Backing biodiversity: understanding nature conservation behaviour and policy support in Australia

Abstract

Community mobilisation is essential to prevent further biodiversity loss and protect the natural environment. This includes engaging in public- and private-sphere behaviours, and community support of relevant government policies. This purpose of this paper is to explore and compare the factors associated with public- and private-sphere nature conservation behaviour and policy support. We utilised data from a survey of 4,048 Australians, representative for age, gender, and geographic location, which measured engagement in nature conservation behaviours and support for diverse conservation policies. Hierarchical Multiple Regressions were conducted to assess relationships between behaviour and policy support with the key independent variables of awareness (of biodiversity issues), connection (to nature), and concern (about biodiversity issues), and socio-demographic covariates. Overall, community support for nature conservation policies was high, not just for incentive measures but for regulations and penalties. Regression models explained 22.9% of the variance in public-sphere behaviour, 30.2% of the variance in private-sphere behaviour, and 43.5% of the variance in policy support. Concern made one of the strongest contributions for all outcomes, and was substantially stronger for policy support compared to behaviour. Awareness and connection also made independent contributions to all outcomes. Socio-demographic variables explained a smaller proportion of unique variance for policy support (1.0%) compared to behaviour (public-sphere: 9.6%, private-sphere: 6.3%). Notably, for public-sphere behaviour, younger age explained almost as much variance as concern. Implications for practitioners and policymakers seeking to engage the general population in conservation support are discussed.

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