The accelerating loss of biodiversity and degradation of ecosystems due to anthropogenic activities necessitate a deeper understanding of public engagement with conservation, particularly among youth. This study investigates the knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions (KAP) of students regarding biodiversity conservation in the context of ecotourism, using Sikkim, India as a case study. A structured questionnaire was administered to 432 students across 24 educational institutions, capturing their ecological literacy, disposition towards conservation, and awareness of environmental legislation. The findings reveal a generally high level of awareness and positive attitudes towards biodiversity and ecotourism. Awareness of key pollution-control laws, particularly the Water (1974) and Air (1981) Acts, was notably low, possibly reflecting perceptions that environmental quality in the Himalayan region is relatively less threatened. Statistical analysis demonstrated acceptable to strong internal consistency across the Knowledge (α = 0.723), Attitude (α = 0.884), and Perception (α = 0.884) subscales. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure (KMO = 0.891) indicated meritorious sampling adequacy for factor analysis, and Spearman’s correlation analysis confirmed significant interrelationships among the KAP domains. While educational attainment significantly influenced knowledge scores, it did not uniformly affect attitudes or perceptions, suggesting the influence of cultural and contextual factors beyond formal education. The study underscores the importance of integrating experiential learning and policy literacy into environmental education to cultivate a deeper, action-oriented conservation ethic among students. Importantly, the study interprets ecotourism-related responses as indicative of conservation literacy rather than direct measures of pro-conservation behavioural orientation rather than direct measures of actual conservation behaviour. Given the cross-sectional design and the use of ecotourism used as contextual indicators, the results are associative and exploratory rather than causal. The study highlights the need for integrated environmental education, policy literacy, and experiential learning to strengthen informed conservation engagement among youth.
Gurung et al. (Mon,) studied this question.