Public awareness, concerns, and priorities about anthropogenic impacts on marine environments

Abstract

Numerous international bodies have advocated the development of strategies to achieve the sustainability of marine environments. Typically, such strategies are based on information from expert groups about causes of degradation and policy options to address them, but these strategies rarely take into account assessed information about public awareness, concerns, and priorities. Here we report the results of a pan-European survey of public perceptions about marine environmental impacts as a way to inform the formation of science and policy priorities. On the basis of 10,106 responses to an online survey from people in 10 European nations, spanning a diversity of socioeconomic and geographical areas, we examine the public's informedness and concern regarding marine impacts, trust in different information sources, and priorities for policy and funding. Results show that the level of concern regarding marine impacts is closely associated with the level of informedness and that pollution and overfishing are two areas prioritized by the public for policy development. The level of trust varies greatly among different information sources and is highest for academics and scholarly publications but lower for government or industry scientists. Results suggest that the public perceives the immediacy of marine anthropogenic impacts and is highly concerned about ocean pollution, overfishing, and ocean acidification. Eliciting public awareness, concerns, and priorities can enable scientists and funders to understand how the public relates to marine environments, frame impacts, and align managerial and policy priorities with public demand.ocean literacy | ocean impacts | Europe | attitudes | ocean health

Consumers’ Willingness to Pay for Sustainable Seafood Made in Europe

“…This is interesting in light of the high consumer concern for the conservation of marine ecosystems found in this research and by Gelcich et al (2014) and Jefferson et al (2014), and the fact that discards can result in substantial overfishing of other fish stocks. Therefore, it would have been expected that consumers would attach higher values to discard-free fishing.…”

“…These results confirm the outcome of earlier qualitative research on German consumers' understanding of sustainable fisheries: similar ecological issues were discussed, whereas social aspects were completely neglected (Zander, Bürgelt, Christoph-Schulz, Salamon, & Weible, 2015). Apparently, Europeans are highly concerned about the danger to aquatic habitats when thinking about topics related to the use of the world's oceans (see also Gelcich et al, 2014;Jefferson, Bailey, Laffoley, Richards, & Attrill, 2014). The low importance of social aspects, e.g., employment with respect to sustainability in fisheries has been previously reported (Potts, Pita, O'Higgins, & Mee, 2016).…”

Eco-Labeled Seafood: Determinants for (Blue) Green Consumption

“…However, it should be noted that the reason for the low use of retailers as a source of information is unknown and that lack of trust for commercial actors might be a barrier for consumer awareness making. Media and environmental NGOs (stated to be the most frequently-used sources of information, also supported by [68]) are other potentially important actors in increasing consumers' familiarity with seafood eco-labels.…”

“…Provision of environmental knowledge may induce an emotional response stimulating pro-environmental behavior [75], and the other way around, an individual who is emotionally engaged might be more prone to search for knowledge in order to learn more about how food is produced and the environmental effects of production practices (both positive and negative) [76]. The link between subjective knowledge pertaining to marine environmental impacts and level of concern has been highlighted in recent research [68], supporting the association between self-identification and emotional engagement. The level of subjective knowledge in this study is consistent with earlier work dealing with seafood consumers' self-stated level of knowledge (e.g., [14]).…”

Community-Level Actions that Can Address Ocean Acidification

“…This may also be due to the fact that impacts from ocean acidification have yet to be felt in many locations . This in turn, creates a lack of knowledge, understanding, and concern among the general public, especially when compared to the suite of other stressors impacting the ocean and earth (Leiserowitz et al, 2010;Gelcich et al, 2014). Complicating matters is the fact that ocean acidification is a purely chemical process that has follow-on effects on human communities via marine biology, making it an interdisciplinary problem.…”