Barriers to public engagement with biodiversity conservation

Area of Science:

• Conservation Science
• Behavioral Science
• Strategic Communication

Background:

• Biodiversity loss necessitates public engagement, including consumption changes, conservation support, and policy advocacy.
• Conservation organizations use interventions like education and marketing to promote pro-biodiversity attitudes and behaviors.
• Motivating public participation in conservation efforts presents a significant challenge.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conceptualize barriers to public engagement in conservation using a strategic communication approach.
• To explore how these barriers differ across audience segments based on engagement levels.
• To identify effective communication strategies for overcoming identified barriers.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a strategic communication framework to analyze barriers to conservation engagement.
• Examined psychological, social, and structural barriers such as lack of knowledge, misaligned values, and low self-efficacy.
• Considered audience segmentation based on current engagement levels (e.g., aware vs. active).

Main Results:

• Identified key barriers: lack of knowledge, misaligned values, low self-efficacy, low personal/social relevance, and limiting structural context.
• Recognized that these barriers are documented across conservation, behavioral, and social change literature.
• Highlighted the differential manifestation of barriers across various audience types.

Conclusions:

• Effective communication strategies include awareness-raising, value-based messaging, social norming, calls to action, social mobilization, and advocacy.
• Understanding individual behaviors, audience types, and social contexts is crucial for successful conservation engagement.
• Tailoring communication approaches to specific barriers and audiences is key to driving biodiversity conservation actions and social change.