How to Make Policy-Makers Care about “Wicked Problems” such as Biodiversity Loss?—The Case of a Policy Campaign

Policy-makers define our lives to a great extent, and are therefore the people everybody wants to talk to. They receive hundreds of messages in various forms day-by-day with the aim of making them decide for or against something. They are in an especially difficult situation as regards the so-called “wicked” or “diffuse” problems such as climate change and biodiversity loss (Millner and Olivier, 2015; Sharman and Mlambo, 2012; Zaccai and Adams, 2012). These problems are limitedly tackled at the policy level despite their major socio-economic and environmental implications, which is often explained by their complexity with a sense of remoteness of effects (Cardinale et al., 2012; WWF, 2018). Communicating advocacy or scientific messages of biodiversity is therefore both a challenge and an under-researched topic (Bekessy et al., 2018; Posner et al., 2016; Primmer et al., 2015; Wright et al., 2017), where both social and natural sciences and both scientists and practitioners are needed to contribute (Ainscough et al., 2019). In order to be successful in delivering messages, communication not only needs to be self-explanatory and easy to consume but novel as well. It additionally helps if the message arrives in a more extraordinary format to draw even more attention. Based on experiences drawn from a conservation and advocacy NGO’s work, this chapter will divulge various socio-economic theories about creative methods, communication, and influencing decision-makers through a campaign fighting for the preservation of key nature legislation. It will be demonstrated how different EU policy-makers, including representatives of the European Commission and Members of the European Parliament, the general public, and other stakeholders, were addressed with various messages and tools (e.g., short films, social media campaigns, fact sheets, involvement of champions). In addition to other key factors such as public support, knowledge of the target audience and political context, the probable impacts and limitations of these messages will also be elaborated. The relevance to the integration and employment of better socio-economic theories into improving communication is straightforward. It is crucial to tailor-make future advocacy work of “wicked problems” such as biodiversity loss and climate change, since these are not usually backed up by major lobby forces and are, therefore, financed inadequately compared to their significance. Understanding the way in which policy-makers pick up or omit certain messages, as well as what framing, methods and channels are the most effective in delivering them to the policy-makers, is pivotal for a more sustainable future.