Predicting Behaviors Towards Biodiversity and Natural Habitat Conservation: A Systematic Review of the Literature

The critical state of global ecosystems endangers the long-term preservation of biodiversity, underscoring the necessity to integrate ecological knowledge with that of human behavior and social processes, as these have a direct impact on biodiversity. The principal objective of this study is to ascertain whether and to what extent biodiversity protection and the conservation of natural habitats have been examined from the perspective of psychological theories of pro-environmental behavior. A systematic literature review was conducted by selecting documents from the multidisciplinary Scopus and Web of Science databases. Both bibliometrics and qualitative approaches were employed to identify the most significant articles, authors, co-citation and co-occurrence networks, as well as the primary topics investigated (biodiversity, protected areas, pro-environmental behavior, and climate change) and the most involved stakeholders (tourists, residents, farmers, and students).