Marketing consultancy

 

Whitehill & Bordon - Share-with care® workshop
Balancing access with conservation

Situation

• A new eco town is being created in Hampshire.
• Four thousand new homes will bring increased disturbance to an environmentally sensitive area.
• Dog disturbance remains a major problem besetting all of the British countryside.
• Applying his Nestlé pets experience and from conservation work for stone curlews in the Brecks and Suffolk, the consultant has developed a template for effectively tackling this issue.

Response

• Based on considerable desk and field research on Norfolk, Suffolk and Hants nature reserves the consultant developed a clear and persuasive hypothesis of disturbance.

The 'footfall' hypothesis - grading disturbance impact

Results

• The consultant then provided an effective community engagement template exploiting a range of communications materials and motivation techniques to deliver a cascade of messages via a new breed of public focused volunteers - 'ambassadors'.

• The vehicle for delivering this template has been a series of PPT workshops aimed at informing conservation personnel and town council officers.

Workshop
The DVT workshop addressed three core questions.
First: Why do we need to respond to greenspace disturbance? This initial section provided the participants with an appreciation of why such disturbance needs to be dealt with:
The core problem - balancing access with conservation.	Whitehill & Bordon's levels of disturbance on its SANGs set to increase with 4000 new homes.
Cats and dogs warrant special measures.	Presence of dogs not only influences bird behaviour, but also reduces abundance and species diversity.
The second question addressed was: What can be done to successfully tackle such disturbance?
Changing peoples' behaviours is difficult and models of behaviour complex.	The essential behavioural objective was seen to be turning 'poachers' into 'gamekeepers'. This requires astute and effective communications.
The primary behaviour change tool, communication, is relatively weak.	Fortunately new media provides more effective avenues of communication.
Third, the final question was then considered: How might a specific [site] project be tackled?
Three VA case studies reviewed.	Based on case study lessons a template for balancing access with conservation was revealed.

• In due course this innovative creative approach will be applied directly by conservation volunteers who will be trained using a detailed manual devised jointly by VA and DVT, to provide a cascade of messages to site users.

Value Added

The principle of a low-cost communications programme able to trigger beneficial behavioural change amongst site visitors and local communities has been demonstrated.