Research sought to evaluate environmental attitudes, environmental knowledge, and nature-based recreation in Mississippi upper-elementary adolescents, as delineated by race/ethnicity and gender. Research was conducted Spring 2015 in eight study schools using three survey instruments. Analysis was conducted using one-way ANOVA, univariate analysis of variance, and generalized linear mixed models. Results found that no gender differences exist between environmental attitudes or knowledge; however, Caucasian/White students displayed significantly higher environmental knowledge and attitudes versus their African American/Black peers. Additionally, a positive relationship was detected between attitudes and knowledge of study participants. Outdoor, nature-based recreation participation varied along race/ethnicity and gender, with Caucasian/White and male students displaying higher levels of participation. These results suggest a need for targeted environmental education programs for African American/Black students to include integrated knowledge components, as well as increased recreation opportunities for African American/Black and female study participants

This paper looks at the motions sent into the Swedish government’s Committee on Environment and Agriculture between 2018-2022 to see if gender impacts the environmental content. Much research has been done on the environmental attitudes of representatives; however, little research has been done on environmental legislative behaviour. When it’s been done, there have been varying results Some find that women engage in more pro-environmental legislative behaviour than men, and some find that there is no difference (e.g. Fredriksson & Wang, 2011; Jones, 1997). The hypothesis for this study was that women would show more pro-environmental behaviour in their motions. However, the result from this study shows that there was no significant difference in number of environmental motions sent in by women and men. Nevertheless, the results showed that there is a significant connection between parties and pro- environmental motions, where the more right a party was on the left-right scale, the less pro-environmental motions were sent in. In addition, the results show that right wing parties handed in more anti-environmental motions. These findings could strengthen the research on environmental attitudes and environmental behaviour amongst legislators.

Human activities are a major driver of biodiversity degradation and loss, especially in tropical forest areas, where forest-fringe towns and villages depend on the forests for their livelihoods. In order to reduce threats that human activities pose to biodiversity, livelihoods support programs are employed as economic incentives for biodiversity conservation. These programs support the livelihoods activities of local communities, with the aim of triggering favorable attitudes and behaviors towards conservation, and ultimately reduce biodiversity degradation. Their effectiveness as conservation tools has not been evaluated. I investigated the effects of livelihoods programs on conservation attitudes and the consequent effects on biodiversity in the Afadjato-Agumatsa and Atewa forest areas in southeastern Ghana. The study areas are coupled human and natural systems, which are excellent for research in the theoretical framework of biocomplexity in the environment. Using literature reviews and field visits, I documented the specific livelihoods support activities (LSAs) used for biodiversity conservation, their historical trend and geographical distribution in Ghana. I used ex-post costbenefit analysis to determine socio-economic estimates of the LSAs in the two forest areas. Since communities were not randomly assigned to the interventions, I employed quasi-experimental design to evaluate the effects of LSAs on environmental attitudes. I evaluated the effect of conservation attitudes on biodiversity at two levels. These levels included 1) functional biodiversity at the landscape level represented by mean Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of forest; and 2) compositional biodiversity at the species level represented by species diversity of fruit bats. iv The earliest record of LSAs used for biodiversity conservation in Ghana was in 1993. I identified 71 different activities belonging to eight categories. Some of these activities are beekeeping, animal husbandry, crop farming, and snail rearing. Most LSA programs have been in northern Ghana. There was an increasing tendency to make LSAs part of every conservation program in Ghana and this satisfies the current policy of collaborative conservation. The socio-economic estimates of LSAs included: 1) capital investment; 2) net socio-economic benefits; and 3) the benefit-cost ratio. The per-community values of the three estimates were not different between the two study areas. The per capita values of capital investment and net economic benefit were not significantly different between the two study areas. However, benefitcost ratio per capita was higher in Afadjato-Agumatsa than in Atewa. Estimates of economic returns from LSAs were marginal but the perceptions of success were relatively high. Environmental attitudes in LSA communities and non-LSA communities were not significantly different, and this was confirmed by an estimate of infinitesimal effects of LSAs on forest conservation attitudes. Among LSA communities, benefit-cost ratio of LSAs predicted favorable forest conservation attitudes; and change in pro-conservation attitudes were significantly higher in communities that had active LSAs than in communities which had no active LSA. Mean NDVI of the forests decreased from 1991 to 2000 and decreased further but at a slower rate to 2010. Higher forest conservation attitudes predicted higher mean NDVI in 2010. Higher change in mean NDVI from 1991 to 2000 predicted higher change in mean NDVI from 2000 to 2010. Eleven of the 13 fruit bat species in Ghana were recorded in the study areas. Longer v distances between a local community and its forest predicted higher species diversity of forestspecialist fruit bats. The results indicate that LSAs have become a major contribution to Ghana’s current collaborative forest policy. The fact that perceptions of LSA success were moderate even though the economic returns from them were marginal suggest that other factors such as provision of employment, training in new skills and community cohesion played a part in how communities viewed the success as LSAs. Evaluations of conservation attitudes suggest that just participating in LSAs did not improve attitudes; but higher benefit-cost ratio predicted favorable conservation attitudes, and conservation attitudes were higher in communities that sustained their LSAs. Therefore, it may serve biodiversity conservation to invest in LSAs that can be sustained and involve the least costs to local communities. Primary production of the forests, a proxy for a functional habitat, continued to decrease. Preventing communities from locating closer to forests could improve fruit bat diversity, which contributes to natural forest regeneration. Improving conservation attitudes should be an objective of conservation at the landscape scale. On the basis of the results, I developed a conceptual model for forest biodiversity conservation in a biocomplexity framework. This model could be useful for evaluating conservation in tropical forest areas. Lessons from this study can be applied in other incentive-based conservation programs such as payments for ecosystem services systems and carbon market schemes. I suggest that this study be repeated after a decade and that other socio-political and biogeochemical variables be integrated into future studies.

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Les services de tourisme de nature fournis par le patrimoine naturel sont des produits composites et le plus souvent non marchands. Financer la préservation de ce patrimoine par ses usagers est donc tributaire d’une connaissance fine des préférences des touristes et de la valeur qu’ils accordent à la nature. Cette thèse vise de contribuer au débat sur le financement de la préservation des espaces naturels et leurs aménités par les touristes en considérant comme point d’entrée l’hétérogénéité des comportements individuels selon une double perspective. D’abord, nous examinons les déterminants de cette hétérogénéité en termes de la demande de séjours de tourisme en pleine nature, ensuite nous nous penchons sur l’analyse de l’hétérogénéité en termes du mécanisme de contribution choisi par les agents, à savoir, un mécanisme de contribution volontaire ou un mécanisme de contribution contre une service rendu. Les motivations non-économiques de contribution et plus globalement les facteurs cognitifs, en lien avec d’autres caractéristiques individuelles des touristes structurent notre réflexion tout au long de cette thèse. Enfin, les résultats obtenus via cette analyse sont mis en contraste avec ceux issus de la mis en exergue d’un instrument de participation des touristes déjà mis en oeuvre: la taxation. Nous proposons une application aux séjours d’été effectués dans la région de l’estuaire de la Gironde en France. / Tourism services provided by natural environment are composites goods and often non-market. Funding the preservation of this heritage by its own users depends on a profound knowledge of the preferences of tourists and the value they place on nature. This thesis aims to contribute to the debate on the funding of natural areas and amenities preservation programs by tourists. To do so we consider as an entry point the individual’s behavior heterogeneity from two perspectives. First, we examine the determinants of heterogeneity in terms of the demand of nature tourism stay, and then we focus on the analysis of heterogeneity in terms of the contribution mechanism chosen by the agents, e.g., voluntary contribution mechanism or contribution mechanism against a service. The non-economic motivations for contributing and overall cognitive factors, considered in conjunction with other tourists’ individual characteristics, is the main thread structuring our reflection throughout this thesis. Finally, the results obtained through this analysis are contrasted with those from an instrument of tourists contributions already implemented: taxation. We propose an application for summer stays in the region of the Gironde estuary in France.

The theoretical part of the thesis summarizes the findings concerning the fulfillment of environmental education in the Czech Republic and comparison with environmental education in the EU. The research part deals with the change of opinion on the environment in the second year of the grammar school in Nové Strašecí after completing the residential educational program. The analysis has shown that environmental-related views have changed in some cases after passing the course (for example, in waste sorting or fertilizer opinion), but most of the views have not changed (for example, in the willingness to give money to the environment or in view of exaggerating environmental problems).

The vitality of international transborder natural resources is important for the preservation of wildlife corridors, clean water, clean air, and working lands. In particular, not only does the Texas Rio Grande Valley Region in the United States (U.S.), on the U.S.-Mexico border, offer critical habitat important to North American migratory species, the area also provides substantial agricultural goods (i.e., sugarcane, sorghum, melons, onions, citrus, carrots, cabbage, and cattle). Hence, the dilemma between consumptive and non-consumptive uses of natural resources along a large geographic expanse separated by sociopolitical and sociocultural differences, is further complicated. Latinos of Mexican descent along the southwestern U.S. are one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S., yet their influence on U.S. natural resource allocation and management has been largely ignored. For this reason, the purpose of my study was threefold: (1) to determine public perceptions toward natural resources, the environment, and conservation; (2) to assess general environmental behaviors; and (3) to determine general recreational behaviors among three student population groups along the U.S.Mexico border region. The student groups were comprised of Texas students (Texas Latino and Texas non-Latino white), and Mexican students from three northern Mexico states, Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Tamaulipas. A survey was derived from three of the most frequently used environmental concern, behavior, and recreation indices used for research in the discipline. Predictors of environmental concern, behavior, and outdoor recreation participation for my sample varied across sociodemographic and sociopolitical variables for each student group. A review of environmental attitudes found Mexican students were more environmentally friendly (~ 2.35 odds; P < 0.05) than their U.S. counterparts. Among the three student groups, basic environmental behaviors (environmental conservation contribution; avoiding environmentally harmful products; changing car oil; and lawn responsibility) were influenced (P &lt; 0.05) by environmental orientation, political candidate's environmental position, father and mother's educational attainment, place of origin, sex, and combined parent income. Outdoor recreation participation and constraints to outdoor recreation participation among the student groups were influenced (P &lt; 0.05) by parent income, age, place of origin, and environmental orientation. Examples of constraints were: not enough money, personal health reasons, inadequate transportation, and personal safety reasons. Findings from my study benefit natural resource and environmental organizations pursuing collaborative program development and implementation along the U.S.-Mexico border and other transborder regions.

The comprehensive ambition of the present thesis was to acquire knowledge about expectations on and preconditions for environmental moral learning within the education for sustainable development (ESD) in the Swedish upper secondary school. The expectations on ESD were explored by examining the description of “sustainable development” in the curriculum, and the prerequisites were examined by analysing environmental attitudes, commitments, and actions of 18-year-old students. The thesis focuses in particular on attitudes to solidarity as a value that unites the social, economic, and ecological dimensions of sustainable development. The theoretical foundation is based on curriculum theory and learning theory, incorporating influences from pragmatic philosophy, while theories of environmental psychology were applied to explain commonalities in attitudes to altruistic and biospheric values. The thesis comprises four studies, and mixed methods were employed as methodological approach. The first study involved a discourse analysis, and aimed at clarifying the description of sustainable development in the curriculum, and to reveal what subject position(s) the discourse implies. The second study was a questionnaire, where statistical methods were used to analyse attitudes to solidarity, equality, and respect for nature. The third study was also a questionnaire, focusing more specifically on attitudes to different aspects of solidarity. The fourth study was an interview study, utilizing a thematic analysis in order to elucidate how students think about solidarity and the future, and how they have encountered the concepts of solidarity and future in teaching. The results disclosed that the expectations on ESD is characterized by an ecological modernization discourse, in which two subject positions are articulated, one scientific and one technical, the latter with expectations on students to be ethical agents. The quantitative studies in the present thesis corroborated previously found correlations between attitudes to altruistic and attitudes to biospheric values. The significant correlation between future orientation and solidarity unveiled by the present thesis constitutes however a pioneering result. The interview analyses imparted that students have experienced little moral reasoning in school with regard to sustainable development, and furthermore conveyed that the future dimension had basically been missing in the teaching they had encountered. The present thesis furthermore contributes methodologically and theoretically by the development of a new scale for appraising solidarity.

abstract: Recent research within the field of natural resource management has been devoted to studying the cognitive structures, called mental models, that guide people’s thoughts, actions, and decision-making. Artificial lighting threatens the sustainability of pristine night skies around the world and is growing worldwide at an average rate of six-percent per year. Despite these trends, stakeholders’ mental models of night skies have been unexplored. This study will address this gap by eliciting stakeholders’ mental models of dark skies. Scenario planning has become a pervasive tool across diverse sectors to analyze complex systems for making decisions under uncertainty. The theory of scenario planning hypothesizes that scenario planning contributes to learning and improves upon participants’ mental models. However, there have been scant empirical studies attempting to investigate these two claims. Stakeholders’ mental models of dark skies were mapped while simultaneously testing the hypotheses that participation in scenario planning results in more complex mental models and alters environmental attitudes. Twenty-one Arizona stakeholders participated in one of two workshops during September 2016. Three identical surveys were given to measure knowledge, environmental attitudes and mental model change during the workshops. Knowledge gain peaked during the introductory lecture and continued to increase during the workshop. Scenario planning increased participants’ environmental attitudes from anthropocentric to nature-centered and was found to have a significant positive impact on dark sky advocates’ change in mental model complexity. The most prominent drivers affecting dark skies were identified using social network analysis of the pre and post mental models. The most prominent concepts were altered significantly from pre to post workshop suggesting that scenario planning may aid practitioners in understanding exogenous factors to their area of expertise. These findings have critical theoretical and managerial implications of mental model alteration, environmental attitudes, and the future of Arizona’s night skies. A revised theoretical framework is offered to include environmental attitudes into the theory of scenario planning and a conceptual framework was created to illustrate the most salient drivers affecting or being affected by dark skies. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Community Resources and Development 2016