from Social Marketing

Behavioural approaches are urgently needed to support the conservation of African elephants. Effectively tackling unsustainable consumer demand for ivory in China is imperative to reduce the impacts of illegal ivory trade on vulnerable elephant populations. Therefore, the deep and dynamic social and cultural values associated with ivory for modern consumers in China need to be carefully understood and embedded into future behaviour change interventions. I use the behavioural field of social marketing to understand ivory consumer behaviour and generate evidence to support future behaviour change interventions. In this thesis, I conducted a qualitative systematic literature review to identify key behavioural drivers and barriers of ivory consumption in China. However, the small evidence base available demonstrated the lack of empirical behavioural research conducted on ivory consumption. This review highlighted our superficial sociological understanding of ivory consumption in China. To understand the potential effectiveness of behaviour change interventions targeting ivory consumers, I evaluated 55 ivory interventions from 2008 to 2022 using a novel social marketing evaluative framework supported by expert practitioner interviews. I found critical gaps in the integration of key social marketing principles that limit the effectiveness of interventions. Namely, the lack of monitoring, evaluation, and theory-based approaches undermined the capacity for past interventions to change ivory consumer behaviour. To understand which behavioural drivers should be targeted to manage ivory consumer demand, I assessed consumers’ aesthetic, social, and cultural values, as well as legal and environmental attitudes, using the unmatched count technique via an online questionnaire in China (n=1,017). I found aesthetic values drove ivory ownership, while ivory’s cultural significance and means to indicate social status drove gifting behaviours. Overall, my results demonstrate the explicit need to target underlying sociological and cultural motivations of consumer behaviour in China to manage ivory demand for the future sustainable management of ivory.