Voluntary investments by civilians into Salmonid stocking and habitat

Understanding what drives people to invest in sustainable environmental practices is crucial for sustainability and the derivation of policy levers. An interdisciplinary framework is required to determine the key features that... [ view full abstract ]

Understanding what drives people to invest in sustainable environmental practices is crucial for sustainability and the derivation of policy levers. An interdisciplinary framework is required to determine the key features that encourage specific pro-environmental outcomes within and across contexts. We apply the Ostrom social-ecological systems framework (SESF) to study investment into freshwater ecosystems by recreational angling clubs with authority to manage their water bodies. Using an extensive survey of polycentric resource governance of fisheries managers under varying regulatory and geographical contexts in Germany (n = 1,222) and France (n = 536) we constructed indicators for each of the relevant second-tier variables of the SES framework and used them to understand decision-making into stocking Salmonids investing into habitat enhancement for fisheries. We separately evaluate stocking behavior depending on whether the Salmonids are native or not. Given the expected complexity of relationships between the second-tier variables, we used the relatively new machine learning method of non-parametric boosted regression trees, as well as hierarchical linear models. Our results demonstrate the relative strength of context, both environmental and governance-related, for determining resource investment behavior. We found voluntary investment driven more by contextual factors than by environmental knowledge or individual psychological disposition. Continued application of the SESF will help to answer whether our findings hold across other natural resource contexts where members of civil society manage natural resources.