Behavioral interventions to reduce unintentional non-native plants introduction: Personal factors matter

Abstract

To reduce biodiversity loss, human behavioral change is crucial. However, there has been a significant paucity of effective conservation behavioral interventions, which help establish evidence-based policymaking and lead to the understanding of intervention effectiveness mediators. This study focused on preventing the unintentional introduction of non-native species by examining the effectiveness of four behavioral interventions using an experiment and a questionnaire. The interventions sought to induce footwear cleaning, which reduces non-native species introduction via footwear, at a cleaning station. Responses were considerably heterogeneous across interventions—that is, nudging visitors toward the cleaning station using foot-stamps placed on the ground had the largest impact, while providing procedural knowledge also had a significant effect. Further, the impact of these two interventions differed greatly depending on the degree of individuals' knowledge and/or personalized involvement in the unintentional introduction process. To maximize the impact of and improve interventions, we suggest accounting for the personal factors of the targeted individuals.