Monitoring Behaviour Change
Lead Partner:
New Forest National Park Authority
What has been achieved?
One of the challenges facing the New Forest is how we tackle harmful behaviours which impact the traditional ways of life and land management practices that make the New Forest special.
Some OPOF projects have a specific focus on changing these behaviours, for example the Shared Forest project aims to stop members of the public feeding free-roaming ponies and reduce animal accidents, while other projects include positive elements of behaviour change, such as encouraging children to take part in wild play or landowners to manage their land for conservation.
We commissioned behaviour change experts to improve our partners’ knowledge of behaviour change theories and to design different approaches and techniques that the partners could apply to their projects.
Shared Forest looked in depth at developing different approaches which could be introduced and tested. The work helped guide several of the Commoners Defence Association’s initiatives including #RealNewForest. Commoners are now making widespread use of the strapline ‘Real New Forest’ when sharing information about commoning, helping to entice people to find out more and build a sense of identity around commoning.
A behavioural toolkit has been produced to share with heritage, landscape and nature conservation practitioners. View the toolkit.
Contact details
Rachael Gallagher – New Forest National Park Authority
Tel: 01590 646604 email: Rachael.gallagher@newforestnpa.gov.uk
