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 in Australia that delivers important social and economic benefits to the community. As the largest and most widely dispersed natural resource-based recreational activity in the country, it is subject to management strategies including bag limits, quotas, and no-take zones. Given the prohibitive cost of deploying compliance officers to monitor Australia’s vast marine estate, strategies are needed to encourage voluntary compliance from fishers.

This project explored behavioural interventions to promote self-compliance among recreational fishers, focusing on no-take zones within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park and two Commonwealth parks off Western Australia (Geographe and Two Rocks). The research distributed more than 800 online surveys, followed up by focus groups and analysis to examine how demographics, motivations and fishing patterns influence fishers' intentions to comply with zoning rules.

Survey insights were used to pilot a new targeted approach to awareness campaigns. Using behavioural segmentation, the project tailored messaging to specific audience types and tested these via GBRMPA social media channels. The project also examined perceptions of compliance visibility and found fishers were more likely to comply when uniformed officers were present and engaged directly at ramps or on water.

The project outcomes provide a foundation for evidence-based behavioural interventions and targeted communication campaigns. It delivers a proof of concept for scalable, audience-specific behaviour change approaches that can be refined, implemented, and evaluated in future research.

Outputs

• Fact sheet - characterising recreational fishing population [written]

• Final project report [written]