Posts in the News Category

As some BTB supporters already know, I recently began a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Australian National University working in the area of cultural anthropology. The focus of the research is: How do current and historical cultures ascribe status to wildlife ‘products’ and what turns them into luxury items? The aim is to understand how this process works; of particular interest is how this knowledge may be utilised to achieve the reverse effect – turning a current luxury item (such as rhino horn) back into something no longer considered a luxury or desirable. This insight can then form the basis for creating demand reduction initiatives.

As part of the initial literature search on the nature of luxury the concept of Magnificence vs. Luxury caught my attention. In its origins, luxury was not a term to describe consumption by elites, but one used to denigrate the aspirational consumer practices of the newly emerging wealthy classes¹. In contrast, magnificence is related to the positive uses of wealth, i.e. doing something valuable for the public good. This started me thinking, in recent history (post the industrial revolution), are there examples of magnificence or is all we see self-serving luxury? [Read more…]

In an article I wrote in July 2015 Desire To Supply Rhino Horn Drives Manufacture Of Demand:  I pointed out that while the South African government continues to keep the option of a legal trade in rhino horn on the table, the pro-trade lobby will focus on creating a ‘legal’ sales channel. To-date, the options discussed are:

1. A legalisation of international trade, or
2. A one-off sale of their stockpile, or
3. Overturning the domestic trade ban in South Africa

I, like many people around the world, was disgusted at the sales of rhino horn in Sydney and Melbourne last week. As someone who calls Australia home feeling ashamed of the stupidity, naivety, greed and ignorance that enables this to happen was also part of the list of emotions I experienced.

Having visited many rhino range countries and spoken with the people dealing with the tragedy of the current rhino slaughter, who are too regularly confronted with the death and mutilation of the rhinos in their care, I can only imagine how angry they must feel (http://www.sapeople.com/2015/10/28/stroop-should-rhino-horn-have-been-auctioned-in-australia/  at this uncaring act. Peter Fish’s first line in his Australian Financial Revive article reporting on the sales must have felt like someone was ‘rubbing salt into an open wound’ (http://www.afr.com/lifestyle/arts-and-entertainment/art/carved-rhino-horns-top-two-asian-art-sales-20151027-gkkdzp ). He started with “Rhinoceros horn might not be the most politically correct of collectibles”. Well No Shit Sherlock!

But before anyone accuses me of being overly emotional and reminds me that what these auction rooms did isn’t actually currently illegal under Australian law, let look at the facts. Legality of these auctions is based on provenance – being able to prove that the item being put up for auction falls outside the current prohibition of sale because of its pre-ban/antique status. [Read more…]

Pro-Trade Response to BTB Blog: Viet Nam’s wealthy buyers of rhino don’t see horn from farmed rhino as a substitute product. http://breakingthebrand.org/farmed-rhino-horn-not-seen-as-substitute-product/

Given that the blog talks about the wealthy Vietnamese elite who can afford genuine, wild rhino horn are not interested in a farmed ‘product’, which is a critical point in the legalised trade debate, it was not a surprises that this blog was shared with the group: The Great BIG NO Trade/PRO Trade Rhino Debate. So far it has generated 5 comments and 3 patterns of response:

1. Not a single rhino in SA is not behind a fence
2. Breaking The Brand has not produced the desired results
3. Breaking The Brand wants donations

Before I responds to these three points, I just wanted to point out that no one commented on the two key statements that are critical for the case of farming/trading rhino horn (and here I am making that assumption that the primary objective is to stop poaching).

1. While the demand for rhino horn remains, the poaching of rhinos from the wild will continue; farmed rhino will not help as it is not seen as a substitute product by the Vietnamese elite who can afford genuine, wild rhino horn.
2. The Education for Nature Viet Nam adverts stated, mentioned in the blog, stated that legalising the trade could ignite an explosion in demand that could never be satisfied, let alone controlled. If the pro-trade people say that they disagree are they saying that ‘we know the Vietnamese better than the Vietnamese’, and if pro-trade people say they are better placed to analyse the Vietnamese users of rhino horn than ENV, then prove it. Why haven’t they published any user/market analysis they have done etc. Could it be that they haven’t done any???

So now let me respond to the three patterns from the comments. [Read more…]

As people who say we care about rhinos we need to make a decision to get smarter faster if we really want to save these animals from extinction in the wild. I have several reasons for making this statement, for now I will focus on just two or three. This blog is a little lengthy, please don’t assign it to the TL;DR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) basket; a lack of attention to the detail of this complex issue is slowing down the solution to the rhino poaching problem.

Firstly, in August 2012 TRAFFIC published a report: ‘The South Africa – Viet Nam Rhino Horn Trade Nexus’ highlighting Viet Nam as the primary driver of the current rhino killing spree and the key users groups. It took about two years, not until around mid 2014, for the South African and global media to move from talking about China, traditional Chinese medicine, aphrodisiacs and a 2000 year old culture to finally start talking about Viet Nam, status symbol, detox drink and a relatively recent emerging use.

Even now l regularly see articles that are stuck in the old paradigm. There has been a re-emergence of interest in rhino horn from China, but in the main rhino horn is purchased for investment, speculation or art/antique objet d’art. But that’s another story.

[Read more…]

If I was Chinese I would be disgusted that a group of people lobbying to legalise the trade in rhino horn where pushing a message that I was ‘stuck in a cultural mindset’ that would never enable me, my society or my country to evolve or change.

The propaganda this pro-rhino-horn-trade group is pushing seems to say that ‘Because the Chinese and people of SE Asia have used rhino horn in the past then obviously they will ALWAYS use rhino horn because they are incapable of changing, so the only hope for the rhino is to sell rhino horn to them’. All this because the pro-trade people have stockpiled billions of dollars’ worth of rhino horn that they want to sell. They must think that South African citizens and people around the world are naïve enough to believe this rubbish as they lobby for the legalisation of an international or domestic trade in rhino horn. [Read more…]

Since launching Breaking The Brand in 2013 and highlighting the Spiral Dynamics, behaviour change, Model we use to create our rhino horn demand reduction campaigns in Viet Nam, we have constantly been asked for more information on the model and how it works.  I wrote an introductory blog about the model in January 2014:  http://breakingthebrand.org/values-development-behaviour-change-and-conservation/ providing examples on how it could be used in conservation.

When a recent article profiling socially conscious billionaires talking up Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) – ‘Zillionaires’ warned: wake up, it won’t last: http://www.executivestyle.com.au/zillionaires-warned-wake-up-it-wont-last-gi5vbj ) – caught my attention I decided to revisit Spiral Dynamics for a new blog. It can be used to explain why CSR didn’t have the impact we had hoped for and why we don’t hear so much about it anymore.

[Read more…]

The Breaking The Brand team feels very privileged that more groups are contacting us to ask about the behaviour change models we use; from the start we have been very happy to share our techniques and ideas. So as more animal welfare and wildlife groups are looking at how to change user and perpetrator behaviour, we hope you find this blog informative.

There is a belief in many circles that all messages should be positive, don’t upset people, people only learn and change when they feel positive, are having fun and are engaged. This mindset is pervasive; it is naïve and just plain wrong. If this were true, then from a media perspective why don’t anti-smoking adverts show happy people playing with their children and saying “I have much more energy to play with my kids because I don’t smoke” or road safety adverts with drivers saying “Home again safe and sound because I don’t drink and drive”. Do you think such adverts would reduce the smoking rate or the incidences of drinking and driving?  Do you think such adverts would have worked? No, me neither. The reality is, some people are motivated into changing their behaviour for positive reasons, but many need to feel discomfort to trigger them into action to do something different. This is used in the media to great effect.

[Read more…]

“Sales tricks are what you use to sell something to someone who doesn’t even know they want it.” The Salesman’s Mantra!
As we discussed in a Blog from March 2015, wildlife traffickers can increasingly be described as ‘market savvy, intuitive, ruthless, nimble entrepreneurs’. They have realised how comparably safe it is to get rich from dealing in wildlife. As a result they are now moving beyond simply exploiting the existing demand for high-value animal products such as rhino horn and ivory. Given how easy and lucrative it is to fill the demand for animal products compared to their other ‘businesses’, such as human, arms and drug trafficking, they are likely to be designing and manufacturing new markets. To read more: http://breakingthebrand.org/conservation-vs-wildlife-traffickers-who-do-you-think-will-win-the-war-in-wildlife-crime/

We know that some people see wildlife as a commodity, nothing more than something to turn into money. Whilst Breaking The Brand’s focus is, and will remain, the demand side of the rhino poaching crisis, we must acknowledge that the demand and the desire to supply can’t be decoupled. Simply put, while there are people who want to sell rhino horn, demand will be manufactured. It isn’t difficult to develop a marketing and sales strategy to persuade users to buy a product that they haven’t thought of, don’t need and don’t currently want; business has been doing it for decades. For example, no industry has mastered this as well as the beauty industry! [Read more…]

A recent trip to South Africa clearly showed the Breaking The Brand team that very few people understood the nature of the demand or the users of genuine rhino horn. This is obviously very concerning since the South African government appears to be actively pursuing a trade legalisation agenda and they are creating risk-benefit models for pro/anti trade decisions based on incomplete information.

Significantly, not enough people are asking the right questions: “Whilst we know that horns can be harvested for sale, are these the rhino horns that the wealthy users, driving the poaching of wild rhinos, will want to buy? Are farmed horns a substitute product for horns from wild rhinos to the primary user groups?” BTB’s research has always indicated a farmed product is not seen as a substitute product by the wealthy Vietnamese elite who can afford to buy genuine, wild rhino horn. They are interested in the wild ‘product’ and so while the demand remains the poaching will continue.

So we started thinking: If the users REALLY wanted farmed rhino horn why haven’t the demand countries farmed their own? Let’s think about agricultural sector in Viet Nam. [Read more…]