Biodiversity policies should include behavioural changes, say researchers

About 90 per cent of the current national biodiversity policies fail to specify behavioural changes expected of an individual or a group, such as farmers, consumers and fishers, a finding that researchers said could explain the lack of progress on meeting conservation targets.

A total of 1306 policy actions proposed by ten National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) from all world regions were coded for target actors, target behaviour and responsible agents as well as the policy options.

The team, including researchers from the University of Surrey, UK, found that only 11 per cent of national biodiversity policies explicitly addressed the critical role of behavioural changes expected of individuals to meaningfully deliver on biodiversity conservation.

"Unfortunately, we have collectively developed a major blind spot in biodiversity policies. There's a heavy focus on grand actions such as resource management, but little attention is paid to the everyday behaviours -- like what we consume -- that also drive biodiversity loss," Melissa Marselle, from the University of Surrey and co-author of the study published in the journal Environmental Science and Policy, said.

Clearly specifying key aspects of behavioural change could boost the effectiveness of biodiversity policies, the researchers said.

This includes identifying the behaviours that need to change, the groups responsible for those actions, and the factors influencing their choices, they said.

"There is a clear need to enhance biodiversity policy strategies by incorporating insights from behavioural science and behaviour change frameworks," the authors wrote.

"This implies specifying target behaviours and groups, diversifying intervention types to include the full range of options available (e.g. environmental restructuring, coercion, and modeling), and involving a wider range of actors for effective implementation," they wrote.

The study identifies 'individuals' as people in roles such as farmers, consumers, local communities, among others.

"By not using proven behavioural science frameworks, we're missing a crucial opportunity to save nature by creating more effective biodiversity policies. As not one global biodiversity target was met in 2020, we desperately need to change this quickly if we are going to meet any global biodiversity targets by the 2030 deadline," Marselle said.