title: Effects of a coordinated farmland bird conservation project on farmers' intentions to implement nature conservation practices - Evidence from the Swedish Volunteer & Farmer Alliance.
abstract: To increase the efficacy of agri-environmental schemes (AES), as well as farmers' environmental engagement, practitioners are increasingly turning to collective forms of agri-environmental management. As yet, empirical evidence from such approaches is relatively scarce. Here, we examined a farmland bird conservation project coordinated by BirdLife Sweden, the Swedish Volunteer & Farmer Alliance (SVFA). The key features of the SVFA were farmland bird inventories from volunteering birdwatchers and on-farm visits to individual farmers from conservation advisors for guidance on AES as well as unsubsidised practices. Using an ex-post application of the theory of planned behaviour across project participants and a randomly sampled control group of farmers we assessed how SVFA affected behavioural intentions relating to AES and unsubsidised conservation, and how the behaviour was affected by attitudes, perceived social norms and perceived behavioural control. We also included a measure of self-identity as a conservationist to assess its importance for behavioural intentions, and if SVFA stimulated this self-identity. SVFA farmers reported greater commitment to implementing AES and unsubsidised conservation, as compared to the control group. However, greater commitment was associated with more positive attitudes for unsubsidised conservation only and not for AES, underlining the inability of existing AES to prompt intrinsic motivation. There were also differences between farmers within SVFA, where farmers applying to the project were motivated by social influences, while farmers recruited by project managers were motivated by their personal beliefs regarding nature conservation. Finally, farmers' self-perceived ability to perform practices (i.e. perceived behavioural control) was important for their commitment to implementing AES as well as unsubsidised practices. Therefore, increasing farmers' awareness regarding the availability and, not least, practicability of available conservation options may be the key to successful biodiversity conservation in agricultural systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7044, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. Electronic address: jonas.josefsson@slu.se.
authors.forename: Jonas
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Josefsson
authors.affiliation: Wageningen University and Research Centre, Sub-department Communication, Technology and Philosophy, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: lokhorst@rsm.nl.
authors.forename: Anne Marike
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Lokhorst
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7044, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. Electronic address: tomas.part@slu.se.
authors.forename: Tomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Pärt
authors.affiliation: Swedish Biodiversity Centre, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7016, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. Electronic address: ake.berg@slu.se.
authors.forename: Åke
authors.initials: Å
authors.lastname: Berg
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Box 7044, SE-750 07 Uppsala, Sweden. Electronic address: sonke.eggers@slu.se.
authors.forename: Sönke
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Eggers
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000379:methods; D000818:Animals; D001290:Attitude; D044822:Biodiversity; D001717:Birds; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D000067565:Farmers; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033182:Intention; D009042:Motivation; D010465:Perception; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden; D014838:Volunteers
keywords: Advisory visits; Common agricultural policy; Evidence-based conservation; Landscape-scale conservation; Nature-friendly farming; Sustainable farming