4 results
Motivations for committed nature conservation action in Europe
- JEROEN F. ADMIRAAL, RIYAN J.G. VAN DEN BORN, ALMUT BERINGER, FLAVIA BONAIUTO, LAVINIA CICERO, JUHA HIEDANPÄÄ, PAUL KNIGHTS, LUUK W.J. KNIPPENBERG, ERICA MOLINARIO, CORNELIS J.M. MUSTERS, OSMA NAUKKARINEN, KATARINA POLAJNAR, FLORIN POPA, ALES SMREKAR, TIINA SOININEN, CARMEN PORRAS-GOMEZ, NATHALIE SOETHE, JOSE-LUIS VIVERO-POL, WOUTER T. DE GROOT
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- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 44 / Issue 2 / June 2017
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 13 March 2017, pp. 148-157
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Despite ongoing efforts to motivate politicians and publics in Europe regarding nature conservation, biodiversity continues to decline. Monetary valuation of ecosystem services appears to be insufficient to motivate people, suggesting that non-monetary values have a crucial role to play. There is insufficient information about the motivations of actors who have been instrumental in successful conservation projects. We investigated the motivations underlying these biodiversity actors using the ranking of cards and compared the results with the rankings of motivations of a second group of actors with more socially related interests. For both groups of actors, their action relating to biodiversity was supported in general by two groups of motivations related to living a meaningful life and moral values. The non-biodiversity actors also noted that their action relating to biodiversity rested more on beauty, place attachment and intrinsic values in comparison with their main non-biodiversity interests. Our results have implications for environmental policy and biodiversity conservation in that the current tendency of focusing on the economic valuation of biodiversity fails to address the motivations of successful actors, thereby failing to motivate nature conservation on an individual level.
Storytelling as a medium for balanced dialogue on conservation in Cameroon
- WOUTER T. DE GROOT, NATASCHA ZWAAL
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- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 34 / Issue 1 / March 2007
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 05 March 2007, pp. 45-54
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In conservation efforts where genuine community involvement is aimed at, communication should be a two-way affair in which the local voice can be truly heard. In developing countries especially, however, this voice tends to be smothered by the power and prestige that usually lies with the supra-local conservation agencies. This paper explores how fictional storytelling, a communication medium as old as mankind, may enable local people to respond in freedom to the issue of conservation. Stories that end by posing a dilemma to the audience are generally used in Cameroon to initiate discussion. First trials in Cameroon used this format to tell a story of animals that found themselves at risk of extinction and sent out a delegation to the human world to plea for a ‘last home’. Although enjoyed by researchers and audience alike, this story appeared to suffer from several technical and structural shortcomings. In order to overcome these, empirical research (for example the gathering of some 600 stories in the field) and theoretical considerations led to the design of a second-generation story that retained the dilemma format but carried fewer implicit messages and introduced a third, adjudicating party. This story was tried out in 13 villages in Central and North Cameroon with full success, both in terms of process (the elicitation of focused and rich debate) and in terms of content (the clarity of arguments and underlying assumptions). If led by the principles developed in this paper, fictional storytelling is a worthy addition to the methodological repertoire of all conservation professionals who wish to communicate conservation to local communities in a manner that is structurally balanced and substantively open.
Protected area managers' perceptions of community conservation training in West and Central Africa
- PAUL SCHOLTE, WOUTER T. DE GROOT, ZACHARIE MAYNA, TALLA
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- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 32 / Issue 4 / December 2005
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 17 February 2006, pp. 349-355
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Training needs assessments have revealed the need for people-oriented training to increase the job performance of African protected area (PA) managers. The Garoua regional wildlife college for francophone Africa (Cameroon) developed the first long (diploma and certificate) and refresher courses in community conservation for mid-career PA managers and guards from West and Central Africa. Through lectures, case studies and participatory rural appraisal exercises, the courses emphasized the development of skills for tuning principles of people participation to the conservation objectives of PAs. The present study reviews the trainees' evaluations of these courses, to appreciate their relevance and support their further development. Diploma students judged the course as highly relevant because of the acquired analytical skills, whereas certificate students considered them only of medium relevance. The response to short refresher courses varied as a function of the use of cases from either the trainees' professional experience or from the fieldwork location. The reactions of trainees to this learning opportunity show that PA personnel are not ‘attitude-limited’ as often suggested. Their constraints to develop a more people-oriented work style lie largely in the areas of knowledge and skills. These findings point to the need for increased efforts to implement training of PA personnel in community conservation, preferably early in their careers.
The new biophilia: an exploration of visions of nature in Western countries
- Riyan J.G. van den Born, Rob H.J. Lenders, Wouter T. de Groot, Ellen Huijsman
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- Journal:
- Environmental Conservation / Volume 28 / Issue 1 / March 2001
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 10 May 2002, pp. 65-75
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Visions of nature are the subject of much philosophical and policy debate. The present paper focuses, however, on the visions of nature held by people not professionally involved in the issue, namely those of the general public. These visions constitute the democratic basis of environmental conservation and the frame for effective two-way communication between professionals and communities on nature protection and management. It appears that the general public in Europe and the USA has developed a strong general ‘biophilia’ (nature-friendliness). One indicator of this is that in quantitative research, 70–90% of the population recognize the right of nature to exist even if not useful to humans in any way. In qualitative research settings, lay people reveal a remarkable richness and depth of views and experiences of nature. A quantitative survey on images and values of nature, and a qualitative study consisting of in-depth interviews on the relationship between childhood experiences in nature and adult visions of nature were conducted in the Netherlands. A factor analysis revealed a classification of types of nature, which included ‘wild nature’, ‘arcadian nature’, ‘penetrative nature’ and other such images that, with wild nature in the lead, were ascribed a smoothly decreasing degree of naturalness. Asked to rank the values and functions of nature, the top three were formed by the value for human health, the intrinsic value and the value for future generations. In the qualitative interviews, indications were found that more intense childhood experiences with nature could be associated with later ascription of a high degree of naturalness to wild nature, and less intense experiences with later ascription of a high degree of naturalness to arcadian nature. Many significant experiences took place beyond the reach of parental supervision. Findings such as these are of obvious relevance for environmental education and the design of ‘experiential nature’ in and around protected areas. Social science research concerning nature protection is often triggered by frictions between local people and protected area authorities. Such situations tend to be dominated by the airing of grievances, demands for economic compensation and so on, and these then also tend to dominate the research findings. Taking place away from these specific hot spots of conflict, social science research of the types discussed in this paper shows that many non-conflictual lines of communication are open for nature protection agencies.