This record provides an overview of the NESP Marine and Coastal Hub project "Evaluation of recreational fishing behaviour, use, values and motivations that relate to compliance". No data outputs were generated by this project.

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Recreational fishing is an important leisure activity that brings economic and social benefits to the Australian community. Australia’s recreational sector is the largest and most widely dispersed recreational activity that uses a natural resource. Management strategies for this sector includes quotas, bag limits and no-take zones in marine reserves. Given the prohibitive cost of deploying compliance officers to monitor Australia’s vast marine estate, strategies are needed to encourage fishers to comply with zones of their own accord.

This research focused on recreational fishers active in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMPA) waters, and in Geographe Marine Park and Two Rocks Marine Park off Western Australia. More than 800 online surveys were distributed to fishers, followed by focus groups and data analysis. These aimed to better understand how factors such as demographics, fishing patterns, and motivations related to individual or group intentions to comply with no-take zones.

The survey findings informs on the use of behavioural change interventions to support regulation compliance of recreational fishers and boaters. It delivers a proof of concept tailoring of behaviour change to inform the practical design of interventions in case studies for further refinement, implementation and evaluation in subsequent research.

Outputs

• Fact sheet - characterising recreational fishing population [written]

• Final project report [written]