Hanoians care for giving up wildlife products
Most Hanoians were willing to use alternatives to wildlife products if they were available and proven to be effective, according to a survey released on September 8 by the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Sociology.
Of 1,000 randomly selected respondents ranging in age from 20 to 69, 760 said they will choose alternative products.
While most people think of wildlife products as expensive, they still want to use them because they have "a strong and profound belief in their effectiveness", said president of the institute Dang Nguyen Anh. About 69% of respondents have eaten wildlife meat, 70% have used wildlife products to cure illness and 64% used wildlife products they received as gifts.
However, the survey highlighted that wildlife consumption is largely spontaneous. Many were given wildlife products as gifts or invited to consume wildlife products by family or friends.
Nguyen The Dong, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Environment Administration, said there should be more campaigns to raise awareness about the negative impact of unsustainable and illegal wildlife consumption and encourage the use of alternative products.
"Tapping into the power of social influence and trying to change people's belief about the effectiveness of wildlife products is one of the biggest challenges for communication efforts today," Anh said.
At the conference, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment also released a review of the current policy and legal framework for the management and conservation of endangered, rare and precious wildlife species.
The survey was conducted between November 2013 and April 2014 as part of the project "Wildlife consumption in Vietnam: reforming policies and practices to strengthen biodiversity conservation" funded by the Global Environment Facility via the World Bank.