OUGD505 - Product Range Distribution - Studio Task 2 - Research

Links

I've looked into various different aspects of the problems that arise in panda conservation, as well as politics and political activism in general. Below is a summary of what I've looked at with links to the individual blog posts.

• Disobedient Objects Exhibition at the V&A Museum
• Rapid Response Collection at the V&A Museum
• Young Peoples Role in the British Political System
• Extreme Far Right 'Political' Activism
• The Relationship Between Propaganda, Communism and China
• The Chinese Political System
• WWF's Work With Endangered Species
• Issues Involved in Giant Panda Conservation
• Giant Panda Breeding and Research Centres
• The Re-Introduction of Giant Pandas into the Wild
• Habitat Corridors, Core Areas and Protected Areas

Summary

I've found that the research is split down the middle into two categories, Politics and Pandas, which is good because I have an understanding of both areas which will allow me to make the best decisions about deciding how I should go about this project. To summarise my research:

Politics

• The visual 'style' of political activism isn't the most contemporary, and tends to be a bit grungy with a hand-made aesthetic, which shows more passion than most contemporary design.
• Social change isn't brought around very quickly in Britain, and when it does happen the activism behind the issue needs to be clear and understandable. It needs to maintain integrity and dignity.
• Making change happen tends to involve mass communication through the mainstream media, either through social media or news coverage.
• Change in the Western world will affect Chinese culture because of the process of modernisation in China.
• Chinese culture is slowly becoming more Westernised, especially in the food and drink and entertainment industries.
• The Chinese people are powerless to try and affect any sort of change on their own culture because of the political system there, so any change that is to be campaigned for should be aimed at the Chinese Government, not the people.
• The colour red should be avoided because of its strong links to Communism and Chairman Mao. Any campaign should try and avoid looking like it's politically based because of the emotional connection that the West and the Chinese people have with Pandas.

Pandas

• It is common knowledge that Pandas don't reproduce easily. However, the research and breeding centres in China are becoming increasingly successful at breeding them.
• A program has been successfully put in place to re-introduce captive-bred Pandas into the wild.
• Pandas are primarily endangered because of human encroachment into their habitat, which means that even if they were reproducing rapidly in captivity and were all ready to be released straight into the wild, the amount of protected space for them to live in isn't big enough, as they need large amounts of space because of their eating habits.
• Some of the remaining areas where Pandas live in the wild are isolated, which means that breeding isn't always possible as it's not always possible for a male and a female to interact with each other.
• A large earthquake in 2008 made farming in some of the land that used to be Panda habitat more difficult, and so the owners of the land are less reluctant to give up or sell up their land to become protected areas for Pandas.
• Even the isolated areas of existing Pandas can be joined together by habitat corridors, which are man-made habitats that join together natural habitats.
• If the number of captive-bred Pandas re-introduced into the wild continues to grow and increase at the rate that it's currently growing at, and the unprotected area is cut down there won't be any habitat to release the Pandas into, which undermines the effort that's been put into and progress that's been made with Panda conservation in captivity.

Proposal

It is clear that the Panda population will only rise slowly, and there is nothing that can be done for that. But what can be done is to protect the areas that they could be introduced into to stop the population being but at risk again in the future.

A Western campaign aimed at the Chinese Government encouraging them to protect more areas of the Pandas habitat would be the best way to tackle this, as there is reason to believe their Government are willing to co-operate with the Western world, as is illustrated by the recent Beijing Olympics. At the same time, if it was big enough, the Chinese people would see the campaign because of the Western influence on Chinese culture, and this would give them a renewed sense of enthusiasm about Panda conservation, which may now be starting to wear off after the 2008 earthquake.

For people in the West to get on board with the campaign it would be good to avoid any links to WWF, as there is sometimes a sense that Pandas get special treatment from them. Given that WWF advise the Chinese Government on conservation issues, it would be more suitable to use WWF as some sort of negotiator between the campaign and China. At the same time it is important to WWF that they're not seen to be pushing the Chinese government into any decisions.

Without the immediate weight that comes with WWF backing, the campaign would have to target specific people that would be interested in taking some sort of action for the campaign. The way to target these people is to work with zoos in the West that currently have Pandas on display to public. These zoos include Edinburgh, Madrid, San Diego, and Toronto, which gives a good cross section of cultural differences to show enough support from the West in general. This would also target the Chinese Government directly because they own all Giant Pandas across the world, so you'd think they'd always know what was going on around the Pandas that live abroad.

The emotional connection that the West has with Pandas is something that should be capitalised on, which should be easy as there are hundreds of photos of cute baby pandas. Education is important as well, as if people understand that breeding is becoming successful, it will re-enforce the importance of protecting the habitat. 

It's important that the campaign appeals to young children who's parents have brought them to the zoo to see the Pandas, as this will lead to them questioning their parents, which in turn provokes thought in the parents heads. I saw an example of this on the TV show Outnumbered recently in the clip below.

The parents that can afford to take their children to big expensive zoos are most likely the sort of people with disposable income that could potentially donate to any campaign as well, so this works on two levels.

If the campaign was run in the San Diego, Toronto, Edinburgh and Madrid for a year, over 7 million people would see it, which not only raises awareness and educates the people interested by targeting them directly, it has the potential to raise a large amount of money.