Christian Oswaldo Asanza-Reyes, Antonio J Castro, J. M. Requena-Mullor, M. D. López-Rodríguez, C. Quintas-Soriano
{"title":"Relational values shape people’s connectedness to nature in a former military protected area of Ecuador","authors":"Christian Oswaldo Asanza-Reyes, Antonio J Castro, J. M. Requena-Mullor, M. D. López-Rodríguez, C. Quintas-Soriano","doi":"10.1017/s0376892923000322","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Relational values are a way of recognizing and valuing the complex and interconnected relationships between people and nature, such as caregiving, place attachment and spiritual meaning, as well as the social and cultural impacts of degradation and environmental and conservation efforts. However, the implications of these values for the management and conservation of protected areas are little known. We explored the role of relational values in shaping local communities’ connectedness to a protected area of Ecuador that had been used by the military in the past and the implications of the values for well-being. Four hundred individual face-to-face surveys in the surroundings of Arenillas Ecological Reserve (south-west Ecuador) indicated high levels of connectedness towards this natural reserve amongst local communities through multiple values of nature. However, relational values were identified as the most prominent value explaining the strength of connectedness to nature, followed by intrinsic and instrumental values. We also showed that combinations of different natural values (instrumental, intrinsic and relational) might explain the support for specific well-being components. Our findings offer understanding of human behaviour towards protected areas with a military past and represent a first step in Ecuador towards comprehending how relational values shape the connectedness of local communities to nature.","PeriodicalId":50517,"journal":{"name":"Environmental Conservation","volume":"19 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Environmental Conservation","FirstCategoryId":"93","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0376892923000322","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Relational values are a way of recognizing and valuing the complex and interconnected relationships between people and nature, such as caregiving, place attachment and spiritual meaning, as well as the social and cultural impacts of degradation and environmental and conservation efforts. However, the implications of these values for the management and conservation of protected areas are little known. We explored the role of relational values in shaping local communities’ connectedness to a protected area of Ecuador that had been used by the military in the past and the implications of the values for well-being. Four hundred individual face-to-face surveys in the surroundings of Arenillas Ecological Reserve (south-west Ecuador) indicated high levels of connectedness towards this natural reserve amongst local communities through multiple values of nature. However, relational values were identified as the most prominent value explaining the strength of connectedness to nature, followed by intrinsic and instrumental values. We also showed that combinations of different natural values (instrumental, intrinsic and relational) might explain the support for specific well-being components. Our findings offer understanding of human behaviour towards protected areas with a military past and represent a first step in Ecuador towards comprehending how relational values shape the connectedness of local communities to nature.
期刊介绍:
Environmental Conservation is one of the longest-standing, most highly-cited of the interdisciplinary environmental science journals. It includes research papers, reports, comments, subject reviews, and book reviews addressing environmental policy, practice, and natural and social science of environmental concern at the global level, informed by rigorous local level case studies. The journal"s scope is very broad, including issues in human institutions, ecosystem change, resource utilisation, terrestrial biomes, aquatic systems, and coastal and land use management. Environmental Conservation is essential reading for all environmentalists, managers, consultants, agency workers and scientists wishing to keep abreast of current developments in environmental science.