With ten years of experience specializing in the Human Dimensions of wildlife conservation, Dr. Laura Perry is currently a consultant at Castlerock Conservation. As a specialist in conservation behaviour change with experience in monitoring and evaluation and stakeholder engagement. Dr. Perry works with global partners, from Florida to Japan, and has extensive expertise in sub-Saharan Africa, where she spent eight years. In this interview, Dr. Perry shares her insights into the field of behaviour change and its critical role in shaping effective conservation strategies.
1) We always like to start by asking how you got into your field. Can you share what inspired your journey into this area of expertise?
My journey into conservation began with a childhood fascination for big cats. I pursued my undergraduate degree at Oxford University, where I worked closely with WildCRU, gaining first hand insight into the challenges many conservation practitioners face. Through these experiences, I recognized a common issue: conservation programs often failed because, although mitigation approaches were extensively researched and designed with technical expertise at their heart, they didn’t work for the people who were living alongside challenging wildlife. In other words, communities’ willingness to adopt these programmes was preventing many conservation projects from achieving their aims. This informed my PhD work, which focussed on the human behaviour surrounding big cat conservation in East Africa. My research, exploring social psychology and behavior change in livestock management, positioned me at the forefront of a new field that was just beginning to gain traction in conservation science.
2) What drew you to join the IUCN Behaviour Change Taskforce, and how does your current work align with the mission and goals of the organization?
I joined the IUCN Species Survival Commission as the behavior change coordinator after completing my postdoctoral work leading a community project in Mozambique. My role with the IUCN SSC focussed on integrating behaviour change across the commission, and during my time there the Behaviour Change Task Force was proposed. This naturally aligned with my role at the time, and I became a Task Force member to help promote the group; since moving on to a new position which focuses on supporting in situ conservation projects to integrate behaviour change into their work, the Task Force has remained an important way to connect with the community of conservation behaviour change professionals.
3) Could you tell us about any exciting projects or research you’re currently working on?
I am involved in a number of high-impact projects around the world! Some of my main projects at the moment are mapping stakeholder perspectives with the African Elephant Specialist Group, helping communities to benefit from recovering Florida panther populations, and collaborating on major projects in Madagascar and Tanzania. I currently have two grant applications in progress with the UK government for work with turtles in West Africa, and vultures in East Africa. I’m also working on pythons in Florida, eels in Japan, and a range of other topics! I try to balance my time by dedicating specific days to certain projects. For instance, my work with the Naples Zoo on Florida panthers is allotted a full day each week, while other projects are more sporadic and require less time once initial ground-work is complete.
4) What do you think is one of the biggest challenges in driving meaningful behavior change toward conservation?
Language is one of the biggest challenges - I think it is easy for the idea of behaviour change to be misconstrued. Is it ethical for one group to try and change the behaviour of another group? This ethical question can cause tension within the conservation community and public audiences. Some of this is just about understanding the limits of behaviour change as a discipline: ultimately you can’t change behaviour in the long-term unless people see a benefit from the change. I would hope that most conservation behaviour change efforts provide a benefit for people as well as wildlife, and that’s certainly a principle I hold in all of my work.
Another issue is that many conservation professionals still overlook the effort and technical expertise needed to engage people meaningfully in behaviour change. Achieving change is not a simple task and requires robust, well-thought-out strategies that go beyond superficial solutions. There are no quick and easy solutions.
5) Who is someone in the conservation world (or beyond) that you look up to or that has influenced your career?
David Macdonald has been a key mentor throughout my career. If he hadn't encouraged me during my PhD to explore conservation social science techniques, particularly focussing on human behaviour - which was at the time a really novel area of study - it wouldn't have been possible for me to be where I am today. David’s ethos has shaped how I think about conservation. Asking, “Can we test it? Is it robust? What does this actually achieve?" is a really important mindset to bring to conservation social science, and that scientific, empirical approach is still the foundation for everything I do today.
6) Lastly, who do you think we should interview next, and why?
I suggest interviewing Prof. Alex Zimmermann next, as she has a great deal of insight into human-wildlife conflict resolution and behaviour change. Alex’s applied approach, combined with her solid social science background, makes her a fantastic person to talk to about the practical aspects of conservation human dimensions. Overall, everyone who is a member of the BCTF has unique expertise within the discipline and works on really interesting topics around the world, so I don’t think you can go wrong!
Did you enjoy this post? Stay tuned for more insightful conversations and expert perspectives in the next installment of our "6 Questions With..." blog post series!