The purpose of this study was to explore how volunteers engaged in natural-area
based projects develop attachments to the resource and act as stewards for these
resources. The context of this study was the National Park Service's All Taxa
Biodiversity Inventory (ATBI) project. This project recruits citizen scientist volunteers
to go out into the field with scientists to help collect and catalogue species in the park in
an attempt to generate an all inclusive species inventory. Using data collected during indepth
interviews and notes taken from participant observations, this study found ATBI
participants' motivations to volunteer in the project were multifaceted and included (a)
an attachment to the park, (b) an attachment to specific species, (c) the social bonds to
other volunteers, (d) the bioblitz experience itself, (e) and/or the opportunity to learn
about the natural environment. Analysis of the data also found volunteer informants had
personal, well defined meanings attached to the resource prior to the inception of the
ATBI project. Through participation in the ATBI project, however, the resource was
experienced in a new way, with new meanings emerging while other established
meanings were refined. It was found that these established, emerging, and refined meanings formed the foundation of the informants' attachments to the ATBI resource(s),
which in turn became the basis for their stewardship of their respective parks, as well as
feelings of stewardship for natural areas beyond park boundaries.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-05-547 |
| Date | 16 January 2010 |
| Creators | Eccles, Kate |
| Contributors | Kyle, Gerard T. |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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