Current Conservation magazine has published a short article about my PhD research. Check it out!
Tag cambodia
Effects of social networks on interventions to change conservation behavior
Social networks are critical to the success of behavioral interventions in conservation because network processes such as information flows and social influence can enable behavior change to spread beyond a targeted group. We investigated these mechanisms in the context of a social marketing campaign to promote a wildlife poisoning hotline in Cambodia. With questionnaire surveys we measured a social network and knowledge and constructs from the theory of planned behavior at 3 points over 6 months. The intervention initially targeted ∼11% (of 365) of the village, but after 6 months ∼40% of the population was knowledgeable about the campaign. The likelihood of being knowledgeable nearly doubled with each additional knowledgeable household member. In the short term, there was also a modest, but widespread improvement in proconservation behavioral intentions, but this did not persist after 6 months. Estimates from stochastic actor-oriented models suggested that the influences of social peers, rather than knowledge, were driving changes in intention and contributed to the failure to change behavioral intention in the long term, despite lasting changes in attitudes and perceived norms. Our results point to the importance of accounting for the interaction between networks and behavior when designing conservation interventions.
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.13833
Understanding & addressing wildlife poisoning in Northern Cambodia
This post originally published on the ICCS website.
ដើម្បីអានអត្ថបទនេះជាភាសាខ្មែរសូមចូលទៅកាន់: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12146181.v1
The coronavirus pandemic is likely to have a variety of unforeseen implications for people and wildlife. One early trend is a reported increase in waterhole poisonings in Cambodia’s Northern Plains. This is concerning for both conservation and human health reasons. Preah Vihear province in northern Cambodia is home to the largest remaining fragments of Southeast Asia’s deciduous woodlands. These woodlands, which once carpeted mainland Southeast Asia, have disappeared elsewhere. As such, Cambodia’s Northern Plains are stronghold for some unique and threatened wildlife species. For example, the area is home to the Giant Ibis – Cambodia’s national bird, which was thought extinct until it was re-discovered in 1993. Unfortunately, three Giant Ibis (representing over 1% of the global population) have been poisoned in recent months. These poisonings can also harm farmers and their livestock, who depend on the waterholes as a critical water source.
So why might we be seeing this worrying spike in waterhole poisoning? Research conducted in 2017, by Emiel de Lange and two Cambodian students, Yim Vichet and Leang Chantheavy, may help to provide some answers. The study is available in the journal Oryx and a full text is available here.
The first documented carbofuran poisonings in Preah Vihear: a problem for people and wildlife
In 2016, in the heat of the dry season, cows in Preah Vihear province were dying seemingly without reason and farmers were complaining of diarrhoea and stomach pains. When government officials investigated they found troubling scenes: at five vital life-giving waterholes, strange purple gravel was strewn at their edges, and dead and dying animals were scattered nearby. A slender-billed vulture, one of less than 100 individuals left in Southeast Asia, was found struggling in the grass and rushed to a vet.
The bird did not survive. However, by examining the contents of its stomach in a laboratory, vets discovered that it had been poisoned by a pesticide called carbofuran. This was even more troubling, as carbofuran is extremely toxic to birds, and was banned internationally, under the Rotterdam convention, following a massacre of Europe’s farmland birds in 1998. Such poisonings not only represented a significant public health danger to farmers and their livestock; they also threatened the rare wildlife which depend on the waterholes for their survival.
At the time, conservationists could only speculate as to the causes for these events. Was it an accidental consequence of pesticide use in agriculture? Was it an intentional attack, perhaps intended to kill a cow in retaliation for a land dispute? Or a protest against conservation rules? To address this problem, we would first need to understand the root causes.
Understanding the root causes of waterhole poisonings
Emiel and his team interviewed local residents and organised group discussions in ten villages in the area, to get a broader sense of how people perceived poisoning, and to attempt to measure its prevalence. Given the sensitive nature of the behaviour, they used a mixed methods approach drawing on theory from social psychology, sensitive questioning techniques, and triangulating multiple data sources. Their conclusions have important implications for managing poisoning in Preah Vihear province, and for studying sensitive behaviours in other contexts.
1. The who, what, where, when, and why, of wildlife poisoning
“In the dry season, when the waterholes are dry, I put the poison in a coconut shell. It is a powder which I dissolve in the water and put in the shell […]. Using this poison, I used to catch a lot of birds, maybe five or six each time, and I would try three times in one season.”
This description is typical of practices documented in eight of the ten villages visited during the study. It is a method used to harvest wild meat, which is primarily consumed at home. It is considered extremely efficient, and easy to learn compared to methods such as setting traps or using guns. In the dry season, a lot of wildlife concentrates at waterholes which makes them easy targets. However, from a conservation perspective, this indiscriminate killing is concerning and witnesses reported that many important species have been affected. It is usually young men, perhaps up to the age of 30, who are using poisons, but we also heard about children playing with poisons and catching animals too. They might learn this from relatives in the village or from shopkeepers, who sometimes sell the poison repackaged in clear plastic bags for ~$0.25.
We might assume that the poorest households are using poison because of food insecurity, but the evidence for this was not clear in 2017. A more important factor in deciding whether to use poison or not seems to be how health risks are perceived. This is one of the key factors that may have changed following the outbreak of COVID-19, as migrant workers are forced to return home and no longer have employment opportunities.
2. Social norms and village reactions
“The villagers are all unhappy [about poisoning] […]. Last year I told everyone at a meeting to not do it and forbade the shopkeepers to sell the poison, […] but people continue to do it in secret.”
Social norms around wildlife poisoning are complex and differ from village to village. In one village, poisoning was a topic discussed freely and seemed to be quite common, while in others nobody had ever seen or heard about such a practice. Most villages lay somewhere in the middle: there were clearly groups of varying size who were using poison or who were accepting of it, while others disapproved strongly. In five villages, chiefs or other authority figures had attempted to prevent poisoning, because it destroys clean water sources and fish populations, risks people’s health, and has caused the deaths of beloved dogs, cows and chickens. They had made poisoners sign contracts promising to stop, or held village meetings to discuss the problem. One traditional doctor even suspected a young boy had been poisoned, but we couldn’t confirm this story. Many people also worry about the health effects of eating poisoned meat, and we recorded a long list of suspected symptoms. On the other hand, many believe that removing the internal organs of a poisoned animal makes the meat safe to eat.
3. The challenges of studying sensitive behaviour
“If people in the village knew this was happening, they would be unhappy as it could kill their cattle.”
Understandably, many people were reluctant to talk about poisoning. Many residents were unhappy about poisoning, and authorities have publicly acted against it in some villages. As such, those using poison may keep quiet about it to avoid social and legal repercussions. Some villages also benefit from conservation projects, such as community ecotourism businesses or organic farming projects, so village authorities may work closely with environment authorities to enforce conservation rules.
This situation raises challenges for researchers. Few people openly admitted to poisoning. Most accounts were indirect, or from those who had been negatively impacted by poisoning. Nevertheless, by carefully triangulating evidence from multiple sources, the study makes several robust qualitative conclusions, though trying to estimate prevalence of poison usage across the landscape has proved more difficult.
What does this mean for preventing waterhole poisoning in the future?
Despite the challenges of studying sensitive behaviours, the results of this study will be useful for planning interventions to reduce wildlife poisoning in the area. Local managers now understand the practices that lead to wildlife poisoning, the people involved, and their motivations. Importantly, the prevalence of this practice is now better understood, as well as the social norms and dynamics in each village, and previous efforts by local authorities to combat poisoning. All of this knowledge allows us to:
- Prioritise villages for intervention
- Identify target groups and plan how to reach them
- Identify potential allies to collaborate with, or use as key messengers
- Understand what sort of information might influence poisoners’ decision-making.
Based on the results of the study, Emiel and his collaborators at WCS Cambodia launched pilot interventions in early 2019. A full social marketing intervention has been conducted in one village, followed by extensive surveys to understand its effects. Watch this space for more news on its impact!
Finally, whether or not the recently observed increase in poisonings follows the trends described in this study remains to be seen. However, early evidence suggests that greater quantities of poison are being used than before. This might indicate that new actors with greater access to capital and commercial motivations are engaging in poisoning. A key component of our interventions to date has been to engage local communities in monitoring and reporting poisoning using a hotline, and this will continue to be critical for addressing this new challenge. High profile media coverage may also assist in encouraging greater control of trade in these deadly pesticides.
Tackling wildlife poisoning in Cambodia
In parts of Cambodia, wildlife poisoning occurs as a method of hunting for meat consumption. Changing people’s behaviour is a challenge for conservation. This post was originally published on the Edinburgh Conservation Science website.
If we want to change people’s behaviour to conserve wildlife, we need to understand how and why people think and behave as they do. To do this we can use methods and tools from disciplines that have been dealing with these questions, such as social psychology. But how do we then make use this knowledge to design effective interventions? Once again, we can draw on the accumulated decades of experience and best-practice approaches that have been developed in other fields. One such approach that has become increasingly used in conservation, with positive results is social marketing.
In parts of Cambodia, wildlife poisoning occurs as a method of hunting for meat consumption
In 2017, I conducted fieldwork to try and understand the phenomenon of wildlife poisoning in Preah Vihear province Cambodia. What we learned is that wildlife poisoning occurs as a method of hunting for meat consumption, where pesticides are placed with bait at waterholes in the dry season. This is seen as a very effective and easy method, and it can catch a wide range of species, but it also risks affecting domestic animals, fish, and reduces water availability. Broadly, people in Preah Vihear are aware of and concerned by the risks of eating poisoned meat, but there are also widespread beliefs that removing the internal organs from an animal makes it safe to eat. People are also concerned about damage to the environment, their water, their cattle and dogs, so in some villages the chiefs have tried to act against poisoning, such as by organising meetings. Nevertheless, some groups continue to use poison, predominately younger men, but also kids as young as ten. Read more about this study here.
In 2018, I conducted a three-day workshop with NGO and government staff, and members of local communities. We developed a conceptual model, compiling all our respective knowledge about this problem into a diagram, and then identified possible interventions. Some of these interventions were recommendations for new regulations on the pesticides, or for altering the patrol routes of environment rangers, but some directly targeted the beliefs, attitudes, norms, and behaviours of local communities. We further developed these using the social marketing approach.
We began by selecting three priority behaviours that we aim to change. Obviously, this includes the practice of poisoning itself, but from our conceptual model we also realised that the behaviour of other members of the community would be key to influencing hunters. Specifically, we wanted to encourage community members to report observed poisoning to a hotline, and to be vigilant in refusing poisoned meat. For each of these behaviours, we then tried to characterise the different groups that would be targeted. For example, a key group of hunters is young children aged 10-15, and a key group we’d ask to be vigilant and report poisoning are the parents of these children. For each of these groups we then examined the costs and benefits of the current behaviour, and the costs and benefits of our desired behaviour, and used these to identify potential routes to change. For example, parents might not report poisoning because they are concerned it will upset others or provoke conflict, but doing so would keep their children, community, and animals safe, and could earn them respect from village leaders. Our messaging therefore focused on the idea that by reporting poisoning you are protecting your community, and that rather than be upset, your community will be thankful.
Our messaging focused on the idea that by reporting poisoning you are protecting your community
Earlier this year, in 2019, I supported WCS in implementing a small part of our planned campaign as a pilot. This served as a case study for my own research into how NGO communications influence behaviour, and how this is mediated by local social networks. For this pilot, we targeted parents with children between the ages of 10-15 and organised an event in cooperation with local government. The event started with short talks by government officials from the departments of health, environment, and agriculture, as well as NGO staff. These talks were intended to highlight all the various risks of pesticide misuse and contamination, explain the laws around pesticide use, and to increase the salience of this issue for our audience. We also had a powerful testimony of a farmer from a nearby village who had lost cattle to poisoning.
Next we screened a short film that was produced especially for this campaign, together with a filmmaker Phearun Yin. The film told the story of a boy, Chan, who discovers that his friends have been poisoned after bathing in a waterhole. He learns that Vibol, another boy, is responsible and decides to tell the parents of the sick children. There is much debate about what to do, but eventually the parents decide to speak to Vibol’s parents about the issue. She already knows that Vibol plays with poison but didn’t think to do anything about it. Eventually, the village chief persuades them that they should call the poisoning hotline, following which environment staff come to remove the contamination and poison. They reward the kids with a certificate for their bravery in reporting and thank everyone for their cooperation. Everyone lives happily ever after!
Every aspect of this story is drawn from interviews with community members and reflects our understanding of the situation.
Every aspect of this story is drawn from interviews with community members and reflects our understanding of the situation. The key elements are that kids are playing with pesticides as a fun way to catch wildlife, and that parents aren’t doing anything about it. Yes – we even interviewed some parents who told us about this. Obviously, the risks to both health and the environment are highlighted, and we have a scene showing that illness is keeping the kids from school – something which is very important to parents. Finally, it was important to show the process of discussion and deliberation, the uncertainty about the best course of action, and the potential for conflict. This reflected the real barriers that are faced by the audience. All this is eventually resolved, and their decision to act in the desired way results in a safer environment and a happy community. Working on this film, and shooting on location with the kids, has certainly been one of the most unexpected, but also most enjoyable parts of my PhD!
Working on this film, and shooting on location with the kids, has certainly been one of the most unexpected, but also most enjoyable parts of my PhD!
After the screening, WCS staff took time to give details about the poisoning hotline and explain how it works. For example, the costs of the call would be refunded, and anonymity was assured if requested. A discussion was then held where the audience was asked to reflect on the motivations and actions of the different characters. This way we hoped to come to a shared understanding of the film and forge a public consensus that reporting poisoning is the best course of action. For members of the audience who still felt hesitant, this could show them the rest of the audience was on board. By using an emotive film, we also hoped to help the audience overcome some of the emotional barriers to action, such as apathy, or the fear of conflict. Furthermore, we wanted this to be something the audience could continue to reflect on, and share with their children, so we distributed a coloured children’s book which told the same story. We also handed out attractive stickers, and calendar leaflets, which showed our campaign logo and the hotline phone number, so that it would always be close at hand, and never far from mind.
We closed our event with a ceremony and a small party. Mimicking the final scene of our film, we asked the audience to make a public pledge of ‘good citizenship’, promising to use pesticides responsibly, and to report contamination. Pledgees received a certificate (identical to that shown in the film) signed by the commune chief, and a big poster so they can proudly show their neighbours and friends that they are a good citizen. This is based on the idea that making a commitment publicly increases the likelihood that you’ll stick to it.
This event wasn’t perfect, but represents a start in getting conservationists to think beyond awareness raising, and to be a bit more nuanced in their engagement with communities. We didn’t have a great budget for the finishing party, and maybe weren’t able to create the buzz we would have liked for the pledging ceremony. We also abandoned earlier plans to work together with the local school and make it a real parent-pupil-teacher event. Instead, it was a sort of fancier version of the kinds of community meetings that NGOs call all the time. I’m convinced that those small details can make a world of difference, but time will tell whether this little pilot will have any impact. Walking through the village several weeks later I was encouraged to see several of our posters up on people’s front doors. Doing applied research in collaboration with a conservation NGO has meant opportunities but also obligations, and this was a particularly stressful field trip trying to bring all parties together, and design all our materials in a very short timeframe, But it has also been an immensely rich experience from which I have learned a lot. Let’s hope our evaluation data will be equally illuminating.
Dteu srok Khmer veng (Back to Cambodia)
An update on Emiel’s PhD research as he heads back out to Cambodia. This post was originally published on the Edinburgh Conservation Science website.
I’m on my way to Cambodia once again so it’s time to give an update! After I arrived back last November it took me a while to get back into the swing of things. I’d had a little accident driving my motorbike in Vietnam which left me with scars down one leg, and a foot that was swelling. I moved into a new flat, with new flatmates, and by the time I’d recovered, settled, and caught up with everyone and all my other hobbies, it was Christmas.
The New Year started on the right foot (no pun intended). My first act after returning to work was to make a pre-submission to a journal, hoping to persuade them to consider publishing the first paper of my PhD. The paper itself still needed some polishing so I spent quite a bit of time getting it into shape over the following months. Unfortunately, we still don’t know whether they want to take it, so the paper is just sat on my desktop waiting for a home. If you want to know what it’s about I’m afraid you’ll have to be as patient as I am trying to be!
In the meantime, I started talks with WCS about what comes next. When I left, I’d given them a brief presentation about what I was finding as I investigated poisoning in Preah Vihear. They then asked me to start thinking about interventions to reduce wildlife poisoning. Of course, this isn’t something I could do without significant input from WCS, but, as they were going through some staff changes, it took a while before we could seriously talk and start to make plans. As the plans did start to materialise, the amount of work I would have to do to ready those plans became clearer, and kicked me out of my post-Christmas complacency.
We’ll think about the different types of people that engage in wildlife poisoning, the behavioural change we want them to make, and the strategies or messages that could get them there.
So, what are the plans? Firstly, we’ll be organising a three-day intervention-planning workshop involving WCS staff, and facilitated by me. This will take a social marketing approach, and I’ve been fortunate to receive guidance from experienced social marketers like Diogo Verissimo, a colleague in Oxford. We’ll start by clearly identifying the problem of wildlife poisoning, the behaviours, motivations and other factors that contribute to this issue. Then, we’ll think about the different types of people that engage in wildlife poisoning, the behavioural change we want them to make, and the strategies or messages that could get them there. Of course, for this to work we need to have a clear understanding of wildlife poisoning, who does it, and why, as well as the social norms surrounding its use. This is where the data I collected last year comes in, and I’ve been working hard to write up a report to share with my WCS colleagues.
I want to know whether the villagers care about this information, whether they pass it on to their friends and family, and whether they can remember it after a while.
I’ll also be conducting another study while I’m in Preah Vihear. WCS runs awareness-raising workshops in villages across Preah Vihear, informing villagers about the endangered species that live around them, their importance, and the laws that protect them. I want to know whether the villagers care about this information, whether they pass it on to their friends and family, and whether they can remember it after a while. These things would all be necessary for awareness-raising workshops like this to have a conservation impact, but they’ve never been tested. WCS have kindly agreed to modify the workshop that they’ll run in my study village. Instead of inviting the whole village, we’ll just invite a few select individuals, on the basis of the social network data I collected last year. We’ll also simplify it and include a few key messages that we’ll be able to track, and test knowledge on.
But all that’s for later… stay tuned! The first thing I’ll do when I arrive is travel to Kampong Thom to take part in the wedding of a good friend of mine. We both started our work with WCS as young graduates back in 2016, and I’m honoured to be a groomsman. Photos to follow!
Fieldwork: deeper into the forest
Emiel’s latest update about his fieldwork and all the challenges of surveying households in rural Cambodia. This post was originally published on the Edinburgh Conservation Science website.
I’m writing from Phnom Penh, fieldwork is done and I feel a great sense of relief. Everything worked out in the end, and within the time available, and it didn’t always seem like it would. Since I last wrote to you, the challenges of working in the Northern Plains of Cambodia only seemed to grow, the toughest times were still ahead. So let me start where we left off.
Everything worked out in the end, and within the time available, and it didn’t always seem like it would.
After about a week of limbo waiting and clearing some administrative hurdles, we finally got our letter of permission from the governor. We wasted no time and set off to the field the very next morning. A few days later, returning from the first village after a morning of heavy rains, we found ourselves cut off by water pouring across an otherwise good gravel road, and the bridges that had recently been installed to cope with flooding were underwater. I walked ahead along the sunken road and felt my way across the bridge step by step and, although the knee-high water was flowing fast, I wasn’t swept away, nor did the bridge collapse underneath me. Having completed this short pilot study, we pushed our baggage-laden motorbikes through slowly, staying well away from the edges.
Flooded roads
No disaster then, but as the rains didn’t stop in the following days I began to imagine Atlantean villages accessible only by propeller-powered motorbikes and specialist diving equipment. These worries weren’t completely unjustified, for although the villages were unlikely to have been built on land susceptible to that level of flooding, those remaining on my list were among the hardest to access, and required water crossings even in the dustiest of dry seasons. I consulted with colleagues at WCS and they agreed a different plan was needed, especially, they were sure to add, given our lack of skill in forest-riding, which they had all noticed. The plan was to take a boat to the first of three villages and walk the four or five kilometres between each of the remaining two. When we were done, the boat would come back for us.
The plan was to take a boat to the first of three villages and walk the four or five kilometres between the remaining two.
Walking for me means packing light. I cut the non-essentials and managed to fit everything needed, including my hammock, the tablets and solar panels, into my 40L backpack. I had clothes for a few days and soap to wash them. The only extra weight I would have to carry by hand were the boxes of soap that we give to our respondents as thanks. On the morning of departure, I met Vichet and Theavy each heaving two bulging backpacks which they insisted couldn’t be cut down further. We met our boatsman at his village and from there walked 2km in the rain to where he kept his boat in a canal – a steely taste of what was to come. The boat was a narrow wooden curve, filled with murky water that glistened with oil. Using cut plastic containers we began scooping the water out and didn’t stop until we got to our destination.
Pushing a boat through the flooded grasslands
The journey itself was fascinating and gave us a glimpse of many different landscapes. First, we passed through vast flooded grasslands, the boat sticking to deeper channels and occasionally cutting through thick clusters of bushes and bamboo along passages marked by plastic bags tied onto branches requiring us to duck for cover. After about four hours we heaved the boat onto a shallow mound of earth and dragged it across to a channel on the other side. We had reached the Stung Sen, one of the largest rivers in Cambodia that drains the forests of the Northern Plains into the vast Tonle Sap lake. The Stung Sen made for a more pleasant journey as we wound our way through the deep forest with tall trees towering along the banks. As we got deeper into the forest the banks gave way until it seemed like we were within a flooded forest, dodging trees, the water stretching into the murky undergrowth. We saw snakes floating on the water, giant monitor lizards resting on branches, and scores of birds overhead.
Boating through the main channel of the Stung Sen
Earlier in the day our boatman had sprung us with the news that we wouldn’t be able to make it in one day and that we’d have to find somewhere to sleep in the forest. Not keen on a hungry night in the rain, we reached a compromise to try and reach one of the small, illegal settlements that are cropping up along the river together with the economic land concessions and enabled by the road access that they bring. It was close to darkness by the time we scrambled onto the riverbank and emerged between a small cluster of wooden houses, where we were gratefully fed, and allowed to wash and sleep. We completed our journey early the next morning, said goodbye to our boatman at the shore and began lugging our boxes down the narrow path passing the occasional boy herding cows. As the path widened houses began to appear and it started to rain. When we arrived at the main dirt road leading into the village we were greeted by a slightly intimidating group of about two dozen men standing around a broken bridge, but as we approached a couple of them came towards us, smiling, and carried our bags across for us.
My assistants asked around and found a ‘kor-yun’, a motorised ox-cart, to carry us to the next village for a small fee.
The next few days proceeded as they usually do, walking through the village surveying households, and inviting people to focus groups with the chief’s help. Khmer villages are laid out along roads so this involved a lot of walking, and without our motorbikes, reaching the farthest households took some time. It was also very wet, and, as I discovered one agonising and wakeful night, the constant squelch of mud between the toes eventually inflicted a cost in the form of trench-foot (maybe jungle-rot is more accurate): the skin between my toes dissolving away, leaving inflamed and infected openings. With this on our minds my assistants asked around and found a ‘kor-yun’, a motorised ox-cart, to carry us to the next village for a small fee. Along the way we got stuck multiple times and the wheels churned the mud and grass roots, making the roads even more treacherous for those that followed. We were warned that reaching the final village would be even more difficult and that walking was our only option, but luckily the village sub-chief volunteered to take us half of the way and show us a shorter route through the rice fields. He rested with us a short while in one of the thatch shelters that farmers use when they work their fields, and miraculously for such a remote place started streaming youtube on his phone.
Riding a Kor-yun through the village
We survived this saga and made it safely back to town just in time for the Pchum Ben national holidays. It was an important chance for Vichet and Theavy to return home, and for me to catch up on some writing and relaxation after more than two continuous months of fieldwork. I even found the time to hop the border to Ho Chi Minh city and explore a little bit of Vietnam. Having planned ahead and piloted the next survey in the last couple of villages, we returned well rested and prepared to enter phase two of our work.
Phase two was us returning to one village and doing a full Social Network Analysis. This meant we had to (try to) interview every adult in the village – so we settled in for a long-term stay at the house of the bemused village chief, bringing vegetables and meat from the distant market. After a few days we reverted back to the village standard of rice and fried fish which were in great abundance after the heavy rains. Each day we would visit new households and explain what we were doing, and after receiving their consent we would take down a list of the members of that household. We would then interview each of the adults separately, asking them to tell us who they go to talk to in the village, who they go to for advice, and who they interact with in a number of different ways. Very often not everyone was home so we would either arrange a good time to come back, having left a packet of soaps as a thank you and incentive, or visit again each morning until we found them. We continued this pattern for close to three weeks of hard work, starting at 7am and finishing after dark, with a short siesta in the middle. The evenings are when the men return home from the rice fields so we would try to take advantage of that time. By the end we knew everyone in the village and they knew us, and we had friendly people letting us know who was home in their neighbourhood, or waving us over to interview a neighbour that we’d been hoping to meet. With almost 400 interviews done, I think only two people refusing to be interviewed says a lot about the character of the people here!
Having finished slightly ahead of schedule, we had some valuable time left for my assistants to check through the thousands of names that we had recorded. Using a list provided by the village chief, we checked each of them and made sure the spelling was consistent. Names aren’t used in Cambodia as frequently as we use them and it’s quite common for people not to know the full names of even their close friends. Instead, people address each other as ‘brother’, ‘aunty’, and so forth, or use nicknames. This made the job more difficult than it could have been, but diligent questioning and time spent cross-checking meant we now have a really excellent dataset. I cant imagine if I’d had to check all those names myself in a script I can barely even read! Luckily, the hard work of Vichet and Theavy enabled me to focus on writing reports and preparing for my presentations to the Ministry of Environment.
A colleague asked me why I wasn’t having a going-away party.
A colleague asked me why I wasn’t having a going-away party. To be honest, I hadn’t even thought about it. Knowing that I will be back here soon means I haven’t let myself get too sentimental, and it feels like I’ll hardly be gone at all – so I’ve kept working right up to departure. On my last evening in Preah Vihear I became aware of this, and tore myself away from the computer for a short time. I took my motorbike and rode the loop around town, a route that I often run in the cooler evenings. The town quickly falls away, leaving swampy lagoons on either side, filled with lotus, and as you follow its’ circular bend, the massive ridge of Tbeng mountain dominates your view, silhouetted below a blazing sky. The town lies sprawled out in front beyond the water, with stilted houses lining up along the road. I’ve spent so much of the past four months speeding my moto down these roads, and now, as I felt the familiar blast of air from a passing truck, a bit of nostalgia began to creep in. It felt like I was seeing things for the first time, it all seemed unfamiliar and new. I saw the families and groups of friends making the same evening ride, three or four to a bike. Every evening they park up along the water and watch the sunset, now turning purple, peeking through the lotus leaves. I felt I was riding into that sunset, a character who has survived to the end of an adventure movie. The hundreds of days spent facing new challenges in new environments were receding into the twilight of memory, too vast to for me to grasp. I turned back into town along the chaotic boulevard where the citizens of Preah Vihear gather to stroll, throw balls, and eat barbecue – the humming of life goes on.
Fieldwork: Getting stuck in
This post was originally published on the Edinburgh Conservation Science website.
Emiel describes the first phase of his PhD fieldwork: a survey of ten villages, spread across two protected areas in Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province.
The Fieldwork
I’m writing this from the provincial town as we take a short break. After surveying six villages across three districts without any issue, we were turned back from the most recent village we attempted to survey. We had already spent the night at the chief’s house, but in the morning the news came from the district that we didn’t have permission to work there. The letters of support we carried from the Ministry of Environment and frantic phone calls with WCS were unfortunately not sufficient to resolve the issue, and we were forced to make the long and difficult trip back through the forest, empty handed. Waiting in town for bureaucratic reasons is a good excuse to write a blog post!
My two assistants, Vichet and Chantheavy, and I have now surveyed six of the ten villages. As we gain experience, things seem to be going more smoothly and, for me at least, are becoming more enjoyable. Those two have become real professionals which makes life easy for me. When we arrive in a village they know what needs to be done and what needs to be organised and I can take a step back while they sort it out. While we administer the questionnaire, my job is just to keep an eye on things and select the households to sample. It’s only in the interviews and focus groups that I take a more active role – directing the discussions while Vichet translates for me.
The pattern of activity in each village is, by now, predictable and familiar. We usually arrive some time in the afternoon, after a journey that has been unexpectedly challenging in some way (more on that later), and ask our way to the house of the village chief. Sometimes we then have to wait for him to return home, but otherwise we can introduce ourselves and ask his permission to do our work in his village. In addition to granting permission, they also generously allow us to make ourselves at home underneath their house (Khmer houses are raised on stilts) so that we can put up our hammocks, and, most importantly, feed us for the duration of our stay. Although it is never requested, we always give them a small payment for this when we leave.
Staying with these families has been a real pleasure and has offered me a great insight into their daily lives. Some of the chiefs are elderly and spend most of the day resting while their grandchildren run about, others have young families and shy teenagers. It’s the wives that are really in charge though, running the household and taking care of us. Some take a backseat after providing the meals, and others sit with us and chat and tell stories late into the evening. The last village was like this, and the young children gathered round to listen. In the day we had a little dance party where the kids taught me how to dance the Khmer way, and in the evening the two boys took us to the ancient temples, lying in ruins, smothered by the forest that surrounds the village. Pushing aside lianas to admire the beautiful stone carvings with our young guides was a unique privilege.
We spend most of the day walking the village and administering our survey, starting from around seven in the morning. As we walk I draw a little map in my notebook and check off the houses that we visit. We’ve now visited almost 300 households and this has also been a wonderful experience. As we approach and give the traditional greeting, hands together in front of our face, the villagers often smile and immediately begin to sweep their tables so that we have a clean place to sit – before they even know what we’re coming for! Certainly, the nature of our questions might be a bit sensitive for some of them, but on the whole everyone has been so gracious and patient. Seeing such a huge variety of households has also been fascinating in itself – I’d almost like to visit 300 households in the UK just to see the way that people differ in producing the space called ‘home’. I guess my inner anthropologist is emerging.
We’ve devoted considerable time and attention to one of the most important aspects of preparing for these meetings – the purchasing of snacks
In the evening, when the chief is free, we ask him to help us invite people to the focus group discussions. We’ve found that early in the morning is a good time for the men to join us as they are free before they go to work the farms, and the women find the early afternoon a good time after they’ve prepared lunch. We explain to the chief what sort of mix of families we would like to have in our discussion, and then we ride around the village together selecting the households at his advice. The chief will often, playfully, warn the villagers not to forget! When the time comes to start our discussion there is usually some waiting involved. We gather at a comfortable place, perhaps a village meeting house if there is one, or if the chief’s house has a table and some chairs we can meet there. Beforehand we’ve devoted considerable time and attention to one of the most important aspects of preparing for these meetings – the purchasing of snacks. In some villages there are little shops that may sell a few fried bananas in the morning, or perhaps a family that occasionally sells some fried doughballs with coconut or palm-sugar glazed doughnuts. Once our participants arrive, sometimes more than we expected and sometimes fewer, we start our discussions.
About those roads. I should mention that we drive three old moto’s (125cc mopeds), that require constant attention. The first set of four villages we visited are all in Chheb Wildlife Sanctuary, which is some distance from town, towards the Laos border. We visited all four in one large circular tour that took us two weeks. The roads were wide gravel, which makes for smooth driving, but that didn’t stop us from having various issues. We set off to the second village in the afternoon, but didn’t get there till the next morning. Don’t worry, we had a safe place to sleep, but not before a dramatic and stressful evening. To sum up our evening: all three of the motorbikes had an issue, one after the other, and each time we were rescued miraculously by a kind stranger who happened to be coming by. The night ended with us abandoning hope of reaching the village that day, and loading our motorbikes into an empty ice truck that was heading back towards the main road, where we were graciously invited to sleep underneath a local house.
The key lessons here were to brush up on some basic vehicle repair skills before undertaking such a voyage, and to always check the fuel tank before leaving. More importantly, I also learned about the huge generosity that people are capable of, and I will never forget the three people who helped us escape a dark night spent in the wilderness. After unloading our moto, the ice-truck driver scrawled his name in the mud on the side of his truck, so that we might find him on Facebook. It was really unfortunate then, that, the next morning after realising we’d left a set of keys in his truck, we were unable to find any trace of him. I left my phone number with the house we’d stayed at, and miraculously a day later we got a call that the keys had been returned.
The remainder of our time in Chheb went more smoothly as we’d learnt our lesson. Driving down the wide roads for hours at a time and passing nothing but the forests and grasslands on either side, gave a great sense of freedom and adventure! A recent camera trap survey showed that the area is still inhabited by wild cattle, elephants, leopards and wild dogs. Although we never saw any of these, it definitely felt like a very wild place.
Kulen Promtep, the other protected area we are surveying, is a different story. Rather than wide gravel roads, the villages are reached by ox-cart tracks which wind through the forest. At this time of year they are frequently flooded, prompting dozens of narrow moto tracks carved into the mud to scatter through the bushes, bypassing the flood. The trick must be to know which of these tracks is the right one to take, but as first-time visitors we clearly lack this knowledge. Often we’d get stuck, and have to push our motos through one at a time. While doing so, as the mud sprayed onto our clothes and the sweat soaked our shirts, a local youth might happily skirt around us and whizz off into the distance.
The Science
The first phase of my fieldwork is a survey of ten villages, spread across two protected areas in Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province. We’re trying to understand the ways that people learn about and make use of pesticides, and how this varies from village to village. In particular, we’re interested in the misuse of these poisons as a tool for killing and eating wildlife – a practice with obvious conservation and public health implications. Much of the conservation work here is focussed on a handful of critically endangered species, so the poisoning of just a few individuals (as has been documented in the past) could be catastrophic. In each village, we administer a structured survey to a sample of households, and hold focus group discussions for both men and women. We also interview and talk to anyone who might know something more about these issues in their village.
The second pilot village was very different to the first, so a lot of the things we thought we’d learned were thrown into question once again.
As you will know if you read my previous blog post, we had the opportunity to pilot our instruments in two villages before starting out – this was incredibly valuable. The second pilot village was very different to the first, so a lot of the things we thought we’d learned were thrown into question once again. To recap – the first village was quite isolated, and the villagers (belonging to the Khoy ethnic minority) were largely subsistence farmers. Our data suggested that pesticides were not commonly used for agricultural purposes, but there was a common practice of using poisons to hunt wildlife in the forest, especially in the dry season. The second village was bigger, more connected, and generally more developed. The villagers had large farms, and used modern tools such as tractors, as well as pesticides and fertilisers, and produced crops for sale to middlemen. Our data suggested that there was very little use of wild meats, let alone use of poisons for hunting – a practice that shocked the villagers due to its obvious health risks. On the other hand, we learned that poisons can also be used to defend against the flocks of birds that raid the rice fields.
The key lesson, I think, was the need for some flexibility in our questioning. The nature of the focus group discussion or the unstructured interview means that these methods can easily adapt to the kinds of information they generate. If new behaviours come up in the discussion, we can flexibly ask and get more information about that new behaviour. So, rather than have a set protocol for the discussion, I decided to generate a bank of questions covering all foreseeable avenues of inquiry, which we could refer to during the discussion. This has worked really well, and to date most discussions haven’t strayed too far from those avenues. The structured questionnaire was trickier to adapt. Naturally, if a respondent tells us he engages in behaviour ‘X’ we can still ask him specific questions about this behaviour that we couldn’t ask another respondent, but if we want to get some quantitative data that we can use to make comparisons between villages, we need to have a fixed set of questions that will make sense when asked in all villages, and to all people.
The final questionnaire we’ve been using contains a number of sections. We begin with some basic demographic questions, asking about the respondents age, gender, position in the household, and whether they participate in any conservation activities. Next is a simple set of wealth indicators, adapted from a Basic Necessities Survey dataset carried out previously in these villages. We ask respondents whether they own a number of objects, all of which are considered necessities by most people in the village, but some of which are easily acquired by most people and others which only the wealthy can acquire. Our first questions about poisoning practices are asked indirectly, using a technique called the Unmatched Count Technique. As some of these practices are illegal and sensitive, respondents may not be truthful when we ask directly, so instead we show half of them a list of five activities, including the poisoning practice, and ask them how many of the activities they do. The other half of respondents see a list of four activities, without the poisoning practice, so that we can estimate the prevalence of the behaviour from the difference between these two groups. Just in case some people are willing to talk, we then have three sections – one for each of the poisoning practices we know of, where we ask them directly and can get more details about the practice. We start innocently, for example by asking them what pest issues they face and what methods they have for dealing with them, before asking whether they use pesticides. As I think the use of poison for hunting in the dry season is probably the behaviour that is most concerning from a conservation perspective, we also have a set of Likert-style questions to assess respondent’s attitudes and perceptions of social norms around this behaviour, before the direct question itself.
As some of these practices are illegal and sensitive, respondents may not be truthful when we ask directly
We’re administering these questionnaires using the Open Data Kit – an open source bundle of software that allows you to design surveys and collect the data through an app on an android tablet. This makes it very easy to enter the data and collect it all into spreadsheets afterwards. It’s a bit of a learning curve to design the XLM forms used to produce the survey, but this is more than compensated by not having to carry hundreds of paper forms and typing these manually into a computer. I also carry a portable set of solar panels so we can recharge these tablets during long stints in the forest.
The start of fieldwork: a first pilot study
This post was originally published on the Edinburgh Conservation Science website.
“Let this be a warning to my future self: one month into the trip and none of this has gone as planned…”
It’s been a month since I arrived in Cambodia. Before leaving the UK I had prepared as much as I could. Via Skype and email I had arranged for two Cambodian students to meet me and to work as my research assistants. I had also prepared all the survey materials, questionnaires and focus group protocols – at least for the first phase of fieldwork. Well, let this be a warning to my future self – one month into the trip and none of this has gone as planned.
When I arrived in Phnom Penh back in June I took the weekend to acclimate and catch up with colleagues at WCS. On Monday my assistants came to meet me at the office. We signed their contracts, did some preparation and the next day were off to Preah Vihear – the town from which WCS bases it’s operations across the Northern Plains of Cambodia. I planned to use the rest of the week to translate my questionnaires and familiarise everyone with the material, and this was going well until one of my assistants got sick just a few days later. The doctor advised her to go to Phnom Penh to get a treatment at the hospital. Health is of course the most important thing, and going to do fieldwork in remote forest villages when sick is clearly not a good idea, so Vichet (my other assistant) and I resolved to have everything ready for when she returned.
By Sunday we were done, and we heard that she would have to stay away a little longer, so I gave Vichet a week off to go and finish writing his thesis. I myself took the opportunity to see another corner of Cambodia, Koh Kong, and enjoyed walking in the forest. While I was in the remote Tatai valley, with the faintest of mobile signals the news of her resignation reached me, as the doctor advised her not to travel for a month. I must admit I had a mild panic, but Vichet knew of another student who could take on the position. Before agreeing, I wanted to meet her and make sure she’d be up to the task, so I went to Phnom Penh to make the arrangements.
I lost count of the number of times I flooded my exhaust, forcing us to wait while it drained.
And so it was that on the 12th of July, nearly 3 weeks after arriving in country, I had a team ready to start the pilot study – Vichet and Chantheavy my sidekicks. We travelled to a village called Svay Damnak Chas, which is not inside one of our protected areas but has similar characteristics and is also surrounded by forest. I’d payed for the repair of 3 motorbikes that WCS had given up on, so although this was a very cheap option we were driving what might be called ‘pieces of crap’, as we soon found out. After arriving in the village we asked our way to the chief’s house, but he was staying at his rice field for a few days. We managed to get his phone number, and he advised us to speak to his deputy. At the deputies house we found that he too was in the field but would come back in the evening. I was impatient, and asked his son if he could take us to him. We just needed to get his permission to start working in the village, and find somewhere to sleep – and apparently, it wasn’t hard to get to the field. This was a mistake.
To get to the deputy, we drove for almost two hours through the forest, on roads that we found extremely challenging. Half the time was spent skidding over sand and the other half sloshing through deep pools of mud. I lost count of the number of times I flooded my exhaust, forcing us to wait while it drained. Eventually, tired and wet, we met the deputy heading back to the village on his ‘Kor-yun’ a kind of motorised cart. He said he’d have to call the chief when he got back to the village before he could decide, and so we started the aimless return journey. It was when I was waiting at the cusp of a deep pool that Vichet’s moto went wild. He flew through the air just beside me and turned on to his side in the deep pool. Some mud must have gotten into his accelerator cable and he could no longer control his speed. It was getting dark, so we hid the moto in the bush and came back for it the next day with a kor-yun. Of course, when we brought it to the village garage the problem could not be demonstrated and so nothing was done, until I fearfully drove it back to Preah Vihear after we finished our pilot.
The rest of our time in Svay Damnak Chas went fairly well. We hammocked under the deputy’s house and he kindly helped us to arrange our focus groups which we held in his yard. In the meantime we walked the village selecting households to survey. We learned a great deal, both about our protocols and about our research questions, and it was great for Vichet and Chantheavy to get some practice running a focus group before we do the real thing. It certainly wasn’t as scary as they may have thought beforehand. We got a better idea for how to phrase questions so that the villagers could understand them, and we also learned that one of our methods – the single sample count – was simply too complex for them to respond to properly. When the time came for our women’s focus group only a fraction of the invitees turned up, and more than an hour late. In contrast, all the men were early and we were joined by a swelling crowd as went.
We’re here to investigate the deaths of key wildlife species as a result of pesticide poisoning. Whether these were the result of the misuse of pesticides for agricultural purposes, or the intentional use of poison for hunting, was unknown. For the first few days of the pilot study all we were hearing is that pesticides were never used here, and that many people didn’t even know what a pesticide way. It was slightly baffling, but on the 3rd day was got a lucky break. One respondent mentioned that he uses poisons for catching birds and that they sometimes got stomach pains after eating this meat. Once we knew that this was a distinct behaviour, and once we understood the terminology used to describe these behaviours we were able to unlock a wealth of information in the focus groups and interviews. Everybody we asked offered us all the information we wanted about how they use these poisons, what species they catch and all the horrendous health effects that follow and that they seemingly ignore.
Naturally, these insights meant we had to change the focus of our questionnaire quite drastically to make sure we got this kind of information in future, but now knowing more about the behaviour of interest we are able to measure psychological constructs related to this much more effectively. Another issue is we’re not sure whether villages inside protected areas might be a little more sensitive about discussing this topic. So, tomorrow we’ll go to Kandak village to do a second pilot of our new survey instrument. Watch this space.
Preparing for Fieldwork
Emiel writes about the preparations for his trip. This post was originall published on the Edinburgh Conservation Science website.
I last wrote having just returned from Cambodia, and I write now as I’m preparing to return there. A lot has happened in the meantime.
Confirmation
Before I go, there is one formal hurdle I need to clear – the confirmation process. This is a sort of checkpoint I need to complete approximately 9 months into my PhD, in order to be ‘confirmed’ by the university. The process has three steps: Last week I gave a short presentation to my peers and academics in our department at an internal conference. It was the first real chance to explain to colleagues what I’ve been doing and what I want to do in the course of my PhD, and to hear about what others are doing. It was also a useful chance to get some feedback from everyone. I then expanded on this in my ‘confirmation report’ – a 26 page document (excluding appendices) giving more details about the background and reasoning for my research, setting out my research aims and describing how I’m going to answer these questions. I submitted the report to my advisor earlier this week and next will be my ‘confirmation panel’, where a small group of academics will question me about the report and provide feedback. Not only does the university use this to make sure us students are on the right track and capable of completing a PhD, but it should also be an invaluable opportunity to get some input from experts who aren’t directly involved with my project.
Writing a paper
Before focusing on the confirmation report I took some time to draft what will hopefully be the first paper of my PhD. What I’m studying – information flows – is quite a new concept in conservation, although other fields, such as public health, have been looking at it for a while. One of my objectives is to say why we need to think about this and try some of the methods from other disciplines in a conservation context. To start this off I’m writing a sort of ‘opinion piece’ describing what it’s all about and why it’s important, and suggesting some of the ways that the issue could be addressed and why it might be different in conservation than elsewhere. This is a really fun exercise (in a nerdy sort of way) because it’s let me read widely and take time to really think about the concepts involved and how they relate.
Fieldwork
In the background to all of this I have been thinking ahead to my first data-collection campaign. The past few months have been fascinating, and I feel like I’ve made progress, but fieldwork will produce the first tangible results. It will also be a significant investment. As such, I’m excited to get into the action, but I also feel a responsibility to make the right decisions. Through discussions with my supervisors and the team at WCS the plans have slowly been evolving and taking shape. At the same time there is a lot of practical/logistical stuff to think about – money, timing, transport. Most tricky of all is finding the right people, Cambodian students, to work with me as assistants.
I expect the next time I write will be from Phnom Penh
Back from Cambodia
An update after Emiel’s first PhD field trip to Cambodia. This post was originally published on the Edinburgh Conservation Science website.
I’ve just arrived back in the UK where, mercifully, the sun is shining. The past 5 weeks were spent in Cambodia. Already it feels like an alternate reality; the two sides to the coin that will be my life for the next 3 years. Each has its own daily rhythms, friendships, and all the innumerable details that make up and distinguish places separated by thousands of miles, and yet bridged by just a day’s travel. Building on 4 months working there last year, Cambodia is starting to feel familiar and as my language skills improve I feel increasingly at home. This is a blog about academia and work so perhaps I should just get all my feelings and impressions out now: I find Cambodia absolutely enchanting. Its people, language, music, food, landscape, everything and I cannot wait to return.
As attentive readers will remember, the purpose of my trip was to “scope”. To visit the field sites and connect with my partners at WCS in order to gain a better understanding of the situation and be able to plan my research. I am happy to report that it was a very successful trip. WCS are very supportive and engaged partners and I look forward to joining their team. They were very open to my ideas for designing interventions in an experimental way, so this will be an exciting challenge for the next few years.
Cambodia is starting to feel familiar and as my language skills improve I feel increasingly at home
After some time spent in Phnom Penh meeting people and taking Khmer lessons, I moved on to the town of Preah Vihear. WCS bases their operations in the “northern plains” from here and I stayed in their ‘technical-advisor house’. From here I met more of the WCS teams working in the area and made a number of trips into the field. Some of these were directly to sites related to my prospective research, but on others I took the opportunity to join trips that weren’t directly related. These were often exciting camping trips to very remote areas and gave me the chance to see what was going on in the area and to spend some quality time with the WCS team. I felt very privileged to have such access to these spectacular forests, which are not visited by many foreigners, even if it wasn’t without risks! (see the photo below with the knowledge that nobody was hurt)
This isn’t a travel blog so I wont overload you with details on where I went and what I ate. If you are interested in seeing a bit more of Cambodia and the places I went I’ll be working on some short ‘video diaries’. I’ve already made 2 of these (let me know what you think!) so check them out and watch this space.
Now that I’m back in the UK I will be working hard to plan and prepare my next trip. I will be looking for some Cambodian students to join me as field assistants and developing the research instruments that I will take to collect data. This trip may be sooner than expected, in just a few months, so there isn’t much time! In addition I’m helping to organise a summit on Conservation Optimism which is going to be fantastic and a very important event for conservation – do join if you have an interest in conservation.
Emiel de Lange 