The EU LIFE ReMEDIES ‘Reducing and Mitigating Erosion and Disturbance Impacts affecting the Seabed’ (LIFE 18 NAT/UK/000039) project took place from 2019 – 2024. It aimed to change the behaviour of recreational boaters and reduce recreational pressures on seagrass habitats in five Special Areas of Conservation: Essex Estuaries; Solent Maritime; Plymouth Sound and Estuaries; Falmouth & Helford; Isles of Scilly. Natural England commissioned an evaluation to try to understand the extent to which the ReMEDIES project led to behaviour change.
This evaluation involved desk research into monitoring data collected by the ReMEDIES project team and 32 interviews with project partners, local team members, boaters and volunteers across the five ReMEDIES sites were conducted. A survey for recreational boaters was completed by 221 boaters across the UK – of which 82% of survey respondents reported they had been boating in one or more of the five ReMEDIES areas. The evaluation explored the behaviour change related effects of the ReMEDIES activities and mapped the findings against the three essential components of the COM-B behavioural change model: Capability, Opportunity and Motivation – Behaviour. The results suggest the ReMEDIES project helped to increase the capability, opportunity and motivation of at least some recreational boaters to protect the seabed. However, as outlined in the conclusions, it is not possible to attribute all the reported positive changes in awareness, attitudes and reported behaviour to the ReMEDIES project.
This report will be of interest to any projects engaged in similar work on behaviour change and measuring the impact of interventions. It provides useful examples on the methodology and evaluation approach.
A separate Technical Information Note ‘Lessons from evaluating behaviour change interventions -A case study of the LIFE Recreation ReMEDIES project’ has also been produced by Natural England staff which explores in more detail the challenges of measuring behaviour change in real life settings and provides useful discussion to help support future projects.