Habitat-dependent outdoor recreation and conservation organizations can enable recreational fishers to contribute to conservation of coastal marine ecosystems

Abstract

Stakeholder engagement is essential to conserve ecosystems and associated biodiversity. Outdoor recreation specialists represent stakeholder groups that often rely on specific healthy ecosystems and have unique incentives to contribute to conservation and stewardship. We introduce the concept of habitat-dependent outdoor recreation conservation organizations (HDORCOs) and their potential to harness outdoor recreation enthusiasm to achieve ecosystem-scale conservation objectives. We identify potential roles for HDORCOs in nurturing pro-environmental attitudes and facilitating stewardship behavior among recreationists, focusing on examples from recreational fishing specialists and coastal marine ecosystems. While HDORCOs have achieved conservation outcomes in a range of settings, transferability across recreational specializations and ecological, cultural, socioeconomic, and governance contexts could remain challenging and potentially requires further development of the HDORCO concept. Communication with HDORCOs is one strategy to enhance engagement of recreationists, stakeholder groups not traditionally associated with pro-environmental behavior, in ecosystem-scale conservation efforts.

Keywords

• Recreational fisheries
• Recreation specialization
• Stakeholder engagement
• Environmental stewardship
• Conservation organizations
• Habitat conservation