[Coral-List] New paper on anglers & advice wanted for social science

Jim Harper Jim at harperfish.com
Sun May 31 14:47:30 EDT 2015


Two things: 1) Having presented a similar study at the recent meeting of the Association of Marine Laboratories of the Caribbean, I’m please to present my first reviewed paper in open access:

The New Man and the Sea: Climate Change Perceptions and Sustainable Seafood Preferences of Florida Reef Anglers
http://www.mdpi.com/2077-1312/3/2/299

Abstract: Florida Reef stakeholders have downplayed the role of anthropogenic climate change while recognizing the reef system’s degradation. With an emphasis on recreational anglers, a survey using contingent valuation methods investigated stakeholders’ attitudes about the Florida Reef, climate change, and willingness to pay for sustainable and local seafood. Angst expressed about acidification and other climate change effects represents a recent shift of opinion. Supermajorities were willing to pay premiums for sustainably harvested and especially local seafood. Regression analysis revealed trust in seafood labels, travel to coral reefs, political orientation, place of birth, and motorboat use as strong, direct predictors of shopping behavior, age and environmental concerns as moderately influential, and income and education as surprisingly poor predictors. Distrust of authority may motivate some stakeholders, but new attitudes about climate change and the high desirability of local seafood offer potential for renewed regional engagement and market-based incentives for sustainability.

2) With plans to start a social science Ph.D. this year, I’d like advice on how / what to address for Caribbean reef sustainability. Researchers love to say it’s necessary, but I can’t foresee how it will be funded and otherwise enabled to be effective.  

   Jim W. Harper 

Resume: http://www.harperfish.com
M.S. in Environmental Studies ’14 (M.A. ’96) 
Miami mobile: 786-423-2665 




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