Road verges could provide habitats for threatened grassland species, but current verge management is suboptimal for achieving this. Altering verge management to favor grassland species is possible but depends on stakeholder attitudes and valuation. We describe the attitudes of 373 Finnish road verge stakeholders toward grassland-friendly verge management and investigate the drivers underlying these attitudes. We also assess the perceived feasibility of different grassland-friendly management alterations and identify barriers facing their implementation. Gathered with online questionnaires, the data for the study comprises open-ended and Likert scale questions and was analyzed with multivariate methods and linear mixed models. According to the results, valued verge attributes, such as perceived species-richness and safety, and personal familiarity with biodiversity and semi-natural grasslands structure stakeholder attitudes toward grassland-friendly management. Specific management alterations, such as readjusted mowing schedules, are viewed with varying positivity, but insufficient resources and compromised traffic safety are perceived to hinder their implementation.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.