The role of policy instruments and issue awareness in citizen support for biodiversity policies. A conjoint experimental study in Switzerland

Given the increasing biodiversity loss in many countries across the world, it is high time to devise public policies to protect and enhance biodiversity. In democratic countries, public acceptability of these policies is crucial, given that policymakers will be reluctant to adopt policy instruments that are not supported by their electorate. However, evidence on public opinion regarding biodiversity policy in general, and regarding specific policy instruments in particular is still scarce. This study reports the results of a public opinion survey of 1,765 Swiss citizens, featuring an embedded experiment. Pre-registered hypotheses were partially supported. We find that, while the public seems generally aware of the biodiversity crisis (81.8% feel concerned about biodiversity loss), decline is perceived more severe at geographically distant scales than locally. Nevertheless, there are clear preferences for biodiversity-positive policies when outcomes are framed explicitly: targeting of relevant sectors, as well as an increase of protected areas are important to the public. Preference is lower for policies featuring instruments that are viewed as intrusive, but an awareness raising treatment strengthened support for more ambitious policies.