Drivers of pro-environmental behaviours among outdoor recreationists: The case of a recreational fishery in Western Canada.

ABSTRACT

Pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) are important for mitigation and restoration efforts in the Anthropocene. As recreationists are motivated to engage in leisure activities to increase their own personal wellbeing, we submit that threats to wellbeing (an egocentric motivator) predict engagement in PEBs amongst recreationists. We also predict that differences in experiences across groups of recreationists leads to differences in PEB engagement. Using an online survey, we test our two hypotheses (if recreationists perceive there is a threat to their wellbeing and that their behaviours can yield environmental successes, then they will be more likely to engage in PEBs, and if recreationists differ in recreational experiences then they will demonstrate differences in PEB engagement) amongst outdoor recreationists, specifically Canadian rainbow trout and steelhead anglers in British Columbia (n = 894 respondents). We define 'threat to wellbeing' as the interaction of environmental threat-perceptions of used environments for fishing, and level of centrality fishing has to one's lifestyle. To test our first hypothesis, we conducted three linear regressions corresponding to three different PEBs related to catch-and-release (C&R) fishing. Our egocentric predictor 'threat to wellbeing' was only significant for one out of the three PEBs tested, showing mixed support for our first hypothesis. It is of note that 'environmental threat perceptions' and one's belief in successes resulting from PEB engagement were found to be significant predictors for all three PEBs tested. These results suggest that predictors of PEB may not always be transferable across PEBs relating to recreational activities, and environmental threat perception and one's belief in successes resulting from PEB engagement are strong predictors of PEBs amongst recreationists. To test our second hypothesis, we conducted a Kruskal Wallis test to determine if there were significant differences across angler groups in PEB predictor scores and PEB engagement and conducted pairwise population Z-tests to determine proportional participation rates across angler groups for the three PEBs and PEB predictors investigated. Experiences were found to shape predictors of PEBs, as well as likelihood to engage in PEBs, as different angler groups targeting different fish (i.e., rainbow trout vs steelhead) and using different aquatic habitats (i.e., rivers vs. lakes) demonstrated significantly different scores for PEB predictors, as well as significantly different likelihood to engage in two of the three PEBs tested. These findings support the notion that recreationists are not a homogenous group, and that their beliefs and resulting behaviours during recreational activities are determined by their experiences in nature and can be influenced by the species with which they interact, and the habitats they use for recreation.