Education may have been one of the top most solutions in your mind as you read through this blog. It certainly was in mine. And why not? It concentrates on children, who are the future of the society, and helps to nurture responsible adults who are aware of the state of the environment and are passionate enough to make a change.

Turns out, it is not as simple as that. As it turns out, behavior is not just predetermined by attitude, but also by subjective norms, and perceived control. Subjective norms will be what is currently normal in that society. If there is support from the society for that behavior, that it is more likely that it will happen and vice versa. Perceived control is the control you think you have over the situation. Higher perceived control will results in higher change of a behavior happening.

In Borneo, there is widespread illegal logging and many of men from the communities do it as a regular job. In a community where it is normal to work for an illegal logger, it would most likely be frowned upon to tell everyone to leave their jobs and find a job that is more ‘orangutan friendly’. This behavior will simply not be supported by the society.

As if that is not complex enough, there are structural barriers, which are things in society that prevent you from doing that behavior.

Taking the illegal logging example, the men work for illegal logging companies simply because jobs are scarce, and there is simply no other easy alternative to support their families. How can conservationists expect them to make a change when they simply lack the ability to do so?

Click here to see some possible solutions to combat these barriers to behavioral change.