Title
Reach and messages of the world's largest ivory burn
Author(s)
Braczkowski, Alexander;Holden, Matthew H.;O'Bryan, Christopher;Choi, Chi-Yeung;Gan, Xiaojing;Beesley, Nicholas;Gao, Yufang;Allan, James;Tyrrell, Peter;Stiles, Daniel;Brehony, Peadar;Meney, Revocatus;Brink, Henry;Takashina, Nao;Lin, Ming-Ching;Lin, Hsien-Yung;Rust, Niki;Salmo, Severino G.;Watson, James E. M.;Kahumbu, Paula;Maron, Martine;Possingham, Hugh P.;Biggs, Duan
Published
2018
Publisher
Conservation Biology
Abstract
Recent increases in ivory poaching have depressed African elephant populations. Successful enforcement has led to ivory being stockpiled. Stockpile destruction is becoming increasingly popular, and most destruction has occurred in the last five 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 analyze media coverage across eleven important nation states of the largest ivory destruction event in history (Kenya, 30 April 2016). We used a well-accepted online media crawling tool and key language translations to search online and print newspapers. We found most online news on the ivory burn came from the US (81% of articles), while print news was dominated by Kenya (61% of articles). We subjected online articles from five key countries and territories to content analysis and found 86–97% of all online articles reported the burn as a positive conservation action, while between 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 on the 2016 Kenyan ivory burn than any other in five years. Our study is the first attempt to track the spread of media around an ivory burn and is a case study in tracking the effects of a conservation-marketing event. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
Keywords
Africa;Elephant;Conservation marketing;Ivory burn;Media reach;Alcance de los medios;Elefante;Mercadotecnia de la conservación;Quema de marfil
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PUB23915