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Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is highlighted by conservation practitioners as an ongoing threat to many overharvested plant and animal species, including several charismatic threatened vertebrates. However, studies that provide evidence-based and practical recommendations on how to better regulate the TCM trade for sustainability and biodiversity conservation remain limited. China is the biggest promotor of and market for TCM and understanding the TCM trade in China is important for global biodiversity conservation. In particular, conservation researchers need to better understand how the TCM trade and its regulations interact with China's development needs and should collaborate with TCM communities to propose locally adapted suggestions to decision makers. However, progress in these areas has been restricted by language, cultural, and knowledge barriers. In this paper, we provide an overview of the current status of TCM-related regulations in China, identify weaknesses in regulation frameworks, and highlight issues that currently limit our understanding of the magnitude, dynamics, and impact of the trade. We propose changes in trade regulations, actions to enhance law enforcement, and future research directions to encourage a more sustainable TCM trade that benefits both global biodiversity conservation and TCM development.

The complexity and magnitude of threats to black (Diceros bicornis) and white (Ceratotherium simum) rhinoceros conservation in Africa have triggered global concerns and actions. In this study, we analyzed (i) threats to rhinoceros conservation including external shocks, (ii) historical rhinoceros conservation strategies in Zimbabwe and Africa, more broadly, and (iii) opportunities for enhanced rhinoceros conservation in Zimbabwe and Africa. A literature search from 1975 to 2020 was carried out using a predefined search protocol, involving a number of filters based on a set of keywords to balance search sensitivity with specificity. A total of 193 articles, which were most relevant to key themes on rhinoceros conservation, were used in this study. The common threats to rhinoceros conservation identified in this paper include poaching, habitat fragmentation and loss, international trade in illegal rhino products, and external shocks such as global financial recessions and pandemics. Cascading effects emanating from these threats include small and isolated populations, which are prone to genetic, demographic, and environmental uncertainties. Rhinoceros conservation strategies being implemented include education and awareness campaigns, better equipped and more antipoaching efforts, use of innovative systems and technologies, dehorning, and enhancing safety nets, and livelihoods of local communities. Opportunities for rhinoceros conservation vary across the spatial scale, and these include (a) a well‐coordinated stakeholder and community involvement, (b) strategic meta‐population management, (c) enhancing law enforcement initiatives through incorporating real‐time surveillance technologies and intruder detection sensor networks for crime detection, (d) scaling up demand reduction awareness campaigns, and (e) developing more certified wildlife crime and forensic laboratories, and information repository for international corporation., African rhinoceros conservation is facing serious threats, which require clear strategies and using all opportunities to combat them.

The illegal harvest of marine species within exclusive economic zones can have a strong impact on the function of local ecosystems and livelihoods of coastal communities. The complexity of these problems is often overlooked in the development of solutions, leading to ineffective and sometimes harmful social and environmental outcomes. One-dimensional, oversimplified perspectives can lead to conservation prescriptions that exacerbate social stressors. This is particularly critical in the case of international illegal trade of endangered, high-value species, which generate a value chain in which artisanal fishers are the first operational and often the weakest link of an intricate web. We examined 2 illegal fisheries, totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi) and sea cucumber (Isostichopus badionotus and Holothuria floridana), in Mexico. Although these are 2 separate and independent fisheries, important ecological (resource condition, fishery impacts at the ecosystem level) and social (governance, markets) similarities improve understanding of their complexity. Our findings are relevant globally and show the need for interdisciplinary decision-making groups, community engagement, and the development of demand reduction measures.Pesquerías Ilegales, Crímenes Ambientales y la Conservación de los Recursos Marinos Resumen La cosecha ilegal de especies marinas dentro de las zonas económicas exclusivas puede tener un impacto serio sobre la función de los ecosistemas locales y el economia de las comunidades costeras. La complejidad de estos problemas generalmente se ignora durante el desarrollo de soluciones, lo que conlleva a resultados ambientales y sociales poco efectivos y algunas veces dañinos. Las perspectivas unidimensionales y sobresimplificadas pueden derivar en prescripciones de conservación que empeoran las condiciones sociales sociales. Lo anterior es particularmente crítico para el caso del mercado ilegal de especies en peligro y de alto valor, lo que genera una cadena de valores en la que los pescadores tradicionales son el primer eslabón operativo y con frecuencia el más débil de una red intrincada. Examinamos dos pesquerías ilegales, la de la totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi) y la del pepino de mar (Isostichopus badionotus y Holothuria floridana), en México. Aunque estas dos pesquerías son diferentes e independientes, las importantes similitudes ecológicas (estado del recurso, impactos de la pesquería a nivel de ecosistema) y sociales (governancia, mercados) mejoran el conocimiento de su complejidad. Nuestros hallazgos son relevantes a escala global y muestran la necesidad de tener grupos interdisciplinarios para tomar decisiones, la participación de la comunidad y el desarrollo de medidas para reducir la demanda por el producto pesquero.在专属经济区内非法捕捞海洋生物会对当地生态系统功能和沿海社区生计产生严重影响。然而, 在制定解决办法时人们却往往会忽视这些问题的复杂性, 以致于产生无效甚至负面的社会和环境结果。单一维度、过于简化的观点可能会得出加剧社会压力的保护方案。这一点在高价值的濒危物种国际非法贸易中尤为重要, 因为这些贸易产生了一个价值链, 其中手工渔业是这个复杂网络中首个可操作的环节, 往往也是最薄弱的一环。本研究关注墨西哥的两个非法捕捞产业, 石首鱼(Totoaba macdonaldi)和海参(Isostichopus badionotus 及 Holothuria floridana)。虽然它们是两个独立的渔业产业, 但其在生态(可捕捞量高, 渔业在生态系统水平上的影响)和社会(犯罪组织的存在, 贫困)方面的相似性可以互相增进对其复杂性的理解。我们的研究结果具有全球意义, 表明了需要成立跨学科决策小组、推动社区参与和制定减少需求的措施来促进保护。【翻译: 胡怡思; 审校: 聂永刚】.

Demand reduction causes extremely low revenues in uniform‐price auctions, which can be interpreted as implicit collusion among bidders. We model a uniform‐price auction with a buyout option and investigate its potential for alleviating implicit collusion. We focus on the extreme case that yields a revenue of zero with no buyout option. Our main result is that the seller obtains a positive expected revenue unless the buyout price is high. Notably, a bidder will exercise a buyout option even though the bidder is risk neutral; that is, auction aversion is fully endogenous, in contradiction to the findings of previous work.

Robust impact evaluations are needed for conservation to learn and grow as a field. Currently we lack a large body of evidence on the effects of behaviour change interventions in social‐ecological systems. By uncovering mechanistic relationships and establishing causality we can refine future programmes to enhance likelihood of effectiveness. Although a range of sophisticated methodological approaches to evaluation have been developed, conceptually linking project outcomes with conservation impacts remains difficult in complex systems. For example, sea turtles are one taxon in which unsustainable harvesting has been a particular problem. There have been a number of campaigns to reduce demand for sea turtle products, but we still have little evidence documenting their outcomes. We conducted the first formal impact evaluation of a conservation marketing campaign aimed at reducing the consumption of sea turtle meat and eggs. The campaign took place on the island of São Tomé, Central Africa, and included traditional mass media advertisements as well as community events. This is one of few demand reduction evaluations that has assessed both human behaviour and biological conservation outcomes. It benefited from an advantageous setting for evaluation, as nesting sea turtles are relatively easy to monitor and the island's small size and geographic isolation increased the detectability of potentially confounding factors. We found a decrease in self‐reported sea turtle egg consumption and a decrease in poaching of adult sea turtles. However, multiple unforeseen difficulties arose which complicated attempts at causal attribution. We were hampered by spatial spillovers, design effects from the sensitive questioning technique, concurring law enforcement and changes in biological monitoring effort. These challenges highlight the difficulties faced by practitioners seeking to apply impact evaluations in the field. We reflect on what this means for future impact evaluations of behaviour change interventions in conservation. Our recommendations include combining multiple outcome measures to triangulate hard‐to‐measure behaviours and theory‐based evaluation methods to explore causal impacts. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

The illegal wildlife trade is a global conservation priority, prompting a rise in interventions aimed at reducing the demand for wildlife products. Research shows that designing campaigns to target the values held by a specific audience is an effective way to alter their behaviour. However, many demand reduction campaigns are grounded in the perspective of Western morality. This is problematic when the recipients of these campaigns frequently reside in East Asia, where they are exposed to the historical and cultural praxis of Confucianism and Daoism. This paper examines some of the central concepts of classical Chinese philosophy to see how they could be used by practitioners to design effective behaviour change campaigns in the future. Acknowledging that the East Asian cultural sphere has a long history of consumptive wildlife use, reflecting an instrumentalist and anthropocentric approach to wildlife, we still find potential for appealing to a relational ethic. There is a fundamental metaphysics that all of nature is unified, interconnected and interpenetrating. Qi is the vital force of the universe that links inorganic, organic and human life‐forms, creating the basis for a profound reciprocity between humans and the natural world. We also consider some of the key virtues in Chinese philosophy, and how they could be interpreted through the lens of demand reduction for illegal wildlife products. This includes li, ritual propriety, and ren, the inner moral force which keeps us in balance. Finally, we cover influential scriptures, identifying many historical verses that are relevant to modern conservationists. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Demand for cage birds is highly prevalent and increasing across Indonesia, as wild bird populations across Asia decline. To find ways to reduce demand, it is important to understand the motivations and psychographic drivers to keep (or not keep) birds, and how demographic characteristics and public attitudes influence such decisions. Based on surveys with over 3,000 people, we found few people citing health, sanitary, or welfare concerns as reasons for not keeping birds, whereas most people started keeping birds to enjoy their beauty or song, or to keep up with peers. Pet‐keepers (“Hobbyists”) commonly started doing so opportunistically; song contest participants (“Contestants”) and breeders and trainers (“Breeders”) did so for financial gain. Bird‐keepers and non‐bird‐keepers disagreed on birds' environmental importance, longevity in captivity, and endangerment by trade. Older respondents were less concerned that keeping birds endangers them and few felt birds to be an important part of the environment. Hobbyists were least likely to consider wild bird population health a major concern. Efforts to dissuade potential bird‐keepers should focus on public concern for the environment and the threat bird‐keeping poses to wild populations. The importance of peer pressure among bird‐keepers presents an opportunity to promote sustainable bird‐keeping activities among key groups.

Efforts to shift unsustainable human behaviour are at the crux of many conservation interventions, particularly when addressing illegal or unsustainable wildlife trade. These efforts, often in the form of behaviour change interventions, have proven largely unable to counteract this pervasive issue, however, leading to calls for more robust intervention designs. In behavioural science fields like public health, design processes that integrate human behaviour theory and evidence from data collection are often developed to ground behaviour change interventions within a strong understanding of the context, thus supporting interventions that are efficient and have a higher likelihood of success. Here we detail the foundational process of designing an intervention around the use of a wildlife product by a particular group: Singaporean consumers of saiga horn (from the Critically Endangered Saiga tatarica). We employ both qualitative and quantitative data, along with human behaviour theories and past literature on the study system, to develop a comprehensive understanding of the many influences driving this target audience to purchase saiga horn products. We use this insight to identify the key influences to leverage in a behaviour change intervention: those that are both the most powerful and the most amenable to change. This work provides a reproducible process which can be used by other intervention implementers, highlights the often complex intricacies of socially influenced behaviour, and demonstrates why a methodical understanding of these intricacies is invaluable when attempting to shift human behaviour for conservation goals. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent restrictions have resulted in additional challenges for persons with alcohol use disorders as well as for the effective operation of alcohol controls in different societies. The challenges are different in different systems and economies. Crises such as these often provide governments with opportunities to remake systems. We use the recent experience from India, which rapidly shifted between total countrywide prohibition of alcohol and unrestricted sales during this brief period, to argue against using the present crisis to bring about quick changes in alcohol policy in India. Instead, we advocate sustained, incremental pressure to develop and enforce alcohol control measures in public health delivery systems, in addition to demand reduction measures.

The unsustainable trade in wildlife is a key threat to Earth's biodiversity. Efforts to mitigate this threat have traditionally focused on regulation and enforcement, and there is a growing interest in campaigns to reduce consumer demand for wildlife products. We aimed to characterize these behavior-change campaigns and the evidence of their impacts. We searched peer-reviewed and grey literature repositories and over 200 institutional websites to retrieve information on demand-reduction campaigns. We found 236 campaigns, mainly in the grey literature. Since the 1970s, the number of campaigns increased, although for over 15% a start date could not be found. Asia was the primary focus, although at the national level the United States was where most campaigns took place. Campaigns most often focused on a single species of mammal; other vertebrates groups, with the exception of sharks, received limited attention. Many campaigns focused on broad themes, such as the wildlife trade in general or seafood. Thirty-seven percent of campaigns reported some information on their inputs, 98% on strategies, 70% on outputs, 37% on outcomes (i.e., changes in the target audience), and 9% on impacts (i.e., biological changes or threat reduction). Information on outcomes and impacts was largely anecdotal or based on research designs that are at a high risk of bias, such as pre- and postcampaign comparisons. It was unclear whether demand-reduction campaigns had direct behavioral or biological impacts. The lack of robust impact evaluation made it difficult to draw insights to inform future efforts, a crucial part of effectively addressing complex issues, such as the wildlife trade. If demand-reduction campaigns are to become a cornerstone of the efforts to mitigate the unsustainable trade in wildlife, conservationists need to adopt more rigorous impact evaluation and a more collaborative approach that fosters the sharing of data and insights.Caracterización de los Esfuerzos para Reducir la Demanda de Productos de Fauna Resumen El mercado insostenible de fauna es una amenaza importante para la biodiversidad del planeta. Los esfuerzos por mitigar esta amenaza se han enfocado tradicionalmente en la regulación y la ejecución, además de que existe un interés creciente por campañas para reducir la demanda del consumidor por productos de fauna. Buscamos caracterizar estas campañas de cambios de comportamiento y las evidencias de su impacto. Buscamos en los depósitos de literatura gris y aquella revisada por colegas y en más de 200 sitios web institucionales para recuperar información sobre las campañas de reducción de demanda. Encontramos 236 campañas, principalmente en la literatura gris. Desde la década de 1970, el número de campañas incrementó, aunque para más del 15% no pudimos encontrar una fecha de inicio. Asia era el foco principal, aunque a nivel nacional fueron los Estados Unidos en donde se realizaron más campañas. La mayoría de las campañas se enfocaban en una sola especie de mamífero; los demás grupos de vertebrados, excepto los tiburones, recibieron atención limitada. Muchas campañas se enfocaron en temas generales, como el mercado de fauna en general o en la industria de los mariscos. El 37% de las campañas reportaron algo de información sobre sus entradas, el 98% sobre sus estrategias, el 70% sobre su producción, el 37% sobre sus resultados (es decir, cambios en el público diana), y el 9% sobre sus impactos (es decir, cambios biológicos o reducción de la amenaza). La información sobre los resultados y los impactos en su mayoría fue anecdótica o basada en diseños de investigación que tienen un alto riesgo de sesgo, como las comparaciones pre- y post-campaña. No quedó claro si las campañas de reducción de demanda tuvieron impactos biológicos o de comportamiento directos. La falta de una evaluación fuerte de los impactos dificulta la obtención de conocimiento para informar los esfuerzos en el futuro, una parte crucial para tratar con eficiencia temas complejos, como el mercado de fauna. Si se busca que las campañas de reducción de demanda se conviertan en una piedra angular de los esfuerzos para mitigar el mercado insostenible de fauna, los conservacionistas necesitan adoptar una evaluación más rigurosa de los impactos y una estrategia más colaborativa que promueva la distribución de datos y conocimiento.非可持续性的野生动植物贸易是地球生物多样性的主要威胁。为减缓这种威胁, 传统的策略侧重于监管和执法方面, 而今越来越关注于减少消费者野生动植物产品需求的活动。我们旨在描述这些针对行为改变的活动及其影响的实证。为检索有关减少需求的活动信息, 我们搜索了同行评议文献、灰色文献资料库, 及 200 多个机构网站.從中我們共检索到 236 项活动, 主要来自于灰色文献。尽管有超过 15% 的活动无法找到确切的开始日期, 但自 20 世纪 70 年代以来, 此类活动的数量仍是有所增加的。虽然在国家层面上美国是大多数活动的举办地, 但亚洲是主要的焦点地区。活动通常针对某一哺乳动物; 除鲨鱼外, 其他脊椎动物受到的关注有限。很多活动所侧重的主题比较宽泛, 例如总体的野生动植物贸易或海产食物。有 37% 的活动报告了其投入情况、 98% 的介绍了其策略、 70% 的总结了其产出情况、 37% 的说明了其效果 (例如目标受众的改变) 、以及 9% 的报告了其影响 (例如生物上的变化或威胁的减少) 。关于效果和影响的信息主要是轶事的或基于具有高度偏差风险的研究设计, 例如活动前后的比较。目前尚不清楚在行为或生物方面减少需求的活动是否具有直接影响。由于缺乏强有力的影响评估, 难以为未来的措施提供见解, 而这正是有效解决诸如野生动植物贸易等复杂问题的关键部分。如果减少需求的活动要成为减缓野生动植物非可持续性贸易的基石, 保护主义者需要采取更严格的影响评估和加強协作的方法, 来促进数据和见解的共享。.

The dominant approach to combating the illegal wildlife trade has traditionally been to restrict the supply of wildlife products. Yet conservationists increasingly recognize the importance of implementing demand-side interventions that target the end consumers in the trade chain. Their aim is to curb the consumption of wildlife or shift consumption to more sustainable alternatives. However, there are still considerable knowledge gaps in understanding of the diversity of consumer motivations in the context of illegal wildlife trade, which includes hundreds of thousands of species, different uses, and diverse contexts. Based on consultation with multiple experts from a diversity of backgrounds, nationalities, and focal taxa, we developed a typology of common motivations held by wildlife consumers that can be used to inform conservation interventions. We identified 5 main motivational categories for wildlife use: experiential, social, functional, financial, and spiritual, each containing subcategories. This framework is intended to facilitate the segmentation of consumers based on psychographics and allow the tailoring of interventions-whether behavior change campaigns, enforcement efforts, or incentive programs-to the specific context in which they will be used. Underlining the importance of consumer research and collaborating with local actors is an important step toward promoting a more systematic approach to the design of demand reduction interventions.Motivaciones para el Uso y Consumo de Productos de Fauna Resumen Tradicionalmente, la estrategia dominante para combatir el mercado ilegal de fauna ha sido restringir la oferta de productos de fauna. Aun así, los conservacionistas cada vez reconocen más la importancia de implementar intervenciones por el lado de la demanda que se enfoquen en los consumidores finales en la cadena de mercado. Su objetivo es reducir el consumo de fauna o redirigir ese consumo hacia alternativas más sustentables. Sin embargo, todavía existen vacíos de conocimiento en el entendimiento de la diversidad de motivos para los consumidores dentro del contexto del mercado ilegal de fauna, el cual incluye cientos de miles de especies, diferentes usos y contextos diversos. Con base en consultas a varios expertos con una diversidad de antecedentes, nacionalidades y taxones de enfoque desarrollamos una tipología de motivos comunes que tienen los consumidores de fauna que pueden usarse para orientar las intervenciones de conservación. Identificamos cinco categorías principales de motivos para el uso de fauna: vivencial, social, funcional, financiero y espiritual, cada uno con subcategorías. Este marco de trabajo tiene la intención de facilitar la segmentación de consumidores con base en psicográficos y permitir la personalización de las intervenciones - sean campañas de cambios en el comportamiento, esfuerzos por hacer cumplir las reglas o programas de incentivos - al contexto específico en el que serán utilizadas. Resaltar la importancia de los estudios de mercado y la colaboración con los actores locales es un paso importante hacia la promoción de una estrategia más sistemática para el diseño de intervenciones para reducir la demanda.传统上, 打击非法野生动植物贸易的主要方法是限制野生动植物制品的供应。然而, 保护科学专家越来越认识到在贸易链的需求端针对终端消费者实施干预的重要性。其目标是遏制野生动植物的消费或将其转向更可持续的替代品消费。然而, 在野生动植物非法贸易的背景下, 对消费者动机多样性的理解仍然存在相当多的知识空白, 因为这涉及大量的物种、不同的用途和复杂的背景。基于不同背景、国籍, 关注不同类群的多位专家的讨论, 本文发展出一套野生动植物消费者普遍消费动机的分类框架, 可为保护的干预措施提供信息。本文区分了野生动植物使用的五个主要的动机类别:体验性、社会性、功能性、经济性和精神性, 每个类别都包含子类别。该框架可用于基于心理特征进行的消费者人群划分, 以及干预措施的调整 (包括在行为改变活动、执法活动和激励项目中) , 使其适应特定情景。本文还强调消费者研究以及与当地行动者合作的重要性, 朝着采用更系统的方法来设计减少需求的干预措施迈出重要一步。.

The illegal wildlife trade threatens the future of many species, and undermines economies and livelihoods. Conservationists have largely responded with supply‐side interventions, such as antipoaching patrols, but these often fail to stem the tide of wildlife trafficking. There is now increasing interest in demand‐side interventions, which seek to lower poaching pressure on sought‐after species by reducing consumer's desire for, and purchase of, specific wildlife products. Individual behavior change approaches, from environmental education to social marketing, have been widely advocated by academics, practitioners, and policy makers. However, this is an emerging field and we lack the breadth of evidence needed to understand and predict the potential outcomes of demand reduction interventions. To help us gain broader insights, we examine the literature from public health and international development on the effectiveness of behavior change interventions, and critique the current conceptualization of strategies for reducing consumer demand in the illegal wildlife trade. We show that behavior change is difficult to achieve and interventions may have unintended and undesirable consequences because of unaddressed systemic, cultural and environmental drivers, and limited resourcing. We conclude that some sections of the conservation community are advocating a shift from one reductionist approach based on limiting supply, to another based on limiting demand, and argue that conservationists should learn from the public health and international development projects that have integrated systems thinking. By accounting for the multiple interactions and synergies between different factors in the wildlife trade, we can develop more strategic approaches to protecting endangered species.

The unsustainable wildmeat trade has been long recognized as a threat to wildlife. Yet, its impact on marine species has been underresearched. Sea turtles have been historically threatened by unsustainable trade, but there are few studies of consumer profile, motivations, and preferences. We conducted a survey in São Tomé Island, Gulf of Guinea, West Africa, including eight rural communities (n = 1,160) and the capital city of São Tomé (n = 628). We estimated prevalence of consumption, preference and availability of sea turtle meat and eggs. About 25% of rural and 32% of urban respondents had consumed meat in the past year. Around 25% of rural respondents were egg consumers, whereas little consumption was found in urban areas. Social norms were a predictor of consumption of sea turtle meat and eggs in rural communities but not in São Tomé city. Regarding influencers, teachers and religious leaders were the most trusted sources in rural communities, while teachers and NGOs were most trusted in São Tomé city. Radio and television were the most trusted channels in rural communities, while urban dwellers trusted radio the most. This research showcases how a structured approach to audience research can obtain behavioral insights that can guide behavior change efforts.

Summary Petroleum from unconventional reserves is making an increasingly important contribution to the transportation fuel supply, but is generally more expensive and has greater environmental burdens than petroleum from conventional sources. Life cycle assessments (LCAs) of alternative fuel-vehicle technologies typically consider conventional internal combustion engine vehicles fueled by gasoline produced from the average petroleum slate used in refineries as a baseline. Large-scale deployment of alternative fuel-vehicle technologies will decrease petroleum demand and lead to decreased production at the economic margin (unconventional oil), but this is not considered in most current LCAs. If marginal petroleum resources have larger impacts than average petroleum resources, the environmental benefits of petroleum demand reduction are underestimated by the current modeling approaches. Often, models include some consequential-based impacts (such as indirect land-use change for biofuels), but exclude others (such as avoided unconventional oil production). This approach is inconsistent and does not provide a robust basis for public policy and private investment strategy decisions. We provide an example to illustrate the potential scale of these impacts, but further research is needed to establish and quantify these marginal effects and incorporate them into LCAs of both conventional and alternative fuel-vehicle technologies.

Summary The contribution of meat consumption to global warming is discussed. The IPCC Climate Change 2014 report recognised that meat demand oriented measures could contribute to GHG mitigation, though by excluding meat market adjustments it overstated the potential. Results are presented from a partial equilibrium model of global meat and milk sectors which examines the impact of projected population and economic growth on global meat consumption for the major regions of the world to 2050. A range of market and policy scenarios linked to meat demand reduction are then analysed, especially for ruminant meats which have the highest GHG emissions intensities. These scenarios include the impact of a continuing long-term downward trend in red meat consumption in developed economies, impacts of carbon taxes on meat demand, and reductions in GHG emissions intensities for all meats. The modelling projects a 21 per cent increase in global per capita meat consumption and a 63 per cent increase in global meat consumption and GHG emissions without any mitigation measures. Mitigation scenarios, however, only generate a maximum 22 per cent reduction in total livestock and a 26 per cent reduction in ruminant global emissions relative to the Baseline 2050 projection, still well above base period 2010 emission levels.

Summary Objective The objective of this study is to analyse determinants of physician office visits and potential effects of co-payments in Austria. Methods Based on survey data, the number of annual physician office visits is regressed on a set of explanatory variable such as income, communication behaviour in waiting room, travel time, gender, age, presence of chronic diseases and connectedness to family members. It was then examined how those determinants are affected by hypothetical co-payments in the range of €5 to €200. Results Our results suggest a negative impact of income and family connectedness on doctor's visits. On the other hand, age, morbidity and active communication behaviour in the waiting room are positively associated with office visits. The significant impact of both income and active communication behaviour on the number of doctor's visits disappears when significant co-payments greater than €50 are introduced. Conclusions Higher co-payments would reduce healthcare service utilization in Austria mainly because of a demand reduction of poorer patients. Another key finding of our study is that the desire to chat with peers in the waiting room is another significant driver of physician office visits. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Religion inspires civil alcohol policies and limits alcohol use in MMC, but its protective role should be further explored as consumption rates and enforcement practices vary between countries with similar prohibition policies. Also, religion (e.g. Islam) is far from a univocal concept and may even keep problem users from seeking help.

Today record levels of funding are being invested in enforcement and antipoaching measures to tackle the “war on poaching,” but many species are on the path to extinction. In our view, intensifying enforcement effort is crucial, but will ultimately prove an inadequate long-term strategy with which to conserve high-value species. This is because: regulatory approaches are being overwhelmed by the drivers of poaching and trade, financial incentives for poaching are increasing due to rising prices and growing relative poverty between areas of supply and centers of demand, and aggressive enforcement of trade controls, in particular bans, can increase profits and lead to the involvement of organized criminals with the capacity to operate even under increased enforcement effort. With prices for high-value wildlife rising, we argue that interventions need to go beyond regulation and that new and bold strategies are needed urgently. In the immediate future, we should incentivize and build capacity within local communities to conserve wildlife. In the medium term, we should drive prices down by reexamining sustainable off-take mechanisms such as regulated trade, ranching and wildlife farming, using economic levers such as taxation to fund conservation efforts, and in the long-term reduce demand through social marketing programs.

Cities globally are in the midst of taking action to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. After the vital step of emissions quantification, strategies must be developed to detail how emissions reductions targets will be achieved. The Pathways to Urban Reductions in Greenhouse Gas Emissions (PURGE) model allows the estimation of emissions from four pertinent urban sectors: electricity generation, buildings, private transportation, and waste. Additionally, the carbon storage from urban and regional forests is modeled. An emissions scenario is examined for a case study of the greater Toronto, Ontario, Canada, area using data on current technology stocks and government projections for stock change. The scenario presented suggests that even with some aggressive targets for technological adoption (especially in the transportation sector), it will be difficult to achieve the less ambitious 2050 emissions reduction goals of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This is largely attributable to the long life of the building stock and limitations of current retrofit practices. Additionally, demand reduction (through transportation mode shifting and building occupant behavior) will be an important component of future emissions cuts.

The possibility, even if arbitrarily small, of binding budget constraints in simultaneous ascending bid auctions induces strategic demand reduction and generates significant inefficiencies. Under mild conditions on the distributions of the bidders' values, unconstrained bidders behave as if they were liquidity constrained, even as the probability that bidders are budget constrained goes to zero.

To reflect on the divergence and overlap between alcohol and illicit drugs with respect to both current policies and policy research.For demand reduction, there is considerable overlap in programs and services for prevention and even more clearly for treatment. For supply controls there is mostly divergence, reflecting the difference in legal status. Research generally follows the same pattern. However, a cross-cutting research agenda on the supply side has merit.Even in a prohibition regime, law-enforcement agencies have considerable discretion. A systematic, pragmatic, 'evidence-based' use of that discretion to reduce harm is possible. It can be accomplished only by a continuing program of policy research that measures the harms of drug use and drug enforcement, assesses the effects of current policies on both these sources of social cost and explores alternative strategies. There is a similarly important project for alcohol and tobacco control policy. The goal for research on alcohol and tobacco is to document the extent to which supply controls can be effective in reducing harm; the additional goal for illicit drugs is to document just how much the current ideologically driven approach is costing the public.

In this paper, a market clearing study is examined by incorporating demand-side bidding (DSB) where customers are allowed to submit load reduction bids. The relationship between the bulk purchase and load reduction bids is presented. A Lagrangian Relaxation optimization method is developed to simultaneously clear generation and demand reduction bids, while maximizing the overall benefits for market participants. Case studies performed demonstrate that, in general, DSB aids in reducing system marginal price (SMP) but there are times where the value of DSB is affected when offer bids of inflexible units are replaced by higher DSB bids. The results also indicate that while load recovery addresses customer needs, it reduces the value of DSB. Copyright (c) 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

With consultations having been held across Australia this year as part of the process of developing a new National Alcohol Strategy, it seemed timely to invite my colleagues from the National Drug Research Institute who are experts in the alcohol field to write this Harm Reduction Digest. The authors have canvassed a range of alcohol policy options and discussed their effectiveness in reducing harm for what is arguably Australia's number one drug problem. Australia's response to alcohol and other drug problems has, historically, been based on 'harm minimization--incorporating supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction'. At this time where the policy options for alcohol are being set for the next 5 years in a climate of 'small government', removing restrictions of 'fair competition' in business and a belief in the free market, what does the research have to say about recommended policies and strategies to reduce alcohol-related harm?

Aboard current ships, such as the DDG 51, engineering control and damage control activities are manpower intensive. It is anticipated that, for future combatants, the workload demand arising from operation of systems under conditions of normal steaming and during casualty response will need to be markedly reduced via automated monitoring, autonomous control, and other technology initiatives. Current DDG SI class ships can be considered as a manpower baseline and under Condition III typical engineering control involves seven to eight watchstanders at manned stations in the Central Control Station, the engine rooms and other machinery spaces. In contrast to this manning level, initiatives such as DD 21 and the integrated engineering plant (IEP) envision a partnership between the operator and the automation system, with more and more of the operator's functions being shifted to the automation system as manning levels decrease. This paper describes some human systems integration studies of workload demand reduction and, consequently, manning reduction that can be achieved due to application of several advanced technology concepts. Advanced system concept studies in relation to workload demand are described and reviewed including: ■Piecemeal applications of diverse automation and remote control technology concepts to selected high driver tasks in current DDG 51 activities. ■Development of the reduced ship's crew by virtual presence system that will provide automated monitoring and display to operators of machinery health, compartment conditions, and personnel health. ■The IEP envisions the machinery control system as a provider of resources that are used by various consumers around the ship. Resource needs and consumer priorities are at all times dependent upon the ship's current mission and the availability of equipment pawnbrokers.

Millions of people across the tropics rely on wildlife for food and income. However, overhunting to satisfy this demand is causing the decline of many species; an issue known as the wild meat crisis. We applied a before-after control-intervention design to assess the effects of social marketing (an information campaign and community engagement) with and without an economic incentive (discount coupons for chicken) on wild meat consumption. Coupons increased chicken consumption, as expected, but did not reduce wild meat consumption. In contrast, social marketing without the price incentive reduced wild meat consumption by ∼62%. This study demonstrates how social marketing and price incentives may be effective at reducing demand for meat and other wildlife products. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Behavioral change interventions are increasingly widely used in conservation. Several projects addressing rhino horn consumption were recently launched in Vietnam. We used key informant interviews, document analysis, and marketing theory to explore their strategies for intervention design, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation. We developed a framework to evaluate whether they followed best practice and identify implementation challenges. Interventions could make greater use of key project design steps, including basing interventions on robust research to understand the behavior in question, identifying the target audience whose behavior interventions aim to change, and developing measures that can provide reliable evidence of success or not. Challenges include the need for law enforcement to complement campaigns; improving cooperation between NGOs; and clearly defining aims of demand-reduction initiatives. Using best practice from other fields and considering demand reduction within the wider context of wildlife, trade policy will help address these challenges.

Harm reduction principles have not been applied to social policy programs that affect drug users. This paper considers whether income supports for the drug-dependent poor might be harm reducing, given that a principal harm related to drug dependence is crime committed to finance drug use. We examine the political fate of the principal income support program in the United States that targeted the drug dependent. Revelations that the money was being used in part for the purchase of drugs has led to a scaling back and tightening of the program. We suggest that the program might have been more effectively defended if attention had been paid to community harms rather than only to drug consumption by recipients. European and Australian governments provide income support which is no doubt also used for drug consumption, but in the context of universalist income support programs they do not require a harm reduction defense. We conclude that great potential for reducing drug-related harm may fall well outside the domain of targeted drug policy, whether of the supply reduction, demand reduction or harm reduction variety.

Nine years after the beginning of the epidemic of freebase (crack) cocaine abuse in the Bahamas, this historical study was done to characterize the natural course of the epidemic and to estimate the effectiveness of control measures. The authors's data include the incidence of new cases at the only psychiatric hospital in the Bahamas and at the primary community psychiatric clinic in the nation. The Bahamian response included 1) demand reduction, 2) supply reduction, and 3) reduction of money laundering. The annual number of new cases of crack abuse presenting for treatment declined from 1987 to mid-1991 in both facilities, but in 1992 it began rising again in the inpatient setting only. The changes in recent years have been accompanied by an increase in violent crimes against persons, especially robberies.

Introduction The NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) has developed emergency plans based on a few scenarios including a potential Human Flu Pandemic. A model has been created illustrating the impact on the national red cell and platelet stocks using current assumptions made by the NHSBT Emergency Planning Group, NHS and the Department of Health (DH). Methodology As no suitable model was available a model was created in Microsoft Excel, which is widely available within the National Blood Service (NBS) and NHSBT. This allows the user to change planning assumptions which will automatically recalculate the impact on the total NBS stock of red cells and platelets. The model can be used to view different scenarios, e.g. Changes to demand (–10%) Clinical attack rate–the % of total population contracting Flu (25%) Possible duration and profile of pandemic wave as per NHS Flu Contingency Plan % of population caring for victims (5%) Deferral period for donors contracting flu (2 weeks ill and 2 weeks deferred) Whole Blood and component donation supply (increased pre-pandemic only) Buffy Coat (BC) production (49%) Starting stock (Red Cells 56 k, Platelets 958 doses) % of population self deferring (based on NHSBT figures). Results The activities modelled in this particular scenario would increase red cell stock from 56 k to 62 k before the virus is isolated in the UK. Once there was widespread activity across the UK, red cell stock would fall to 40 k before recovering after the pandemic ends. Platelet stocks could be maintained if buffy coat production was increased to 49% (normally 29%). If a more extreme scenario is modelled e.g. the clinical attack rate is increased to 50%, red cell stock would fall to 4 k (without further demand reduction) and platelet stock could only be maintained if buffy coat production is increased to 85%. Conclusion This model is useful in illustrating the impact of flu planning assumptions on the ability of the NBS to maintain supply of red cells and platelets and could model other scenarios e.g. severe weather conditions or terrorist activity. As more information becomes available, the NBS and other Blood Services can use the model to illustrate the impact of revised assumptions and take appropriate action to mitigate problems. The model can be used to assess potential policy decisions e.g. donor deferral periods and it could be used in real time as a potential pandemic emerges to help inform decision-making by predicting future stock levels. The model is being further developed to assist NBS and NHSBT in predicting impact on staffing resource levels. While the model is dynamic and easily manipulated the eventual output is determined by the accuracy of the assumptions. The ultimate accuracy of the model and the assumptions will only be fully understood if and when a Flu Pandemic develops.

Recent literature on joint bidding in a single-unit, Common-Value (CV) auction argues that the inference and precision that emerges from pooling information by joint bidders enhances competition. Such information pooling mitigates adverse selection and results in more aggressive bidding and may even increase revenue despite the reduction in the number of bidders. We analyze here, for the first time, joint bidding in a simple CV, uniform-price auction with multi-unit demand. This introduces an opposite force due to (increased) monopsony power of the joint bidders, called demand reduction (DR). We show that the pro-competitive benefit from joint bidding in single unit auctions does not generalize to a multi-unit environment, even when DR is disallowed. With DR, the scope for improved competition is further eroded.