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An expert in wildlife and conservation marketing

Dr Kim Feddema is an expert in wildlife trade and conservation marketing, primarily driven by the desire to remove the primary drivers of environmental exploitation by working with people rather than against them. Beginning her career in biological conservation, she quickly realised the importance of employing social science and marketing techniques to understand the core drivers of environmental exploitation. By combining traditional wildlife conservation approaches with social marketing, she aims to complete research that uplifts communities and empowers them to live sustainably without compromising their social, economic or professional needs.

Her previous work has primarily focused on understanding how social media is used to connect wildlife trade communities that harvest, breed, sell and keep exotic species of animals despite the negative environmental, animal welfare and human health outcomes. Analysing social media data with a service-dominant logic lens, she has explored how animals are objectified and commercialised by wildlife trade communities and the different services that exotic pets can provide individuals, such as companionship, social legitimacy, cultural connection, spiritual well-being and more. She has also analysed message framing and post attributes used to advertise animals online and gain consumer engagement.

Her current focus is on working to improve conservation campaigns and initiatives to reduce wildlife trade and promote pro-environmental behaviours, including promoting peaceful human-wildlife co-existence, measuring responses to anti-wildlife-trade campaigns, improving communications for invasive species management, exploring the use of social media influences for promoting sustainable living and co-designing messaging with communities to increase pro-environmental behaviours.

At the present, she is working alongside a small team of researchers in Europe to study tensions arising in German farming communities as a response to the increasing numbers of Eurasian wolves (Canis lupis). Considered extinct in the region around 1850, wolves began to return to Germany in 1999 due to conservation actions and have since proliferated in the areas of Saxony and Brandenburg, with 185 packs, 45 pairs and 22 individuals recorded across Germany in 2022/2023, producing 639 pups that season (Dokumentations-und Beratungsstelle des Bundes zum Thema Wolf (DBBW), 2024; Ronnenberg et al., 2017).

While conservationists and ecologists consider this to be an overwhelming success story, people in the region have expressed significant concerns for the safety of both humans and livestock. Between 2018-2020, 8743 livestock animals were recorded as killed, injured or missing as a result of wolf attacks in Germany (Singer et al. 2023) contributing to complex social and political reactions to wolves and concerns among local farmers for the safety of their animals and the protection of their livelihoods (Poerting, 2023).

This project uses the theme of “freedom” to explore how perspectives of the human (and non-human) right to live freely inform attitudes towards human-animal coexistence. Data on attitudes towards human-wolf coexistence is being collected through primary school lessons, social media campaigns, and public dialogues. This will ultimately be used to inform future efforts to promote peaceful co-existence through increased uptake of government supports such as pack monitoring, landscape management, and protective measures such as livestock guardians and fencing.

If you are interested in connecting with Kim, please find her at k.feddema@ecu.edu.au