Understanding environmental optimists and pessimists and Australia's Great Barrier Reef

Individuals typically hold one of two kinds of environmental attitudes; there arc those who see the future of settings as being maintained as well as or better than at present and those who view the state of the environment as likely to decline. This study reports a major survey of both the residents of Australia's east coast cities as well as those living close to Australia's Great Barrier Reef and explores resident responses to the threats and management priorities of the reef environment. The study uses the optimists-pessimists distinction as a way of exploring the\ud differences in public perception. The paper aims to contribute to an understanding of marine environment futures in two ways. First the detailed results of the 1183 person survey helped define the current state of public\ud awareness of reef issues and management priorities. Second in utilising the optimists-pessimists distinction the study provides an organising framework for understanding public perception which can be contrasted with demographic and complex psychographic approaches. It will be argued that the optimists-pessimists distinction may be a useful organiser in other environmental settings as it can be linked to larger attitude and value frameworks embedded in the social psychological framework of social representations or everyday theories of how to see the world