Little Fire Ants in Oahu: Improving Community Awareness and Promoting Sustainable Behaviors in Ko’olaupoko through Community-Based Social Marketing
Partner organization: Hui o Koʻolaupoko
Team members: Roberto Correa, Carl Kakuyo, James Ly, Andreas Muzila
The little fire ant (LFA) is an invasive insect species in Oahu, and has significantly impacted the island’s tourism, economy, and native ecosystems since its introduction (Lee et al., 2015). Increased involvement from the Windward Oahu community can assist in management efforts and help stop the spread of LFA. Currently, these communities are not equipped with the resources and knowledge they need in order to take an active role in the treatment and eradication of LFA. The goal of this project was to design a community-based social marketing (CBSM) campaign for Hui o Ko’olaupoko (HOK) to promote sustainable behaviors within the Windward Oahu community and help treat the ongoing little fire ant infestation in Oahu.
To better understand the current programs in place to manage the LFA and their challenges, we conducted interviews with several LFA management organizations in Hawaii. This provided helpful context in determining what types of content we should make for our campaign and what barriers exist within the community. We found many similarities between the organizations we interviewed, primarily a lack of manpower and funding as well as a shared sentiment that community involvement was critical for the successful eradication of LFA.
To understand the Windward Oahu community’s knowledge of LFA and assess what barriers prevent residents from adopting the sustainable behaviors we want, we distributed a survey. The survey was distributed in person at the Kaha Gardens and online on HOK’s Instagram and Facebook pages. In addition, we designed a flyer to put on Instagram and hand out in-person, telling people how they can take the survey. To incentivize participation in the survey, participants could enter a giveaway for a free Hydro Flask. From our survey results, we found that lack of awareness, lack of motivation, and lack of resources were the main barriers to our desired sustainable behaviors.
We produced 15 Instagram posts, 6 informational videos, and an informational website to overcome these barriers and promote the behaviors we want viewers to adopt. These posts included infographics to increase LFA awareness and promote LFA events, as well as instructional videos that taught people how to survey their property or quarantine their plants.
We provided a set of recommendations for HOK to follow when executing the rest of the community-based social marketing campaign in 2025. This includes publishing the social media posts we prepared for them as well as assessing metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and video engagement. Additionally, they should distribute a post-campaign knowledge assessment survey to see if Windward Oahu community members adopted our targeted behaviors, and evaluate the overall impact of the campaign.