Conservation behavior can defy traditional predictors

Abstract Direct experiences in nature enable us learn and form environmental attitudes. Being influenced by nature as children is thought to help form a connection to nature that can lead to a lifetime of pro-environmental behaviors. A survey of adults in a watershed with a damaged estuary, however, suggests that concern and environmental identity were strong among most of the respondents and did not predict who performed environmental behaviors. Outdoor activities and childhood nature experiences were not correlated to or predictive of concern or behavior. Perhaps the urgency of the declining ecosystem prompted a new social norm for environmental behaviors that extended to a wider variety of residents than those who typically care about the environment.