8.1.1 Measurement Options for Community Engagement

Projects should record the number of volunteers or volunteer hours spent working on a project. The simplest way to do this is to have each volunteer submit a work log where they track the hours they spend on the project.

If you do not have work logs, you may randomly sample a group of volunteers and ask them how long they have spent working on the project in the last month or year. You may then multiply the average of your sample over the total number of volunteers involved in the project. The sample size of the group required will vary with the size of your project, but a rough rule is to aim for 25% of the volunteer force.

8.1.2 Pros and Cons of Each Measurement Option

Each method of community engagement measurement has pros and cons for implementation (Table 25).

Table 25. Pros and cons of community engagement measurement options.

Measurement Technique	Pros	Cons
Self-Reporting	Accurate Simple Can be built into other project reporting	Cannot be done retroactively Relies on volunteers to log
Random-Sample Surveys	Can be done retrospectively	Less accurate More resource intensive

8.1.3 Basic Instructions for Random Sampling to Measure Community Engagement

While detailed instructions on conducting a random sample survey are beyond the scope of this guidebook, users will want to ensure that:

They are taking a truly random sample of the total population.

The questions are clear, unbiased, and unambiguous.

They have obtained consent from survey participants.

Extensive information is contained in Fowler Jr. (2013), and more accessible steps are documented by SurveyMonkey, a common online tool for conducting surveys.

8.2 Science and Education

Here, we define science and education in terms of the number of people or hours spent with an educational focus. Time may be during the restoration itself, at events about the restoration process, or visiting and learning about the site following restoration.

8.2.1 Measurement Options for Science and Education

Ideally, projects will have good data on the attendance of any outreach or education projects that they do. This data may be converted into hours spent by multiplying the number of participants by the length of the program or outing. You may also wish to connect with any schools or universities that may be using the site as a teaching or field trip location.

If your content is digital, there are numerous services for tracking the views and uptake of your materials (e.g., Google Analytics, Twitter trends, LinkedIn trends, etc.)

8.3 Cultural and Spiritual Connection

Quantifying and measuring a person or community’s spiritual or cultural connection to an ecosystem or kelp forest is often not possible. However, there are some methods to quantify how connected a person feels to an ecosystem. These methods involve surveys that ask how a person feels about an ecosystem. Users may wish to understand if a person or community’s connection with nature has increased or not following the conservation project. These surveys are typically qualitative, rather than quantitative.

8.3.1 Measurement Options for Cultural and Spiritual Connection

Projects should survey people living near or interacting with the restoration site before and after restoration.

8.3.2 Basic Instructions for Measuring Cultural and Spiritual Connection

Designing social surveys requires ethical consideration, prior, and informed consent, as well as rigorous planning to ensure that the survey examines a representative sample. Social surveys must also be free to complete. We do not recommend trying to do these surveys if you have no training. It is best to employ a team to do the survey for you.

8.3.2.1 CN-12 Survey

The CN-12 is a brief and multidimensional instrument developed to measure an individual’s connection with nature across four dimensions:

1. Affective
2. Cognitive
3. Experiential
4. Behavioural

Further details are discussed by Hatty et al. (2020) ¹.

8.3.2.2 Inclusion of Nature in Self (INS) Scale

This single-item, graphical scale measures the extent to which an individual perceives themselves as part of nature by selecting the degree of overlap between two circles representing the self and nature. Further details are discussed by Martin & Czellar (2016) ².

8.3.2.3 Nature Relatedness Scale (NR-6 or NR-18)

The Nature Relatedness Scale assesses an individual’s affective, cognitive, and behavioural connection with the natural world. The shorter NR-6 version consists of six items, while the NR-18 has 18 items. Nisbet & Zelenski (2013) ³ provide further details.

8.4 Existence Value

The existence value is the value a person places on knowing that a species, ecosystem, or ecological community exists and persists. This value is beyond the value they may get from visiting or experiencing an ecosystem, and is measured economically, whether reported in dollars or other currency.

8.4.1 Measurement Options for Existence Value

Existence values are most used in cost-benefit decisions that consider the outcomes of different actions or an action versus an inaction. They can be measured using willingness to pay surveys. These surveys ask participants how much they are willing to pay to ensure that an ecosystem remains intact or that one is restored.

8.4.2 Basic Instructions for Measuring Existence Value

Designing willingness-to-pay surveys requires ethical consideration, fair and informed consent, as well as rigorous planning to ensure that projects examine a representative sample. We do not recommend trying to do these surveys if you have no training. Rather, it is best to employ a team to do the survey for you.

Broadly, when creating these surveys you will need to:

1. Define the objective.
2. Identify your target demographics (e.g., age, location, etc).
3. Choose your valuation method (Champ et al., 2003) ⁴.
4. Create a questionnaire.
5. Deliver the questionnaire.

8.5 Recreational Snorkel and Dive Visits

Scuba and snorkel visits are the number of people or time spent diving or snorkelling in a kelp forest. They can be measured in terms of a count, or in days or hours.

8.5.1 Measurement Options for Recreational Snorkel and Dive Visits

Users can choose to quantify the quantity of these activities (i.e., number of visits), economic value (i.e., dollars or other currency), or both.

Field surveys can be used to get a measure of the number of visitors to a kelp forest. Surveys should take place at representative times throughout the year. For instance, visits are likely to be higher on weekends compared to weekdays, or in summer compared to winter. Therefore, multiple and representative surveys should be carried out during the study.

Surveys may be done in person, waiting at a popular dive site, and recording the number of people that visit the kelp forest, or by installing a video camera and monitoring the footage later.

A coarser approximation may be obtained by contacting local dive operators and requesting information on the number of dive tanks that they have rented or tours completed to a specific location. If you wish to allocate this information to a specific kelp forest, users will need to further survey their customers and get an approximation of what percentage of dive tanks are being used at specific dive sites (with or without kelp forests).

Calculation of the economic costs of these trips may be achieved by using willingness to pay surveys or by collecting data on travel costs.

8.6 Person Hours

Socioeconomic factors refer to the number of people hours, both paid and unpaid, involved in the monitoring activity. This includes the employment hours and the salary value of those hours. These factors should be monitored from the beginning of the project, reported in Person Hours related to Intervention Activity.

Measuring the economic impact of a single restoration monitoring project is difficult. It is hard to precisely determine how much of a fisher’s catch is attributable to a single kelp forest or how much ecotourism is drawn to a region because of one restoration site. Therefore, we do not provide specific guidelines for measuring economic impact.

8.7 Project Impacts on the Community

Marine management is a place-based activity that impacts local communities and requires resource allocations that may otherwise be used to improve the quality of life, so community support is crucial. Outreach and communication about conservation, marine management, the value of healthy ecosystems, and a project’s connections to people can help maintain this support.

Projects are encouraged to produce communication tools such as videos, posters or outreach talks that discuss kelp forest ecosystems. Ideally, these materials will incorporate some of the information collected here, such as the area of kelp restored, or the number of species found in a local kelp forest.