- Email: [email protected]
Supporting pangolin conservation through tourism
C H A P T E R
38 Supporting pangolin conservation through tourism Enrico Di Minin1,2,3 and Anna Hausmann1,2 1
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Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 3 School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, South Africa O U T L I N E
Introduction
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Methods Stated preferences Survey implementation Social media data
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Results Descriptive statistics
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Introduction Pangolins have been considered the most trafficked wild mammals in the world because of high volumes of illegal trade in the animals and their meat and scales (see Chapters 16 and 21; Heinrich et al., 2016; Whiting et al., 2013). Thus far, conservation efforts, for pangolins as well as for other species affected by the illegal trade, have focused on disrupting the market, e.g., by improving legislation and law enforcement and monitoring the
Pangolins DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-815507-3.00038-1
Non-use and use values of pangolins Social media and pangolin distribution
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illegal trade along supply-chains primarily. More recently, some efforts have focused on reducing the consumer demand for pangolin products (see Chapter 22; Challender et al., 2015; Cheng et al., 2017; Nijman et al., 2016; Whiting et al., 2013). However, socio-economic disparities in pangolin range states, where poaching occurs, remain vastly unaddressed, which combined with factors including ineffective law enforcement and corruption, means pangolin hunting and poaching continues seemingly unabated.
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Resources for biodiversity conservation are woefully inadequate (McCarthy et al., 2012). Consumptive and non-consumptive use of biodiversity have therefore been promoted as effective means of creating much needed funding to support biodiversity conservation (Di Minin et al., 2013a; Naidoo et al., 2011). Ecotourism is among the fastest growing industries in the world and conservation areas are the cornerstone of the ecotourism industry (Balmford et al., 2015). Through non-consumptive ecotourism, mutual benefits for both biodiversity and humans with whom biodiversity co-exists can be created. Ecotourism can potentially provide an important source of income for human communities in developing countries (Kru¨ger, 2005). However, many concerns about ecotourism, including carbon emissions related to long-distance traveling, destruction of habitat, displacement of local people and disturbance to animals have also been identified (Go¨ssling, 1999). When carried out sustainably though, ecotourism provides important opportunities to maintain land under conservation land use (Di Minin et al., 2013a), and create incentives for enhancing the survival of threatened species (Buckley et al., 2016). Biodiversity is among the main attractors of ecotourists to conservation areas (Di Minin et al., 2013b; Naidoo and Adamowicz, 2005; Siikama¨ki et al., 2015). Charismatic species, mostly large-bodied mammals (e.g., tiger [Panthera tigris] and elephants [Elephantidae]), are some of the most sought-after species by ecotourists (Di Minin et al., 2013b; LeaderWilliams and Dublin, 2000). For instance, the whole ecotourism industry in a country such as South Africa is branded around “the Big 5” charismatic species (Di Minin et al., 2013b). A focus on charismatic species only, however, limits incentives for the conservation of areas that support less charismatic species. Ecotourism markets alternative to charismatic species only, however, do exist (Di Minin et al., 2013b; Hausmann et al., 2017a). In particular, rare and elusive species, such as pangolins,
are particularly attractive to more experienced tourists (Di Minin et al., 2013b). Assessing such alternative ecotourism markets would help understand the potential of ecotourism to support the conservation of less charismatic species on-the-ground (Buckley, 2013). For example, revenue from a specialized ecotourism market may help raise crucial incentives for the conservation of areas where pangolins occur, generate support for management and protection (e.g., law enforcement), and help support socio-economic development of communities. However, there has been no previous research that has assessed the potential of ecotourism to contribute to pangolin conservation in the wild. Assessing preferences of ecotourists for biodiversity has traditionally been carried out by using revealed and stated preference methods (Adamowicz et al., 1994). In revealed preference methods, preferences are inferred from the behavior of tourists in real markets, such as estimating the cost of traveling to natural areas (e.g., Ezebilo, 2016) and the hedonic prices in relation to biodiversity features (e.g., Gibbons et al., 2014). In stated preference methods, instead, surveys are used to assess preferences for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Most widely used stated preference techniques are choice experiment and contingent valuation methods where preferences are elicited from individuals in constructed, hypothetical markets (Adamowicz et al., 1998). Changes in preferences are used to calculate willingness to pay (WTP) of ecotourists for several actions and policies. Choice experiments are increasingly used to evaluate preferences for biodiversity (e.g., Di Minin et al., 2013b; Hausmann et al., 2017a; Verı´ssimo et al., 2009). In contingent valuation (CV) techniques, respondents are asked to directly report their WTP to obtain a specified biodiversity experience (e.g., Ressurreic¸a˜o et al., 2012). Novel approaches to understand tourists’ preferences for biodiversity include mining data
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from social media (e.g., Hausmann et al., 2018). Social media platforms are becoming popular means of sharing information and experiences in relation to nature, and a wealth of usergenerated data can be used to inform conservation science and practice (Di Minin et al., 2015). Social media data are increasingly being used in a number of fields in conservation science, ranging from assessing visitation rates in conservation areas (Tenkanen et al., 2017) to understanding which socio-economic and biological characteristics affect social media postings in conservation areas (Hausmann et al., 2017b). By comparing social media data to traditional surveys, Hausmann et al. (2018) found that social media can be used as an alternative, time and cost-effective means for assessing biodiversity preferences of ecotourists visiting conservation areas. Social media can also potentially be used to monitor species where ecotourists voluntarily or involuntarily act as citizen scientists by reporting sightings, especially of rare or elusive species (Hausmann et al., 2018). In this chapter, a contingent valuation method is used, implemented through an online survey, and data mined from two social media platforms (Flickr and Twitter), to examine how ecotourism can contribute to pangolin conservation and to scientific research through citizen science. Specifically, the objectives were to (1) assess willingness to pay to see pangolins or support their conservation, and (2) assess how social media data can be used to infer information on the distribution of pangolins inside protected areas.
Methods Stated preferences Ecotourists’ preferences for pangolin species were evaluated by using a CV technique, administered through an online survey, in order to assess ecotourists’ WTP to see pangolins in
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the wild and support pangolin conservation. CV is a stated preference method, which has been extensively used in environmental economics to assess the utility value of non-marketed goods and services (Boxall et al., 1996). Here, CV was used to assess both use (i.e., non-consumptive, recreational, value in the wild), and non-use (i.e., the utility value unrelated to current or future use) values of pangolins for current and future generations. Non-use values of pangolins were assessed by asking respondents to express their agreement (on a Likert scale from 0 5 not at all important, to 4 5 very important) to statements related to (1) the importance of being able to see pangolins in the wild (option value), (2) the importance of knowing that other people are or may be able to see pangolins in the wild (altruistic value), (3) the importance of knowing that future generations are or may be able to see pangolins in the wild (bequest value), and (4) the importance of knowing that pangolins exist in the wild unrelated to the fact that people may be able to see them (existence value). The use values of pangolins for ecotourism were assessed, by asking respondents whether they intended to travel in the near future (5 years’ time) to areas where pangolins naturally occur. This was done by asking respondents to state their WTP for visiting a natural area with different probabilities of seeing pangolins in the wild, specifically either an area where pangolins occur and can be potentially seen, or an area where pangolins occur and can be seen with some certainty (but without touching or disturbing the animal). For those respondents who expressed no intention of traveling, their WTP was assessed for a one-off donation to conservation programs that aim to develop a sustainable ecotourism project related to pangolins. In addition, in order to understand whether previous knowledge of pangolins would affect respondents’ WTP, their awareness of the existence and conservation status of pangolins, and whether respondents had ever seen a pangolin in the wild before, were assessed.
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Finally, in order to identify a potential market for pangolin-related ecotourism, information about respondents’ socio-demographic background, as well as preferences for other biodiversity, was collected. In order to assess preferences for broader biodiversity than pangolins, respondents were asked to indicate which type of biodiversity group (i.e., largebodied mammals above 5 kg of weight, smallbodied mammals below 5 kg of weight, birds, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, plants, landscapes, etc.) they were mostly seeking when taking part in wildlife watching activities. People were also asked to rank their top five favorite species, and the top five species they had not yet seen, but would particularly like to see.
Survey implementation In order to reach a broad audience of potential national and international ecotourists/ donors interested in tourism initiatives related to pangolins, an online survey, which was anonymous and voluntary, was implemented. Carrying out face-to-face interviews is expensive and potential respondents are limited to those visiting specific locations in space and time. Therefore, the survey was posted online and shared via the most popular social media groups of ecotourists visiting Southern Africa or interested in its wildlife. As social media groups are quite popular among protected area visitors, and people who are interested in wildlife watching and conservation, they provide an efficient means of capturing a representative sample of all tourists who may be willing to engage in tourism initiatives related to pangolins. In this way, a sample size was determined by using a random draw from the known population of previous, current and potentially future protected area visitors. The online survey was shared via specific social media platforms (e.g., the Africa Geographic Facebook group and on Twitter) and news
blogs, and respondents were also identified by using the snowball sampling technique (Newing, 2011), where other respondents were recruited from respondents’ social networks.
Social media data Social media posts containing the word (either as a hashtag or in the description of the picture) “pangolin” were collected from the Application Programming Interface of both Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/services/api/) and Twitter (https://developer.twitter.com/ en/docs/tweets/search/api-reference). A total of 105,664 posts collected from January 1970 to April 2018 (most of the posts were made later than the year 2000) for Flickr, and 2100 geotagged posts for Twitter (between 2011 and 2017) were collected. A manual classification of the content was implemented in order to maintain only geotagged posts pertaining to pangolin species. Spatial overlay analyses were then carried out to identify only posts from within the IUCN ranges of all extant pangolin species, and from within protected areas in the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) (https://www.protectedplanet.net/).
Results Descriptive statistics A total of 395 respondents, from 53 different countries, participated in the survey. Most respondents were from the United States (22%), the United Kingdom (17%), and South Africa (17%). The majority of respondents were women (65%), and with high education level (76% having either a Bachelor, Master or PhD degree). On average, respondents were 43 years old, and were mostly included in age classes 18 30 (26%) and 31 40 (23%) yearolds. Overall, 70% of respondents described themselves as interested in conservation or as
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working in a conservation-related field. On average, gross annual income of respondents was USD 32,500, even if extreme income classes, i.e., highest (over USD 50,000) or lowest (up to USD 5000) income, were the most frequent (33% and 19% respectively). On average, respondents spent USD 1120 in wildlifewatching travel expenses per year. Similar to the gross annual income, classes of extreme travel expense per year, i.e., highest (more than USD 3000) and lowest (less than USD 50) were the most frequent (27% and 33% respectively). Almost all respondents (97%) were aware of the existence of pangolins, and had read or seen information about the species as well as their conservation status (84%). Only 17% of respondents had seen a pangolin in the wild, although almost half of them (40%) had visited, in the past 5 years, natural areas where pangolins occur. Among all respondents, 80% expressed their intention of traveling to areas where pangolins occur and engaging in wildlife watching activities in the future.
Non-use and use values of pangolins Overall, non-use values received high to very high scores (between 3 and 4; Fig. 38.1),
regardless of whether respondents had seen pangolins in the wild or not. Existence and bequest values scored the highest and were perceived as very important. On average, nonuse value was significantly higher among respondents who were specifically interested in small-bodied mammals (ANOVA - F1387=9.31, P , 0.01, Cohen’s d=0.513) and birds (ANOVA F1387=8.459, P , 0.01, Cohen’s d=0.371). Among respondents who intended to travel in the future, average WTP was significantly higher (t= 2 4.44, df=573.55, P , 0.0001) for visiting an area where pangolins can be seen with some certainty (236.7 6 17.4 USD) compared to WTP for visiting an area where pangolins occur but are unlikely to be seen (183.11 6 16 USD). WTP to see pangolins for sure increased with higher income (Pearson’s r=0.313, P , 0.0001) and travel expenses of respondents (Pearson’s r=0.309, P , 0.0001), and it was significantly higher among respondents who were not interested in seeing largebodied mammals (ANOVA - F1288=4.7, P , 0.05, Cohen’s d=0.741) (Fig. 38.2). Among respondents who did not intend to travel, average values of WTP for a donation was USD 27.72 6 6.5 and it was significantly higher (ANOVA - F1.78=10.32, P , 0.001, Cohen’s d=0.726) among people who are not interested FIGURE 38.1
Average scores for non-use (altruistic, option, bequest, existence) values of pangolins, and for broader biodiversity (general bequest value), for respondents preferring, or not, small-bodied mammals. Bars indicate confidence intervals at 0.95 significance value.
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FIGURE 38.2 Average willingness to pay (WTP) in USD for respondents preferring, or not, largebodied mammals and (a) for donating to an ecotourism pangolin conservation project (WTP donation), (b) visiting an area where pangolins occur but may not be seen (WTP option), and (c) visiting an area where pangolins can be seen with high certainty (WTP for sure). Bars indicate confidence intervals at 0.95 significance value.
FIGURE 38.3 Favorite species ranked by respondents as top five species, which they have not yet seen but would particularly like to see. Frequencies are weighted according to the position in the rank (i.e., if top 1 = 5 points, top 2 = 4 points, top 3 = 3 points, top 4 = 2 points, top 5 = 1 point).
specifically in wildlife watching, but preferred to experience broader biodiversity when visiting natural areas. Finally, compared to other species groups, 18% of respondents indicated that pangolins were among their top five favorite species, regardless of whether they had seen the species or not. Moreover, 58% of respondents indicated that pangolins were the top ranked species among the top five species that respondents have not yet seen but would particularly like to see (Fig. 38.3).
Social media and pangolin distribution A total of 1000 geotagged posts (632 on Flickr and 368 on Twitter) related to pangolins were found to occur within the IUCN geographic ranges of all extant pangolin species (Fig. 38.4). These posts occurred in 41 out of 54 countries in Africa and Asia where pangolins occur (Fig. 38.4). The location with the highest number of geotagged posts on Flickr was Taiwan while the country with the highest number of geotagged posts on Twitter was
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FIGURE 38.4 Geotagged social media posts from Twitter and Flickr on pangolins from within the range of all extant pangolin species. In red are protected areas (PAs) from the World Database on Protected Areas (https://www.protected planet.net/) where geotagged social media posts occurred. Note the geographic range maps are from The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (version 2014-3).
Indonesia. Overall, the geotagged posts confirmed presence of pangolins from within 58 protected areas across all range countries.
Discussion Our results highlight that, at least in Southern Africa, pangolins can potentially play an important ecotourism role, as most respondents ranked them as their favorite species among those they have not yet seen. Related to this, our results also highlight how the willingness to pay of respondents was higher under the scenario when it was guaranteed the chance to see pangolins compared to the scenario when it was only possible to see them. As our sample of respondents included ecotourists who had also
visited other conservation areas in sub-Saharan Africa, our results have wider continental implications beyond Southern Africa. Interest in supporting pangolin conservation was also found among those respondents who were not planning to visit areas where pangolins occur. These results have potential global implications in relation to promoting ecotourism and raising funds to support conservation throughout pangolin range countries. Finally, social media posts were found to provide accurate spatiotemporal information on the global distribution of pangolins. Pangolins face a high risk of extinction because of pressure from the illegal wildlife trade, largely in meat and scales (Heinrich et al., 2016; Whiting et al., 2013). Pangolins occur in areas, especially in developing
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countries, where socio-economic and human needs are the highest and resources for conservation often the scarcest (Waldron et al., 2013). Ecotourism can potentially provide benefits to local communities when properly managed (Isaac, 2000). Our results highlight that there is potentially high interest among ecotourists to see pangolins and willingness to pay is higher when the chance to see pangolins is guaranteed. While there are a number of animal welfare (carry out ecotourism activities that do not harm animals) and financial (capital needed to start ecotourism ventures) aspects to consider, it is important to highlight the potential that exists for this reclusive species to be used as an ecotourism flagship, at least in Southern Africa. In particular, our results highlight that WTP for seeing pangolins is higher among ecotourists who are less interested in largebodied mammals. This suggests that areas that lack charismatic species may be attractive to alternative markets of ecotourists who are interested in pangolins. While these results should be considered carefully, especially in relation to market saturation for ecotourism, they nonetheless indicate the potential to develop regionspecific ecotourism projects based on pangolin conservation. Priority should be potentially given to more accessible and stable regions, which are preferred by tourists (Hausmann et al., 2017b), where poaching levels are high. In these areas, ecotourism could generate a number of potential benefits for local communities, ranging from direct employment in ecotourism programs (e.g., as guides), or as rangers, to providing services (e.g., food for lodges), which, in turn, could help support enhanced pangolin protection and conservation. Our sample of national and international ecotourists, who were interested in visiting conservation areas in sub-Saharan Africa and enthusiastic about conservation, are representative of tourists who choose to travel to Africa for biodiversity experiences (Di Minin et al., 2013b; Hausmann et al., 2017a). The
respondents were also well aware of the conservation status and challenges facing pangolins. Our results can therefore be considered robust with regards to adequate representation of ecotourists interested in pangolin conservation. Meanwhile, ecotourists who are less interested in biodiversity conservation, and less willing to travel to areas where pangolins occur, also cared for the conservation of these threatened species and were willing to donate for their conservation. Our results confirm, as in recent studies (Di Minin et al., 2013b; Hausmann et al., 2017a), that there is a market segment that does not necessarily support the notion of ecotourism marketing focusing on charismatic species only, but that ecotourism marketing can also focus on other species, such as pangolins. Moreover, social media data can potentially provide new insights about the distribution of species (Barve, 2014) and preferences for them (Hausmann et al., 2018). In this chapter, the role of social media data to infer the occurrence of pangolins throughout their range was assessed. It was confirmed that, even in the case of elusive species such as pangolins, social media data can provide additional information to ecological surveys, such as camera trap surveys, that can give new insights on the presence of the species both within and outside protected areas. As this information is also temporal, monitoring of voluntary and involuntary citizen-science data could provide real-time insights about how often pangolins are seen in protected areas, enabling inferences about status and whether local extinction might have happened. While only geotagged social media posts were considered for this study, automatic content classification provides an efficient means of extracting information about pangolins sightings (e.g., by inferring locations from text content) on a larger sample, including non-geotagged posts (Di Minin et al., 2018; Di Minin et al., 2019). However, this information should be used
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carefully, in order not to disclose exact locations of pangolins, which may be potentially targeted for poaching (Lowe et al., 2017).
Conclusion This chapter has shown that there is interest and willingness to pay to see pangolins in the wild among ecotourists, which can potentially create incentives for the conservation of the species. However, where this is feasible, there is a need to develop financially sustainable ecotourism projects that can support both pangolin conservation and local livelihoods, and explicitly consider animal welfare concerns. Contributions to local livelihoods might, in turn, create incentives to conserve pangolins rather than poach them. Finally, new ecotourism projects should be developed strategically, in accordance with conservation strategies and priorities, so that they can help achieve conservation and sustainable development objectives (e.g., in areas where poaching is high, or pangolin populations are high).
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Buckley, R., 2013. To use tourism as a conservation tool, first study tourists. Anim. Conserv. 16 (3), 259 260. Buckley, R.C., Morrison, C., Castley, J.G., 2016. Net effects of ecotourism on threatened species survival. PLoS One 11 (2), 23 25. Challender, D.W.S., Harrop, S.R., MacMillan, D.C., 2015. Understanding markets to conserve trade-threatened species in CITES. Biol. Conserv. 187, 249 259. Cheng, W., Xing, S., Bonebrake, T.C., 2017. Recent pangolin seizures in China reveal priority areas for intervention. Conserv. Lett. 10 (6), 757 764. Di Minin, E., MacMillan, D.C., Goodman, P.S., Escott, B., Slotow, R., Moilanen, A., 2013a. Conservation businesses and conservation planning in a biological diversity hotspot. Conserv. Biol. 27 (4), 808 820. Di Minin, E., Fraser, I., Slotow, R., MacMillan, D.C., 2013b. Understanding heterogeneous preference of tourists for big game species: implications for conservation and management. Anim. Conserv. 16 (3), 249 258. Di Minin, E., Tenkanen, H., Toivonen, T., 2015. Prospects and challenges for social media data in conservation science. Front. Environ. Sci. 3, 63. Di Minin, E., Fink, C., Tenkanen, H., Hiippala, T., 2018. Machine learning for tracking illegal wildlife trade on social media. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 2, 406 407. Di Minin, E., Fink, C., Hiippala, T., Tenkanen, H., 2019. A framework for investigating illegal wildlife trade on social media with machine learning. Conserv. Biol. 33 (1), 210 213. Ezebilo, E.E., 2016. Economic value of a non-market ecosystem service: an application of the travel cost method to nature recreation in Sweden. Int. J. Biodivers. Sci., Ecosyst. Serv. Manage. 12 (4), 314 327. Gibbons, S., Mourato, S., Resende, G.M., 2014. The amenity value of English nature: a hedonic price approach. Environ. Resour. Econ. 57 (2), 175 196. Go¨ssling, S., 1999. Ecotourism: a means to safeguard biodiversity and ecosystem functions? Ecol. Econ. 29 (2), 303 320. Hausmann, A., Slotow, R., Fraser, I., Di Minin, E., 2017a. Ecotourism marketing alternative to charismatic megafauna can also support biodiversity conservation. Anim. Conserv. 20 (1), 91 100. Hausmann, A., Toivonen, T., Heikinheimo, V., Tenkanen, H., Slotow, R., Di Minin, E., 2017b. Social media reveal that charismatic species are not the main attractor of ecotourists to sub-Saharan protected areas. Sci. Rep. 7 (1), 763. Hausmann, A., Toivonen, T., Slotow, R., Tenkanen, H., Moilanen, A., Heikinheimo, V., et al., 2018. Social media data can be used to understand tourists’ preferences for nature-based experiences in protected areas. Conserv. Lett. 11 (1), 1 10.
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Nijman, V., Zhang, M.X., Shepherd, C.R., 2016. Pangolin trade in the Mong La wildlife market and the role of Myanmar in the smuggling of pangolins into China. Glob. Ecol. Conserv. 5, 118 126. Ressurreic¸a˜o, A., Gibbons, J., Kaiser, M., Dentinho, T.P., Zarzycki, T., Bentley, C., et al., 2012. Different cultures, different values: the role of cultural variation in public’s WTP for marine species conservation. Biol. Conserv. 145 (1), 148 159. Siikama¨ki, P., Kangas, K., Paasivaara, A., Schroderus, S., 2015. Biodiversity attracts visitors to national parks. Biodivers. Conserv. 24 (10), 2521 2534. Tenkanen, H., Di Minin, E., Heikinheimo, V., Hausmann, A., Herbst, M., Kajala, L., et al., 2017. Instagram, Flickr, or Twitter: assessing the usability of social media data for visitor monitoring in protected areas. Sci. Rep. 7, 17615. Verı´ssimo, D., Fraser, I., Groombirdge, J., Bristol, R., MacMillan, D.C., 2009. Birds as tourism flagship species: a case study of tropical islands. Anim. Conserv. 12 (6), 549 558. Waldron, A., Mooers, A.O., Miller, D.C., Nibbelink, N., Redding, D., Kuhn, T.S., et al., 2013. Targeting global conservation funding to limit immediate biodiversity declines. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 110 (29), 12144 12148. Whiting, M.J., Williams, V.L., Hibbitts, T.J., 2013. Animals traded for traditional medicine at the Faraday market in South Africa: species diversity and conservation implications. In: Alves, N., Romeu, R., Lucena, I. (Eds.), Animals in Traditional Folk Medicine. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, pp. 421 473.
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38 Supporting pangolin conservation through tourism Enrico Di Minin1,2,3 and Anna Hausmann1,2 1
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Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS), University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 3 School of Life Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, South Africa O U T L I N E
Introduction
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Introduction Pangolins have been considered the most trafficked wild mammals in the world because of high volumes of illegal trade in the animals and their meat and scales (see Chapters 16 and 21; Heinrich et al., 2016; Whiting et al., 2013). Thus far, conservation efforts, for pangolins as well as for other species affected by the illegal trade, have focused on disrupting the market, e.g., by improving legislation and law enforcement and monitoring the
Pangolins DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-815507-3.00038-1
Non-use and use values of pangolins Social media and pangolin distribution
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illegal trade along supply-chains primarily. More recently, some efforts have focused on reducing the consumer demand for pangolin products (see Chapter 22; Challender et al., 2015; Cheng et al., 2017; Nijman et al., 2016; Whiting et al., 2013). However, socio-economic disparities in pangolin range states, where poaching occurs, remain vastly unaddressed, which combined with factors including ineffective law enforcement and corruption, means pangolin hunting and poaching continues seemingly unabated.
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Resources for biodiversity conservation are woefully inadequate (McCarthy et al., 2012). Consumptive and non-consumptive use of biodiversity have therefore been promoted as effective means of creating much needed funding to support biodiversity conservation (Di Minin et al., 2013a; Naidoo et al., 2011). Ecotourism is among the fastest growing industries in the world and conservation areas are the cornerstone of the ecotourism industry (Balmford et al., 2015). Through non-consumptive ecotourism, mutual benefits for both biodiversity and humans with whom biodiversity co-exists can be created. Ecotourism can potentially provide an important source of income for human communities in developing countries (Kru¨ger, 2005). However, many concerns about ecotourism, including carbon emissions related to long-distance traveling, destruction of habitat, displacement of local people and disturbance to animals have also been identified (Go¨ssling, 1999). When carried out sustainably though, ecotourism provides important opportunities to maintain land under conservation land use (Di Minin et al., 2013a), and create incentives for enhancing the survival of threatened species (Buckley et al., 2016). Biodiversity is among the main attractors of ecotourists to conservation areas (Di Minin et al., 2013b; Naidoo and Adamowicz, 2005; Siikama¨ki et al., 2015). Charismatic species, mostly large-bodied mammals (e.g., tiger [Panthera tigris] and elephants [Elephantidae]), are some of the most sought-after species by ecotourists (Di Minin et al., 2013b; LeaderWilliams and Dublin, 2000). For instance, the whole ecotourism industry in a country such as South Africa is branded around “the Big 5” charismatic species (Di Minin et al., 2013b). A focus on charismatic species only, however, limits incentives for the conservation of areas that support less charismatic species. Ecotourism markets alternative to charismatic species only, however, do exist (Di Minin et al., 2013b; Hausmann et al., 2017a). In particular, rare and elusive species, such as pangolins,
are particularly attractive to more experienced tourists (Di Minin et al., 2013b). Assessing such alternative ecotourism markets would help understand the potential of ecotourism to support the conservation of less charismatic species on-the-ground (Buckley, 2013). For example, revenue from a specialized ecotourism market may help raise crucial incentives for the conservation of areas where pangolins occur, generate support for management and protection (e.g., law enforcement), and help support socio-economic development of communities. However, there has been no previous research that has assessed the potential of ecotourism to contribute to pangolin conservation in the wild. Assessing preferences of ecotourists for biodiversity has traditionally been carried out by using revealed and stated preference methods (Adamowicz et al., 1994). In revealed preference methods, preferences are inferred from the behavior of tourists in real markets, such as estimating the cost of traveling to natural areas (e.g., Ezebilo, 2016) and the hedonic prices in relation to biodiversity features (e.g., Gibbons et al., 2014). In stated preference methods, instead, surveys are used to assess preferences for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Most widely used stated preference techniques are choice experiment and contingent valuation methods where preferences are elicited from individuals in constructed, hypothetical markets (Adamowicz et al., 1998). Changes in preferences are used to calculate willingness to pay (WTP) of ecotourists for several actions and policies. Choice experiments are increasingly used to evaluate preferences for biodiversity (e.g., Di Minin et al., 2013b; Hausmann et al., 2017a; Verı´ssimo et al., 2009). In contingent valuation (CV) techniques, respondents are asked to directly report their WTP to obtain a specified biodiversity experience (e.g., Ressurreic¸a˜o et al., 2012). Novel approaches to understand tourists’ preferences for biodiversity include mining data
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Methods
from social media (e.g., Hausmann et al., 2018). Social media platforms are becoming popular means of sharing information and experiences in relation to nature, and a wealth of usergenerated data can be used to inform conservation science and practice (Di Minin et al., 2015). Social media data are increasingly being used in a number of fields in conservation science, ranging from assessing visitation rates in conservation areas (Tenkanen et al., 2017) to understanding which socio-economic and biological characteristics affect social media postings in conservation areas (Hausmann et al., 2017b). By comparing social media data to traditional surveys, Hausmann et al. (2018) found that social media can be used as an alternative, time and cost-effective means for assessing biodiversity preferences of ecotourists visiting conservation areas. Social media can also potentially be used to monitor species where ecotourists voluntarily or involuntarily act as citizen scientists by reporting sightings, especially of rare or elusive species (Hausmann et al., 2018). In this chapter, a contingent valuation method is used, implemented through an online survey, and data mined from two social media platforms (Flickr and Twitter), to examine how ecotourism can contribute to pangolin conservation and to scientific research through citizen science. Specifically, the objectives were to (1) assess willingness to pay to see pangolins or support their conservation, and (2) assess how social media data can be used to infer information on the distribution of pangolins inside protected areas.
Methods Stated preferences Ecotourists’ preferences for pangolin species were evaluated by using a CV technique, administered through an online survey, in order to assess ecotourists’ WTP to see pangolins in
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the wild and support pangolin conservation. CV is a stated preference method, which has been extensively used in environmental economics to assess the utility value of non-marketed goods and services (Boxall et al., 1996). Here, CV was used to assess both use (i.e., non-consumptive, recreational, value in the wild), and non-use (i.e., the utility value unrelated to current or future use) values of pangolins for current and future generations. Non-use values of pangolins were assessed by asking respondents to express their agreement (on a Likert scale from 0 5 not at all important, to 4 5 very important) to statements related to (1) the importance of being able to see pangolins in the wild (option value), (2) the importance of knowing that other people are or may be able to see pangolins in the wild (altruistic value), (3) the importance of knowing that future generations are or may be able to see pangolins in the wild (bequest value), and (4) the importance of knowing that pangolins exist in the wild unrelated to the fact that people may be able to see them (existence value). The use values of pangolins for ecotourism were assessed, by asking respondents whether they intended to travel in the near future (5 years’ time) to areas where pangolins naturally occur. This was done by asking respondents to state their WTP for visiting a natural area with different probabilities of seeing pangolins in the wild, specifically either an area where pangolins occur and can be potentially seen, or an area where pangolins occur and can be seen with some certainty (but without touching or disturbing the animal). For those respondents who expressed no intention of traveling, their WTP was assessed for a one-off donation to conservation programs that aim to develop a sustainable ecotourism project related to pangolins. In addition, in order to understand whether previous knowledge of pangolins would affect respondents’ WTP, their awareness of the existence and conservation status of pangolins, and whether respondents had ever seen a pangolin in the wild before, were assessed.
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Finally, in order to identify a potential market for pangolin-related ecotourism, information about respondents’ socio-demographic background, as well as preferences for other biodiversity, was collected. In order to assess preferences for broader biodiversity than pangolins, respondents were asked to indicate which type of biodiversity group (i.e., largebodied mammals above 5 kg of weight, smallbodied mammals below 5 kg of weight, birds, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, plants, landscapes, etc.) they were mostly seeking when taking part in wildlife watching activities. People were also asked to rank their top five favorite species, and the top five species they had not yet seen, but would particularly like to see.
Survey implementation In order to reach a broad audience of potential national and international ecotourists/ donors interested in tourism initiatives related to pangolins, an online survey, which was anonymous and voluntary, was implemented. Carrying out face-to-face interviews is expensive and potential respondents are limited to those visiting specific locations in space and time. Therefore, the survey was posted online and shared via the most popular social media groups of ecotourists visiting Southern Africa or interested in its wildlife. As social media groups are quite popular among protected area visitors, and people who are interested in wildlife watching and conservation, they provide an efficient means of capturing a representative sample of all tourists who may be willing to engage in tourism initiatives related to pangolins. In this way, a sample size was determined by using a random draw from the known population of previous, current and potentially future protected area visitors. The online survey was shared via specific social media platforms (e.g., the Africa Geographic Facebook group and on Twitter) and news
blogs, and respondents were also identified by using the snowball sampling technique (Newing, 2011), where other respondents were recruited from respondents’ social networks.
Social media data Social media posts containing the word (either as a hashtag or in the description of the picture) “pangolin” were collected from the Application Programming Interface of both Flickr (https://www.flickr.com/services/api/) and Twitter (https://developer.twitter.com/ en/docs/tweets/search/api-reference). A total of 105,664 posts collected from January 1970 to April 2018 (most of the posts were made later than the year 2000) for Flickr, and 2100 geotagged posts for Twitter (between 2011 and 2017) were collected. A manual classification of the content was implemented in order to maintain only geotagged posts pertaining to pangolin species. Spatial overlay analyses were then carried out to identify only posts from within the IUCN ranges of all extant pangolin species, and from within protected areas in the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA) (https://www.protectedplanet.net/).
Results Descriptive statistics A total of 395 respondents, from 53 different countries, participated in the survey. Most respondents were from the United States (22%), the United Kingdom (17%), and South Africa (17%). The majority of respondents were women (65%), and with high education level (76% having either a Bachelor, Master or PhD degree). On average, respondents were 43 years old, and were mostly included in age classes 18 30 (26%) and 31 40 (23%) yearolds. Overall, 70% of respondents described themselves as interested in conservation or as
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working in a conservation-related field. On average, gross annual income of respondents was USD 32,500, even if extreme income classes, i.e., highest (over USD 50,000) or lowest (up to USD 5000) income, were the most frequent (33% and 19% respectively). On average, respondents spent USD 1120 in wildlifewatching travel expenses per year. Similar to the gross annual income, classes of extreme travel expense per year, i.e., highest (more than USD 3000) and lowest (less than USD 50) were the most frequent (27% and 33% respectively). Almost all respondents (97%) were aware of the existence of pangolins, and had read or seen information about the species as well as their conservation status (84%). Only 17% of respondents had seen a pangolin in the wild, although almost half of them (40%) had visited, in the past 5 years, natural areas where pangolins occur. Among all respondents, 80% expressed their intention of traveling to areas where pangolins occur and engaging in wildlife watching activities in the future.
Non-use and use values of pangolins Overall, non-use values received high to very high scores (between 3 and 4; Fig. 38.1),
regardless of whether respondents had seen pangolins in the wild or not. Existence and bequest values scored the highest and were perceived as very important. On average, nonuse value was significantly higher among respondents who were specifically interested in small-bodied mammals (ANOVA - F1387=9.31, P , 0.01, Cohen’s d=0.513) and birds (ANOVA F1387=8.459, P , 0.01, Cohen’s d=0.371). Among respondents who intended to travel in the future, average WTP was significantly higher (t= 2 4.44, df=573.55, P , 0.0001) for visiting an area where pangolins can be seen with some certainty (236.7 6 17.4 USD) compared to WTP for visiting an area where pangolins occur but are unlikely to be seen (183.11 6 16 USD). WTP to see pangolins for sure increased with higher income (Pearson’s r=0.313, P , 0.0001) and travel expenses of respondents (Pearson’s r=0.309, P , 0.0001), and it was significantly higher among respondents who were not interested in seeing largebodied mammals (ANOVA - F1288=4.7, P , 0.05, Cohen’s d=0.741) (Fig. 38.2). Among respondents who did not intend to travel, average values of WTP for a donation was USD 27.72 6 6.5 and it was significantly higher (ANOVA - F1.78=10.32, P , 0.001, Cohen’s d=0.726) among people who are not interested FIGURE 38.1
Average scores for non-use (altruistic, option, bequest, existence) values of pangolins, and for broader biodiversity (general bequest value), for respondents preferring, or not, small-bodied mammals. Bars indicate confidence intervals at 0.95 significance value.
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FIGURE 38.2 Average willingness to pay (WTP) in USD for respondents preferring, or not, largebodied mammals and (a) for donating to an ecotourism pangolin conservation project (WTP donation), (b) visiting an area where pangolins occur but may not be seen (WTP option), and (c) visiting an area where pangolins can be seen with high certainty (WTP for sure). Bars indicate confidence intervals at 0.95 significance value.
FIGURE 38.3 Favorite species ranked by respondents as top five species, which they have not yet seen but would particularly like to see. Frequencies are weighted according to the position in the rank (i.e., if top 1 = 5 points, top 2 = 4 points, top 3 = 3 points, top 4 = 2 points, top 5 = 1 point).
specifically in wildlife watching, but preferred to experience broader biodiversity when visiting natural areas. Finally, compared to other species groups, 18% of respondents indicated that pangolins were among their top five favorite species, regardless of whether they had seen the species or not. Moreover, 58% of respondents indicated that pangolins were the top ranked species among the top five species that respondents have not yet seen but would particularly like to see (Fig. 38.3).
Social media and pangolin distribution A total of 1000 geotagged posts (632 on Flickr and 368 on Twitter) related to pangolins were found to occur within the IUCN geographic ranges of all extant pangolin species (Fig. 38.4). These posts occurred in 41 out of 54 countries in Africa and Asia where pangolins occur (Fig. 38.4). The location with the highest number of geotagged posts on Flickr was Taiwan while the country with the highest number of geotagged posts on Twitter was
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FIGURE 38.4 Geotagged social media posts from Twitter and Flickr on pangolins from within the range of all extant pangolin species. In red are protected areas (PAs) from the World Database on Protected Areas (https://www.protected planet.net/) where geotagged social media posts occurred. Note the geographic range maps are from The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (version 2014-3).
Indonesia. Overall, the geotagged posts confirmed presence of pangolins from within 58 protected areas across all range countries.
Discussion Our results highlight that, at least in Southern Africa, pangolins can potentially play an important ecotourism role, as most respondents ranked them as their favorite species among those they have not yet seen. Related to this, our results also highlight how the willingness to pay of respondents was higher under the scenario when it was guaranteed the chance to see pangolins compared to the scenario when it was only possible to see them. As our sample of respondents included ecotourists who had also
visited other conservation areas in sub-Saharan Africa, our results have wider continental implications beyond Southern Africa. Interest in supporting pangolin conservation was also found among those respondents who were not planning to visit areas where pangolins occur. These results have potential global implications in relation to promoting ecotourism and raising funds to support conservation throughout pangolin range countries. Finally, social media posts were found to provide accurate spatiotemporal information on the global distribution of pangolins. Pangolins face a high risk of extinction because of pressure from the illegal wildlife trade, largely in meat and scales (Heinrich et al., 2016; Whiting et al., 2013). Pangolins occur in areas, especially in developing
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countries, where socio-economic and human needs are the highest and resources for conservation often the scarcest (Waldron et al., 2013). Ecotourism can potentially provide benefits to local communities when properly managed (Isaac, 2000). Our results highlight that there is potentially high interest among ecotourists to see pangolins and willingness to pay is higher when the chance to see pangolins is guaranteed. While there are a number of animal welfare (carry out ecotourism activities that do not harm animals) and financial (capital needed to start ecotourism ventures) aspects to consider, it is important to highlight the potential that exists for this reclusive species to be used as an ecotourism flagship, at least in Southern Africa. In particular, our results highlight that WTP for seeing pangolins is higher among ecotourists who are less interested in largebodied mammals. This suggests that areas that lack charismatic species may be attractive to alternative markets of ecotourists who are interested in pangolins. While these results should be considered carefully, especially in relation to market saturation for ecotourism, they nonetheless indicate the potential to develop regionspecific ecotourism projects based on pangolin conservation. Priority should be potentially given to more accessible and stable regions, which are preferred by tourists (Hausmann et al., 2017b), where poaching levels are high. In these areas, ecotourism could generate a number of potential benefits for local communities, ranging from direct employment in ecotourism programs (e.g., as guides), or as rangers, to providing services (e.g., food for lodges), which, in turn, could help support enhanced pangolin protection and conservation. Our sample of national and international ecotourists, who were interested in visiting conservation areas in sub-Saharan Africa and enthusiastic about conservation, are representative of tourists who choose to travel to Africa for biodiversity experiences (Di Minin et al., 2013b; Hausmann et al., 2017a). The
respondents were also well aware of the conservation status and challenges facing pangolins. Our results can therefore be considered robust with regards to adequate representation of ecotourists interested in pangolin conservation. Meanwhile, ecotourists who are less interested in biodiversity conservation, and less willing to travel to areas where pangolins occur, also cared for the conservation of these threatened species and were willing to donate for their conservation. Our results confirm, as in recent studies (Di Minin et al., 2013b; Hausmann et al., 2017a), that there is a market segment that does not necessarily support the notion of ecotourism marketing focusing on charismatic species only, but that ecotourism marketing can also focus on other species, such as pangolins. Moreover, social media data can potentially provide new insights about the distribution of species (Barve, 2014) and preferences for them (Hausmann et al., 2018). In this chapter, the role of social media data to infer the occurrence of pangolins throughout their range was assessed. It was confirmed that, even in the case of elusive species such as pangolins, social media data can provide additional information to ecological surveys, such as camera trap surveys, that can give new insights on the presence of the species both within and outside protected areas. As this information is also temporal, monitoring of voluntary and involuntary citizen-science data could provide real-time insights about how often pangolins are seen in protected areas, enabling inferences about status and whether local extinction might have happened. While only geotagged social media posts were considered for this study, automatic content classification provides an efficient means of extracting information about pangolins sightings (e.g., by inferring locations from text content) on a larger sample, including non-geotagged posts (Di Minin et al., 2018; Di Minin et al., 2019). However, this information should be used
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References
carefully, in order not to disclose exact locations of pangolins, which may be potentially targeted for poaching (Lowe et al., 2017).
Conclusion This chapter has shown that there is interest and willingness to pay to see pangolins in the wild among ecotourists, which can potentially create incentives for the conservation of the species. However, where this is feasible, there is a need to develop financially sustainable ecotourism projects that can support both pangolin conservation and local livelihoods, and explicitly consider animal welfare concerns. Contributions to local livelihoods might, in turn, create incentives to conserve pangolins rather than poach them. Finally, new ecotourism projects should be developed strategically, in accordance with conservation strategies and priorities, so that they can help achieve conservation and sustainable development objectives (e.g., in areas where poaching is high, or pangolin populations are high).
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