Assessing values, attitudes and threats towards marine biodiversity in a Greek coastal port city and their interrelationships

Abstract

The global marine environment degradation is strongly related to the unsustainable use of the marine living resources and the ineffective conservation policies. Assessing individual's general perceptions of marine biodiversity may contribute to the implementation of successful conservation policies within the existing social-cultural context. The present work investigates citizens' assigned values for ecosystem services, perceived threats, and attitudes toward marine biodiversity in a Greek coastal port city, Thessaloniki. We used the Social Values Indicators for ecosystem services list of items to measure values, a revised form of the Ocean Attitudes Questionnaire to assess attitudes toward the marine environment, and adopted items from past research to explore the perceived threats to the marine environment. Exploratory Factor Analysis revealed the structure of the constructs. Τhe results showed positive attitudes towards marine biodiversity while participants recognized the contribution of marine biodiversity to both ecological balance and economic development. Pollution from industry and farming were identified as the most important threats to the marine environment. Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) were used to confirm the structure of the constructs and assess the relationships between attitudes, threats, and values. The results indicated that use values are strongly but negatively related to ecological attitudes and perceived threats, while non-use values are significantly and positively related to attitudes and threats. The utility of these results for designing effective policy implementations that incorporate public perceptions is discussed. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd