Legalized trade in commercially farmed wildlife products is sometimes promoted as a conservation strategy. In theory, flooding the market with cheaper or better quality products will decrease the profitability of poaching. Bear bile is highly sought-after for use in traditional medicine and overhunting to supply the demand for bear parts has led to declining populations across South-east Asia. Bear bile farming was established to help supply the high demand for bear bile. In Viet Nam it is legal to keep registered bears, but illegal to extract or sell bear bile. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 66 bear bile farmers in Viet Nam to examine the conservation implications of bear bile farming. The results show that demand for wild bear bile was not satisfied by the widespread availability of farmed bear bile. Farmers report a strong consumer preference and willingness to pay more for wild-sourced products. The existence of bear bile farms presents considerable challenges to law enforcement. The results suggest that bear bile farming in Viet Nam relies on restocking from wild populations, and farmers openly admit to extracting and selling bear bile, in clear violation of national legislation. The case of bear bile farming in Viet Nam provides an example of wildlife farming failing to reduce pressure on a once widely distributed and relatively abundant species. Research into consumer values, attitudes and behaviours will help to improve understanding of market drivers and help inform the design of effective species conservation and management strategies.

The trade in bear parts for medicine and for status is a conservation challenge throughout Asia. The Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) and the sun bear (Helarctos malayanus) are endemic to this region, and populations are estimated to have declined throughout their ranges due to widespread illegal killing of bears and trade in parts, combined with loss of habitat. Previous studies have indicated that legislation alone is insufficient to prevent illegal hunting and trade, indicating instead a need to address demand for bear parts and products. We conducted mixed-method surveys in Cambodia to understand the key motivators for individuals to consume bear parts, and to understand whether specialised questioning techniques are applicable in this context. Bear part use is illegal in Cambodia and may therefore be considered a sensitive behaviour, in that individuals may be reluctant to admit to it. To counteract possible biases, four specialised questioning techniques were used in this study: randomised response technique (RRT), unmatched count technique (UCT), nominative technique (NT), and false consensus bias (FCB). All four methods serve to shield a respondent’s admittance of a sensitive behaviour from the interviewer. The results presented here show that great variability exists in anonymous methods’ efficacy in certain contexts. However, the results overall indicate that individuals in Cambodia are under-reporting their consumption of bear parts when directly asked, and that the prevalence of bear part use in Cambodia may be as high as 15% of the population, representing a significant conservation challenge.

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There is broad consensus that the ecological-social landscapes for government-designated protected areas should comprise core areas and their surrounding buffer zones and that the essential tasks for managing these landscapes should comprise: (i) ecological research and monitoring, (ii) law enforcement, (iii) community outreach and awareness raising, (iv) community livelihoods development and engagement with community managed lands, (v) ecotourism, and (vi) habitat management. This paper proposes that these tasks should not necessarily be undertaken by the protected area agency alone. Instead, it recommends investigation into the development of protected area management working groups in the different fields of management, whereby these networks create institutional linkages between the grassroots communities, other local stakeholders and a protected area co-management committee. The paper draws from the authors' experiences and briefly describes models for such local networks already being implemented in northern Vietnam and Laos for protected areas with high biodiversity values. While many of the approaches described are still too young to draw conclusive evidence of their efficacy, their implementation demonstrates that local interest for innovative approaches to co-management can be generated.