Awareness is a broad objective covering grass roots education in communities living closest to threatened wildlife, across a range of global audiences to consumer countries, and users of wildlife products often on the other side of the world.
Awareness is both the first step to the solution as well as, potentially, being the FINAL solution. This is because without people being aware of a problem and understanding the complexities of the problem, we are not able to adjust our behavior and do something positive about it. On the other end of the illegal global wildlife trade spectrum, the purchasing power of consumers who demand these products and who pay premium prices for them is what drives the financial engine of crime and wildlife trafficking. The money available to incentivize greed and motivate the poor to commit lucrative crimes is often too tempting and the result is both a bloody animal and human tragedy growing daily in Africa.
Demand reduction is aimed at educating consumers who are often unaware of the consequences of their actions, to appreciate the damage they cause to lives of animals, humans and natural habitats. Only if the global community begins to appreciate and value the importance of the natural world and healthy ecosystems, will we have a chance to reduce the carnage and develop sustainable ways to live well and survive on this planet?
Our awareness campaign is aimed at educating children living close to wildlife; influencing the “influentials” such as celebrities and key decision makers in governments; changing the value-based behavior of consumer countries by targeting the next generation of leaders and the children of current consumers.
Please help us by, educating yourself so that you can engage these target groups constructively, apply pressure on your leaders who in turn can apply pressure on the global political and trade community and fund proved grass roots programs which are already active in a limited way, to expand to a wider audience.
