The first step of "behaviour change" is always understanding why people do what they do.

One of the most successful behaviour change programs of which I'm aware is in the public health crisis of the HIV-AIDS pandemic in South Africa and other African countries.

Initial intervention efforts were driven by foreign donors with a specific mindset about morality and sexuality which was incompatible with what was happening on the ground - the so-called ABC approach "abstain, be faithful, condomise". The campaign largely failed in its objectives.

A complete about face occurred when a range of local and international partners worked on programs to change the stigma of AIDS and to work with the reality of multiple concurrent partners. A big part of the strategy was by simply telling stories in feature films (Inside Story 2011) and TV dramas (Intersexions, Sex Tips for Girls) and the social media commentary around them. Intersexions alone had a massive and measurable impact on rate of voluntary HIV-testing and in starting to remove the stigma of talking about protected sex between partners.

http://ccms.ukzn.ac.za/files/articles/Hons_EE_Projects/temitope%20ogunlela%20-%20final%20intersexions%20project%202011.pdf

http://healthcommcapacity.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/SBCC-HIV-Evidence-HTC-Feb20151.pdf

Substance abuse: many people point to the decriminalization of substance use (as opposed to trafficking) in many European countries, and the moving of substance abuse from the criminal justice system to the health-care system while keeping trafficking under the ambit of the criminal justice system. It's not an area in which I have expertise, but its worth looking into. Most of the metrics seem to be positive, from what I've read.

In agriculture, the gradual move to conservation agriculture and no-till agriculture is definitely one worth investigating. In South Africa, it's been primarily driven by a combination of financial factors (over the long-term, no-till is cheaper than conventional tillage) and technology (as no-till planters and equipment became available) combined with government extension programmes over decades. At the moment, about 10% of South Africa's arable land is estimated to be under no-till or minimum till methods. The primary "behaviour change" occurred when engineering companies started developing the technology, agricultural researchers started testing and demonstrating it, and pioneering farmers starting investing in the technology and trying it out, providing the "seeds" of interest for their neighbours. Whether the constrained economy will incentivise more farmers to adopt no-till as a sound investment, or will decrease the rate of adoption because of perceived risk, is hard to say.

In rangeland management, Allan Savory and the Holistic Management movement have had profound effects on the way thousands of ranchers manage their lands. That was on the back of very successful outreach by Savory, which basically tapped into the intrinsic love of the land which most farmers have, combined with marketing the purported financial benefits of the approach. I suggest you look into their approaches to learn how they became so successful in changing ranching behaviour.

Bottom line: successful behaviour change programs understand the motivations and social dynamics of the target audience; they learn constantly by feedback from the target audience; they proposed optimistic predictions of improvement in the "new" system rather than pessimistic warnings about consequences of the "current" system. And finally, peer-to-peer learning appears to be the most powerful behaviour change tool.

That optimistic approach, by the way, is being increasingly targeted in the field of biodiversity conservation, with organisations like The Nature Conservancy abandoning the dire-warning methods of past generations (the kind of warnings which have led to environmentalists being mocked as "alarmists"). Peter Karieva, chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, is an outspoken critic of doomsday environmentalism, with many articles and talks on the subject. Here is one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J8w7UI0hmqw

Most importantly of all, is for the program to be very, very careful of assuming that behaviour needs to change. Repeated and serious introspection and research is always required; far too many interventions have been a disaster because well-meaning institutions forced their way of thinking onto a project rather than trying to understand the complexities of the local situation.

hi 

Some researches have focused to do research about behavior changes and barriers for that; for an example   Jan C. Semenza et all have written research papers about “Public Perception of Climate Change Voluntary Mitigation and Barriers to Behavior Change”. This will be useful for your needs and I am sending this paper herewith as an attachment.

 Zeppelin, H. (2008) has explained about “Education and conservation benefits of marine wildlife tours: Developing free-choice learning experiences” in his research paper and as he is arguing “Marine wildlife tours can provide a range of education and conservation benefits for visitors, including emotional (i.e., affective) responses and learning (i.e., cognition). Interpretive programs cover the biology, ecology, and behavior of marine species; best practice guidelines; and human threats to marine areas. The author reviews the education and conservation benefits of 18 marine wildlife experience with dolphins, whales, and marine turtles by using (a) M. Arms (1999) framework of indicators such as behavior or lifestyle changes in visitors and (b) 3 environmental indicators of conservation”

To face issues of Landscaping and pesticide use also current important topic to discuss and there must be programmed and policies to change behavior to face that issue. As Tilman, D., fusion at all (2001) discussed in their paper called “Forecasting agriculturally driven global environmental change” During the next 50 years, which is likely to be the final period of rapid agricultural expansion, demand for food by a wealthier and 50% larger global population will be a major driver of global environmental change. Should past dependences of the global environmental impacts of agriculture on human population and consumption continue, 109hectares of natural ecosystems would be converted to agriculture by 2050”. This paper also will be a useful one for your needs, so I am sending it herewith as an attachments

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.3200/JOEE.39.3.3-18

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/292/5515/281

 hi Jay !

You have mentioned here concept of “Sustainable agriculture”. I think theoretically ‘sustainable development’ or ideology of “sustainability” not valuable concepts furthermore.

 As I think sustainable development discourse has its' own ideological weakness. Sustainable development approaches account for the need of development combined with environmental conservation, yet it is not clearly explained how this can be achieved within contemporary capitalist and superimposed capitalist development practices. The environment in developing countries is especially vulnerable due to rapidly increasing human population and widespread poverty. At the beginning, the sustainable discourse practically failed to answer the situation there. One of the important philosophical reasons for such failure is that even if sustainable development started with capitalist roots, capitalism did not genuinely help to achieve its goals. On the other hand, if viewed politically, the ‘northern hemisphere’ nations did not actually and honestly intervene to achieve sustainable development goals in the developing world (colonial periphery)

There are some practical challenges also. In the Stockholm conference (1972) the Indian prime minister, Indira Gandhi mentioned the practical difficulties encountered in implementing environmental management to the developing world. Just read her ideas as mention below  

 "We do not wish to impoverish the environment any further and yet we cannot for a moment forget the grim poverty of large numbers of people. Are not poverty and need the greatest polluters? For instance, unless we are in a position to provide employment and purchasing power for the daily necessities of the tribal people and those who live in or around our jungles, we cannot prevent them from combing the forest for food and livelihood, from poaching and from despoiling the vegetation. When they themselves feel deprived, how can we urge the preservation of animals? How can we speak to those who live in villages and in slums about keeping the oceans, the rivers and the air clean when their own lives are contaminated at the source? The environment cannot be improved in conditions of poverty. Nor can poverty be eradicated without the use of science and technology" (Indira Gandhi, Stockholm conference 1972) 

According to my idea, due to its ‘northern-hemispheric’ origin, the sustainable development discourse failed to truly understand the ground reality in the ‘southern periphery’. For example even if the IUCN proposed many sustainable projects and policies to protect the ecology of developing countries, they failed to achieve targets. Rapidly increasing human population and poverty were main barriers to the protection of tropical forestlands in Africa and Asia between the 1960s and1980s, when about 40% of forest areas were converted to agriculture in the developing countries. Unstable economic and political situations also accelerated the vulnerability of their ecological resources

Hi Jay  

There are many theoretical and practical applications for the behaviour change programs for wildlife conservation and species protection, yet we have to examined practical validity of those application specially in the developing context.   Barrett, C. B., & Arcese, P (1995) have done research about “sustainability of integrated conservation-development projects (ICDPs). On the conservation of large mammals in sub-Saharan Africa”. As they explained “Initiatives to link rural development and species conservation, known as integrated conservation-development projects (ICDPs), have been launched with considerable fanfare and funding around the world. Although ICDPs hold appeal as broader ecological efforts than the conservation and development strategies that preceded them, they also suffer conceptual flaws that may limit their appropriateness and potential sustainability, at least when applied to the protection of large African mammals”. I am sending that research paper for your need, herewith as an attachments

Regards

Dr. Kumara