Casting a wider net: A national survey of Australian attitudes to marine protected areas

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a key international conservation strategy to regulate human pressures on marine environments and are central to marine management in Australia. Public support is considered crucial to the success of MPAs in achieving the long-term conservation of nature, yet how the broader Australian public understands and values MPAs is not well understood. Previous research has explored attitudes of direct and proximate stakeholder groups or focused on specific regions. Human connections to marine environments, however, are not limited to direct use nor confined to single geographies. We surveyed a nationally representative sample of Australian adults (n = 1049) to explore how the broader public understand, connect to, and value Australia's marine environments and MPAs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate general attitudes to Australia's total MPA system and interconnected marine environments with a nationally representative sample to provide an aggregated overview of Australian public attitudes. Most Australians (53%) acknowledge that they have a knowledge gap regarding the restrictions, requirements, and protections of MPAs as they apply in the Australian context, while 37% incorrectly believe that all MPAs offer uniform protections that, for example, prohibit the extraction of natural resources. Australians want to see an expansion of MPA coverage to represent 73% of Australian waters. Australians value the intrinsic biospheric characteristics of marine environments and want to see marine life as the focus when designing MPAs, above instrumental dimensions including industry and recreation. This study provides important insights for policymakers and managers in meeting broader public expectations in the expansion of Australia's marine protections.