This Master thesis examines the role of resident empowerment in rural nature tourism in shaping the relations between how residents engage with local places and local nature stewardship in Plouguerneau, France. Through a conceptual framework that includes the concepts of empowerment, place attachment, care for nature, and nature stewardship, the study models the effect of place attachment and care for nature on resident stewardship attitudes and how resident empowerment in tourism mediates this relationship. The theoretical underpinnings of social exchange theory (SET) and nature’s contributions to people (NCP) theory are employed to provide a comprehensive understanding of these relationships. The study employs a mixed-method approach, including online and door-to-door surveying. To analyze the results, partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used. The findings suggest that place attachment is not a significant predictor of empowerment through tourism or nature stewardship as only place identity was predicting political empowerment and environmental citizenship. This finding challenges the assumption that strong place attachment necessarily leads to empowerment from tourism and nature stewardship. Therefore, it highlights the need for a more nuanced understanding of the factors that motivate residents to engage in environmentally responsible behaviors. The results also show that care for nature is significantly predicting both empowerment from tourism and nature stewardship. Furthermore, the study reveals that tourism can be a powerful tool for empowering local communities and enhancing their sense of responsibility towards the environment. Specifically, the findings suggest that involving residents in tourism decision-making processes can promote their engagement in environmental citizenship. Overall, this thesis contributes to our understanding of how tourism can contribute to local nature stewardship in rural communities by empowering residents to take an active role in caring for their natural environment.

Stewardship in South Africa, as it is being implemented within the framework of the Biodiversity Stewardship Programme (BSP), is an attempt by conservation agencies to engage landowners in the voluntary securing of parcels of biodiverse land, through signing a contract for a certain time period, not to develop the landscape in ways that will impact negatively on the biodiversity of the area in question. The focus of this study is the relationship between biodiversity stewardship and social learning, as I hope to ascertain how stewardship practices are helping to resolve the current problems of biodiversity loss in the Western Cape. The overall aim of this research is to gain an understanding of how, in its capacity as a conservation education process, the Cape Nature Stewardship Programme can foster social learning amongst the landowners involved in its implementation, by leading them to a better understanding of their environmental responsibilities. Data was generated through the use of interviews and informal discussions with participants together with document analysis, such as brochures, pamphlets and presentations. My approach to the analysis of my data was two-phased. In the first phase, I analysed the data generated from the interview process and from reviewing the documents the stewardship officials supplied me with. The second phase involved looking into the results of the two case studies, and formulating analytical statements which were then used to review the case evidence within a social learning perspective, derived from Wals (2007). In constructing an analytical framework for the interpretation of my data, I drew heavily on Wals' (2007) notion of social learning occurring in sequential activities. I used this insight as a lens through which to trace the educational effects of the implementation of the CNSP in the two case study areas.The research highlighted evidence that Stewardship initiatives should be based on the foundation of social learning and invest time and effort in building an environmental knowledge capital amongst the landowners involved. By equipping them with these necessary conservation skills, one creates a 'community of practice' where those individuals adopt a sustainability habitus contributing towards a change and environmental understanding and practises in field.