ABSTRACT
Quote
If you want to change attitudes, start with a change in behaviour
William Glasser
State research problem
There is an increasing risk of koala mortalities seen from urbanisation, with dog attacks the third most common form of koala death. The Leave It program was developed to show dog owners what they could do to protect koalas, embedding koala-friendly training principles, called koala aversion, into regular training.
Chapter Overview
Leave It is a social marketing project that was conducted over a 4-year period across three stages in one local government area. Based on the understanding that dog attacks are the third most common cause of koala deaths, Leave It was co-created with the dog owning community. The Co-create – Build – Engage framework was applied across the three stages of the project, ensuring that Leave It was designed by dog owners delivering a fun, dog-focussed program that showed them what to do to protect wildlife. Stage 1 demonstrated that Leave It could increase dog abilities to avoid koalas with increases in koala aversion evident in dogs completing 4-week training programs. Subsequent project stages extended the human-centred approach identifying low-program awareness and other program attributes needed by dog trainers. Over 4 years, Leave It changed community attitudes towards dog training and increased dog skills through online and offline promotional activities. This case study demonstrates how social marketing can be applied to conserve wildlife through its clear, stepwise process for program design, implementations and evaluation.
