Toward a systematic approach for identifying conservation flagships

By D. Veríssimo, D. Macmillan, Robert J. Smith. 2011

255 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Flagship species are frequently used by conservation practitioners to raise funds and awareness for reducing biodiversity loss. However, uncertainty remains in the academic literature about the purpose of flagship species and little research has been conducted on improving the effectiveness of these campaigns. To reduce this problem, here, we suggest a new definition that further emphasizes their marketing role and propose an interdisciplinary framework to improve flagship identification, based on methodologies from social marketing, environmental economics, and conservation biology. This framework emphasizes that conservationists should specify the purpose of a campaign before working with the potential target audience to identify the most suitable species, and should monitor the success of their campaigns and feed this back into the marketing process. We then discuss the role of return on investment analyses to determine when funds are best spent on high‐profile flagships and when raising the profile of other species is more appropriate. Finally, we discuss how the flagship concept can be applied to other aspects of biodiversity, such as priority regions and species sharing specific traits. Thus, we argue for closer collaboration between researchers and marketing experts to ensure that marketing becomes a mainstream part of the interdisciplinary science of conservation.

Subfields: Ecological Modeling, Insect Science, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/93704f2b69a540180ecae608efb66ae9d4e683e1

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Ecological Modeling

1. Jonathan M. Jeschke
2. Jan Pergl
3. A. Nóvoa
4. F. Essl
5. Giacomo Tavecchia
6. Paola Laiolo
7. Petr Pyšek
8. J. Donázar

In Insect Science

1. Jan Pergl
2. Petr Pyšek
3. Jonathan M. Jeschke
4. F. Essl
5. A. Nóvoa
6. F. Courchamp
7. D. Richardson
8. V. Jarošı́k

In Social Psychology

1. Anke Fischer
2. Petr Pyšek
3. F. Courchamp

Citations in the corpus

• Holding up a mirror to the society: Children recognize exotic species much more than local ones (2013, background): “One would be to introduce the concept of local flagship species to increases awareness on local fauna (see for example Home et al., 2009; Verissimo et al., 2011).”
• The role of species charisma in biological invasions (2020, background): “…The concept of “flagship species” was initially developed to focus conservation marketing campaigns on species with traits that are perceived as charismatic, with the intent of attracting public support and funding for conservation efforts (eg giant panda, Ailuropoda melanoleuca ; Veríssimo et al .”
• Reinventing mutualism between humans and wild fauna: insights from vultures as ecosystem services providers (2013, background): “…vulture would be considered as a cultural service provider and hence converted into a ‘flagship-species,” that is, “a species used as the focus of a broader conservation marketing campaign based on its possession of one or more traits that appeal to the target audience” (Verissimo et al. 2011).”