At ALFAwetlands, we’re interested in the impact of wetland restoration on society and people’s views on restoration activities. We’re looking into the economic and social impacts of restoration at local, national and EU levels. We have conducted national surveys in several European countries and results will be shared in a deliverable later next year.
Research results
Let’s have a sneak peek to the results! Did you know that…
- Wetland restoration is still a bit unfamiliar topic to many of our respondents. Fortunately, that doesn’t mean that wetlands aren’t interesting, since…
- ✨ More than 71% of our Estonian respondents have visited wetlands in the last three years. The lowest number of respondents who visited wetlands was in Sweden, at 49% of respondents.
- ✨ Finnish and Austrian respondents are the most active visitors – 10% of respondents visit wetlands more than 20 times a year.
- ✨ The most important wetland ecosystem services as perceived by respondents were habitat, species and genetic diversity; the existence value and safeguarding wetlands for future generations; and water regulation.
- ✨ All countries – Austria, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Spain and Sweden – share the view that wetland restoration is acceptable. Less than 10% of respondents in each country disagrees with that.
- ✨ In Austria and Spain, more than 80% of respondents considered wetland restoration beneficial – while the share was slightly lower in the other four countries.
We are grateful to our respondents for the contribution to this survey. Your answers contribute to strengthening the link between scientific knowledge and the everyday experiences of people living near wetlands.
Soon we will also launch another survey to investigate landowners’ views on the acceptability and feasibility of different wetland restoration practices and policies from six European countries. This work is led by project Lead Partner, Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE).
Presentation at the webinar
In addition, Annika Tienhaara from the surveys research team will hold a presentation “Valuing Wetland Restoration: A choice Experiment on Citizens´ Preferences Across Six EU countries” on 16th of December, during the webinar “From Perception to Action: Engaging Citizens in Wetland Restoration and Conservation“. Find out more details here.
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