Developing an indicator of community appreciation of biodiversity

In light of rapid ecosystem and biodiversity decline globally, and in recognition of the key role that humans play in this, it is not surprising that increasing community awareness and engagement with biodiversity is a centrepiece for many biodiversity strategies. The current paper seeks to contribute to this growing focus by developing an indicator of community appreciation of biodiversity that conceptualises appreciation as comprising cognitive, affective and behavioural dimensions. We tested the indicator by drawing on existing data from a survey (N = 2000) conducted with residents of New South Wales, Australia in 2015. The findings confirm the importance of the tripartite conceptualisation in that respondents reported high levels of basic knowledge of biodiversity (cognitive appreciation) and positively valued biodiversity (affective appreciation) but much lower levels of behavioural appreciation. Further analysis revealed six clusters of respondents based on differing levels of cognitive, affective and behavioural appreciation of biodiversity. There were key variables that distinguished membership in the different clusters including education level, level of concern about environmental issues and climate change, views on and use of national parks, and region – where people live. Our indicator provides a nuanced way to monitor and track the effectiveness of programs and policies aiming to increase community appreciation of biodiversity, and thereby support collective actions to reverse ecosystem and biodiversity decline. We also provide recommendations for how the indicator might be improved in future iterations.