A new Safeguard study published in the People and Nature journal investigates the socio-psychological factors influencing individual behaviour in favour of conservation interventions for pollinators in rural versus urban environments across three European countries: Germany, Italy and the Netherlands.
Ecologists and policymakers’ understanding of the psycho-social factors influencing people's intentions towards protecting biodiversity is crucial for implementing pollinator-conservation actions. However, despite the increasing number of ecological and conservation studies on pollinator insects, it is still unclear how the environmental context and cross-country socio-cultural differences can affect people's behaviour towards pollinators.
To explore the willingness of rural and urban citizens to undertake pollinator conservation actions, a group of researchers, including Safeguard partners, administered an online questionnaire to 4541 respondents stratified by nationality, environment, age and gender.
The findings indicated that despite regional socio-cultural and economic differences, people from Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands, whether in rural or urban settings, shared similar socio-psychological drivers to protect pollinators. Actions to preserve pollinators were driven by a sense of moral obligation, social influence, belief in the effectiveness of their actions, and frequent outdoor activities. Specific values like the right of pollinators to exist were more influential in promoting conservation actions than general environmental concerns. Planting flowers was the most commonly implemented conservation action in all countries while monitoring activities were among the least likely.
Read the paper, co-authored by Safeguard partners Costanza Geppert, David Kleijn, Jeroen Scheper, Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter and Lorenzo Marini, here.
Photo: Figure 2 of the article: Survey respondents' willingness to undertake pollinator conservation actions (n = 4541) (a) in Germany, (b) in Italy and (c) in the Netherlands.