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Identifying the characteristics of conservation areas that appeal to potential flagship campaign donors F ION A DOB S O N ,I AIN F RASER and ROB ERT J. S MI TH


Abstract The conservation flagship approach is a valuable tool for raising funds and awareness, but species-based cam- paigns have been criticized for providing little benefit towider biodiversity. One possible solution is to use conservation areas as flagships, but we lack data on the types of area that most appeal to potential donors. Here, we used an online choice experiment involving hypothetical overseas conser- vation areas to investigate how respondents value a series of conservation area attributes.We calculated the average will- ingness to pay for each attribute and assessed preference het- erogeneity. Our results suggest that community ownership is valued the most, followed by the presence of threatened bird species, low current funding in the conservation area, the presence of charismatic mammals, and charity ownership. Respondents could be divided into three groups, based on their education, environmental organization membership and income. The group of respondents who were less wealthy and were members of environmental organizations were not willing to pay for this kind of conservation action, suggesting that flagship area campaigns targeted at them should encour- age other types of involvement. The other two groups, which included respondents who were less engaged in conservation (neither group included environmental organization mem- bers, with one group less wealthy and less educated, and the other wealthier), found community ownership particularly appealing, suggesting that many potential donors may be driven by social concerns. This is a key finding and suggests flagship conservation areas could attract a new audience of donors, helping to support current global efforts to increase the management effectiveness, connectivity and extent of protected areas and land under other effective area-based conservation measures.


Keywords Choice experiment, conservation flagship, donor preference, funding, marketing, protected area, willingness to pay


Supplementary material for this article is available at doi.org/10.1017/S0030605321000259


Introduction C


onservationists need to raise funds and support to tackle the current biodiversity crisis. Environmental


NGOs play a major part in achieving this goal (Wright et al., 2015), often using marketing campaigns to influence the behaviour and spending patterns of their target audience (Veríssimo et al., 2017). One of the most popularNGOmar- keting approaches is based on flagships. This involves cam- paigns that focus on species with traits that appeal to the target audience, with the goal of harnessing their affinity for the flagship to achieve a wider conservation objective (Veríssimo et al., 2011). This approach is especially impor- tant for international NGOs that run campaigns targeting a broad audience; many in this audience lack knowledge of the conservation issue highlighted by the campaign but iden- tify with the associated flagship (Smith et al., 2012). These flagships are used in one of three ways to raise funds or awareness: (1) for specific projects to conserve the flagship that also benefit other species sharing its range, (2) for a broader issue using the flagship as the recognizable symbol of the campaign, such as using African elephants Loxodonta africana to stop wildlife trafficking online, or (3) for the NGO directly, using the flagship as the recognizable symbol of the organization (Smith et al., 2012). Despite the importance of flagship species campaigns,


FIONA DOBSON (Corresponding author, ROBERT J. SMITH (


orcid.org/0000-0003-2226-2928) and orcid.org/0000-0003-1599-9171) Durrell Institute of


Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent, Canterbury, CT2 7NR, UK E-mail fiona.dobson@gmail.com


IAIN FRASER School of Economics, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK


Received 29 July 2020. Revision requested 14 October 2020. Accepted 5 February 2021. First published online 22 September 2021.


they have limitations, particularly with respect to benefiting biodiversity more broadly. Most campaigns rely on a nar- row set of species, especially large, charismatic mammals (Clucas et al., 2008). This can skew priorities and create un- intended consequences, with the flagship species receiving the majority of the funds and attention (Joseph et al., 2011; Smith et al., 2012). There are ways to tackle this problem, such as using a complementary set of species in a so-called flagship fleet (Veríssimo et al., 2013), promoting a wider range of charismatic species (Smith et al., 2012; McGowan et al., 2020), or putting more marketing effort into pro- moting less charismatic species (Veríssimo et al., 2017). However, there is still scope for adopting more creative approaches (Smith et al., 2010). One option is using areas as conservation flagships. This diversification has been occurring de facto (Veríssimo et al., 2011), with certain high-profile protected areas acting as so-called celebrity sites (Sandbrook et al., 2018). Supporting such a conservation area can increase the ecological resili- ence of neighbouring conservation areas and the wider landscape or seascape, and some organizations use the tour- ism revenue from these areas to cross-subsidize the rest of


This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2022, 56(4), 555–563 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321000259


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