Environmental attitude, motivations and values for marine biodiversity protection

This study explores people’s environmental attitudes and motives for putting economic values to marine biodiversity and its protection. Primary data were collected from a sample of 359 people living in two important Greek coastal port cities: Thessaloniki and Volos. Respondents’ environmental attitude was measured with the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale, and economic values were derived from a referendum, contingent valuation method (CVM) survey for protecting marine biodiversity. Use of appropriate statistical methods revealed three factors of environmental attitudes; namely, man dominate to nature, anti-anthropocentrism and limits to growth. Significant relationships are found between NEP scale factors and socio-economic characteristics and individuals’ opinions about marine biodiversity utility. Pro-environmental behavior or attitudes are associated with higher NEP scale scores. At a second stage and in a logistic regression setup the relation between people’s willingness to pay (WTP) for marine biodiversity protection with their socio-economic characteristics and the PCA extracted results are explored. Pro-environmental attitudes influence the estimates of mean WTP. Significant relationships are found between environmental attitudes and non-use motivations and WTP and ethical motives for species protection. Finally individuals’ mean WTP for marine biodiversity protection was calculated approximately equal to € 29 per person.