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Although freshwater fish stocking is widely used by managers, quantitative assessments of stocking practices are lacking in many countries. The general objective of the present study was to determine the quantity and characteristics of fish stocking in metropolitan France. Using a survey‐based approach, stocking practices for 2013 by recreational angling clubs in France were quantified, which represented the bulk of fish stocking undertaken in that year. Stocking was found to be practiced by 88.6% of angling clubs in France, representing, on average, 65% of their annual budget. Overall, 22 species were stocked, including 13 native and nine non‐native species, with strong variations among species in terms of life stages and body sizes used for stocking. Using Bayesian modelling, a total biomass of 2.029 t, representing approximately 90 million fishes, was estimated to be stocked in France in 2013. In terms of biomass, the most widely stocked species were rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss (Walbaum), brown trout Salmo trutta L., roach Rutilus rutilus (L.), common carp Cyprinus carpio L. and northern pike Esox lucius L. A stocking volume of approximately 60 fishes or 1.5 kg of fish biomass per angler per year seems commonplace in industrialised countries for which data are available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We model voluntary investments by members of civil society into the environment. • We analyze 1,809 freshwater resource management arrangements in Germany and France. • Follow SES framework aim 'dissect and harness complexity'; boosted regression trees. • Social-ecological and governance context, norms and bottom-up social pressures key. • Context, incentives eclipse knowledge, cognitions for some pro-environmental actions. Encouraging pro-environmental behavior is an urgent global challenge. An interdisciplinary framework covering governance, economic, social, ecological, and psychological dimensions is required to understand the salient features that encourage pro-environmental outcomes within and across contexts. We apply the Ostrom social-ecological systems framework to model voluntary investments by members of civil society into the aquatic environment. Using a data set of 1,809 angling clubs managing water bodies for fish stocking and habitat management in Germany and France, we show that a small set of factors, most crucially social-ecological and governance context as well as social norms and other bottom-up social pressures, drive environmental investments. These factors appear to override behavioral influences from psychological variables of the decision-maker. By contrast, the contextual setting related to property rights, size of the resource system, and social expectations were found to be strongly related to behavioral decisions, highlighting that the social-ecological context as well as incentives may be more important than knowledge and cognitions in driving certain pro-environmental actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Angling clubs in central Europe regularly use fish stocking to maintain or enhance stocks. Our objective was to understand the behavioral intention of club decision makers to alter stocking practices. To that end, we conducted a survey among a random sample of fisheries managers in angling clubs in Germany ( n = 1222) and France ( n = 587). We report four key findings. First, the intention to decrease stocking was better predicted than the intention to increase stocking, suggesting that the decision to increase stocking is under less psychological control. Second, differing psychological constructs predicted the intentions to alter three distinct stocking practices (stocking amount in general, stocking of fry and juvenile fish, stocking of harvestable fishes), indicating that no universal set of psychological predictors for stocking decision making exists. Third, the perception of the socio-economic situation of the club and of the status of the club’s waters had consistent explanatory significance, while the predictive power of basic sociopsychological characteristics related to stocking (attitude, norms etc.) was low. However, the clubs’ past stocking measures (club typology) moderated the impact of the attitude, norms and beliefs, thereby revealing that the effect of the psychological disposition of the decision maker on intended future stocking behavior depended on the club’s ecological and social context. Similarly and finally, beliefs about stocking-related ecological and genetic risks did not exert strong influence on the intention to alter stocking practices, but their explanatory power increased when the club typology was taken into account. We conclude (i) that contextual (social and ecological) factors, not psychological dispositions per se, inform stocking intentions and (ii) that intended stocking regime alterations depend on the interaction of the psychological disposition with the contextual frame within which stocking decisions are made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]