An appeal to my allies: keep fighting for Life — even in the darkest times!

Allies! Lately, I have been receiving a great many letters from readers. People say that in the current political situation, amid all these crises and upheavals, protecting nature seems impossible. They ask whether we can influence anything at all. And whether there is any point in continuing our fight.

That is why I want to tell you in more detail about what we can actually do. This appeal is specifically for our allies — those who have followed our projects for a long time, taken part in them, and understand the scale of the destruction of wildlife.

Today we see one major problem: after the exploitation of common natural territories, attempts have begun to seize and redistribute parts of our country's protected-area system among various influential groups. We are witnessing completely unprecedented attacks on what remains of our nature reserves, along with numerous bills that weaken their protection status and legalize the exploitation of biological refuges.

Take the bill aimed at dismantling specially protected natural areas: they tried to pass it eight times in a row over the past several years, brazenly and directly pushing it on behalf of big business. Together, we managed to stop this madness seven times. But on the eighth attempt, right now, the bill has passed its first reading, and according to our information from sources in Moscow, they intend to push it through after the elections. In other words, they will hold the elections, wait for some time, and then quietly pass it. Meanwhile, experts have already been removed and excluded, public demand has declined, and even the Environmental Commission of the Civic Chamber, which for years defended wildlife's right to Life, has been abolished.

And the main question now is this: why were we able to stop this bill seven times in a row? Why were we able to get it withdrawn from consideration, just as we did with many other bills? Why was it possible then, while now it has become so difficult?

The answer lies in social proof. A problem can be objectively enormous yet politically insignificant. Suppose only one hundred people know about a problem — for the governing system, that is a weak signal, and naturally it will be ignored. But when numerous INDEPENDENT sources of attention begin to appear — publications, appeals, comments from specialists, public organizations, and public figures — the problem begins to take the form of social proof. In scientific studies I have come across descriptions of what researchers often call “complex contagion.”

If this kind of proof emerges and becomes sustained, then something else happens — the very thing I constantly talk about when I say that we must keep public attention alive. A second effect appears; let us call it “new information.” Major media outlets or bloggers begin to see the problem as an opportunity to attract public attention, which gives them a reason to cover the subject at all. Scientists become involved as well, because they see that their professional expertise is in demand, which means they can begin conducting research, seeking funding, and commenting on the issue for journalists. In other words, they begin to see a meaningful role for their profession in this field. And when there is public attention, when scientists and major media become involved, the issue becomes interesting to politicians.

Look at what is happening.

Elections are now being planned in the country, and what do politicians talk about in their election campaigns? The same things they talk about every year — the same old issues. Social problems. How often do you hear about the destruction of wildlife, the dismantling of protected areas, or criticism of bills that effectively divide up our country's protected natural assets among influential groups? You simply do not. It is practically absolute silence.

Previously, these problems were visible. When we raised public attention and tried to stop the bill allowing large-scale logging around Lake Baikal, many people inside the system were not afraid to speak openly about the problem. They spoke out against it. Because that very “social proof” existed.

Any politician wants to climb higher, gain a greater share of power within the system, and public sentiment helps them do that. That is why, during election campaigns, everyone tries to pull attention toward themselves by speaking about whatever is most sensitive within society at that particular moment — whatever there is public demand for.

And yes, unfortunately, there is practically no public demand for the protection of wildlife.

But if we develop mechanisms through which people begin demanding solutions to environmental problems, and politicians begin discussing them and commenting on them publicly, social proof enters its next stage: their statements become major news stories, activists and experts gain a certain form of legitimacy, and other politicians see that the subject is no longer marginal.

I have studied many scientific papers on this subject. I want to tell you about some of them — about things that have actually been demonstrated in practice.

In 2012, researchers from the University of California published one of what I consider the most interesting studies, titled “A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization.” The experiment itself was conducted in 2010 during the U.S. congressional elections. People were randomly shown different versions of a voting message. The main difference was whether a person saw the faces of friends who had already reported that they had voted. The social signal from people they knew affected not only online behavior, but actual voter turnout. The authors recorded approximately 60,000 additional votes resulting from the direct effect and another 280,000 resulting from the spread of the effect through the social network. And the influence of close relationships proved especially powerful.

In general, it is important for society to study these mechanisms and understand how they work, because today governments and transnational corporations use research like this as the basis for social-engineering algorithms. They literally predict social behavior and “herd” people at the right time, into the right place, to perform particular actions.

Another interesting study was published in 2018 by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and City, University of London. They conducted a laboratory experiment involving 194 participants divided into ten experimental groups. The researchers gradually introduced a committed minority into the groups, attempting to change an established social norm. At approximately 25% committed minority participation, many of the experimental conditions reached a qualitative tipping point, after which the new norm spread to the majority.

What this suggests is that society really can be changed if those who defend nature make up approximately 25% or more of the population; below this level, as a rule, the minority is more likely to lose. These are objective scientific observations. Social change, therefore, is not linear but rather threshold-based — we need to reach a point where at least 25% of society is prepared to stand up for nature. At the same time, it is important to understand that these processes can begin accelerating even before larger thresholds are reached.

I recommend reading the study if you are interested. It is titled “Experimental evidence for tipping points in social convention.”

In general, when I study scientific papers, I am most interested in concrete, subject-specific research. In the context we are discussing, I mean studies focused not so much on politics as on society's involvement in a particular field. In my view, this demonstrates the mechanisms of social engineering more clearly.

And such studies exist as well. For example, back in 2006, a major laboratory study was published under the title “Experimental study of inequality and unpredictability in an artificial cultural market.” The experiment involved 14,341 people. Participants were asked to evaluate unfamiliar songs. Some made their decisions independently, while others could see what previous participants had chosen. The key finding was that people become interested in something not only because of what they themselves see, but because they see that other people are already interested in it. This is precisely the social proof I am talking about today.

These are the kinds of observations we need to understand.

And that is why today I want to address all of our allies.

Fight for Life! Do not give up. Do not retreat. Even now, amid all this chaos, together we can accomplish two tasks:

— Create social proof by bringing together as many people as possible.

— And develop concrete proposals for overcoming the environmental collapse, work through and advance initiatives, and find allies within the system.

Our Public Initiatives are already performing exactly these functions: they are coordination centers focused on specific problems, around which large numbers of people can unite. They are a bridge we are building for interaction with government authorities. And they contain concrete, carefully developed proposals that can be used by everyone who becomes involved in our work as social proof grows.

One of the fundamental problems is that many problems are known, yet no one — absolutely no one — understands what needs to be done. Together, we provide that understanding: we develop proposals and submit them to the Government.

The world is in a serious crisis, and the planetary ecological collapse has already become destructive. But the old groups entrenched in government and business still think according to the patterns of the past. They genuinely do not understand what is wrong with destroying nature, and, by and large, future catastrophes do not concern them. To them, a forest is simply timber, wild animals are “living targets” to shoot at, and wildlife's most precious biological refuges are merely “reserves” waiting to be exploited in the future. Everything is measured in money.

But the truth is that the consequences of the crisis we have already created will be devastating, and at some point the entire world will rush to find solutions. Protecting nature will become the mainstream of the future. I repeat: this process is absolutely inevitable.

And at that very moment, if we endure today, we will already have a developed foundation of solutions, large-scale programs and proposals, and a complete understanding of what is happening. And behind us, we will also have that very “social proof” — millions of people ready to defend nature.

Fight for Life!

Let us continue our work.

© PAVEL PASHKOV