We like to fish: characterising the recreational fishing population and designing messages to improve compliance

<p>This report details a new evidence-based approach to public messaging to improve the compliance of recreational fishers with Australia’s ‘no take’ marine conservation zones. By investigating ‘who’ fishes, ‘why’ they fish, and ‘what’ their attitudes are to compliance, we identified three distinct ‘types’ of recreational fishers, differentiated by the extent to which they are likely to follow zoning laws. We found over half of Australian fishers support sustainable fishing practices, such as ‘no take’ zones, and another third have a neutral attitude (see pp. 16-33).</p> <p> </p> <p>We partnered with the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to leverage this goodwill, developing and testing new bespoke campaigns to engage fishers with positive messaging and to connect them to the information, apps and maps they need to locate and avoid ‘no take zones - with promising results.</p> <p>Given the prohibitive cost of deploying compliance officers to monitor activities across Australia’s vast marine estate, strategies to encourage fishers to comply with zones, of their own accord, are an essential part of the marine management mix.</p> <p> </p> <p>Our research and pilot campaign demonstrated that bespoke messaging enables fishers to ‘see themselves’ in authentic ‘stories and images that leverage the emotions connected to different aspects of fishing. By better ‘personalising’ the fishing experience and appealing to fishers’ genuine good intentions, our pilot campaign achieved greater engagement and better value for money, than previous ‘awareness’ campaigns for mass audiences. This report describes our research and provides guidance and key recommendations for endusers seeking to build relationships with recreational fishers and to support more fishers to self-comply with ‘no take’ marine conservation zones.</p>