Concomitant with the effect of demographic changes experienced by society are the perceptions held by the public concerning the use and valuation of natural resources, i.e. in what ways does the public value natural resources, and how do these ‘values’ translate into public policy regarding resource use and protection?
When considered in aggregate, these perceptions have been linked to environ- mental behaviours, values and beliefs, normative behaviours, participation in environmentally related movements, and resource use. This section will examine some of the factors that influence the formation of perceptions and how these perceptions can in turn influence behaviours.
Forming perceptions
The literature is relatively consistent about the importance of developing processes to facilitate participation in the natural resource decision making, legitimacy in developing policy, and setting goals (Frissell and Bayles, 1996;
Slocombe, 1998). Other studies have examined how individuals can be classi- fied taxonomically depending on how they view the environment from a utilit- arian or preservation perspective. For example, Kolb et al. (1994) describe individuals as having either utilitarian or ecosystem perspectives. Within this framework, those with a utilitarian perspective tend to view forests as primarily a source of timber products. Conversely, individuals possessing an ecosystem perspective see the same forest and envisage a range of opportunities including forest health, recreation and water quality.
Related to the ecosystem perspective, Bennett (1976) suggests that how we use our natural resources is, in part, an artefact of cultural factors, perceived or Demographic changes Implications
Ageing of population
Growth of minority groups
Population distribution Less available leisure
time
Need to accommodate older visitor. Greater demand for amenities.
Demand for activities that are less physically demanding.
Greater demand for ‘front-country’, less demand for backcountry opportunities.
Potential change in activity mix.
Need for managers to have more comprehensive and wide-ranging communication training.
Movement to wildland–urban interface lands.
Greater percentage of ‘urbanized’ visitors.
More reliance on technology.
Visits that are shorter, closer to home and cheaper.
Demand by visitors for more activity choice.
Adapted from the Proceedings of the Second Canada/US Workshop on Visitor Management in Parks, Forests and Protected Areas, Madison, Wisconsin, 13–16 May 1992.
Table 4.1. Demographic change and implications for natural resource management.
real needs, and opportunities. Thus, according to Bennett, society’s view of the health of an ecosystem, or particular natural resource such as a forest, is contin- gent on how well we can use it. Controversy arises when different uses of the resource conflict with one another. For example, timber harvesting is one use that can often preclude or interfere with another use, such as recreation. Thus, while one group of users may see the forest as being healthy and capable of sustaining use (timber harvesting), another group (e.g. outdoor recreationists) may see the very same resource as being diminished or degraded, based on a previous use (timber harvesting).
Within the previously described context, one way perceptions are formed about natural resource uses is through the perceived benefits that can be accrued through these resources. For example, Fine Jenkins (1997) points out that many of the controversies involved in natural resources are manifestations of differing perceptions of values and anticipated needs.
Another example of the dynamic nature of perceptions of natural resources is the growing concern over the relationship between ecosystem and human health. For example, McMichael (1997) describes how issues related to global environmental change can influence human perceptions of threats to health and acceptable uses of natural resources. These concerns include: (i) an increase in various vector-borne diseases such as malaria; (ii) rises in sea-level; (iii) rises in mortality and morbidity rates due to increases in thermal stress; (iv) changes in food production patterns; and (v) increases in rates of various cancers. In addition, a number of countries now face ‘demographic entrapment’ in that the projected or current population numbers exceed the carrying capacity of the environment. Kinget al. (1995) suggest that demographic entrapment will often lead to destabilization and economic vulnerability. Thus, perceptions about how natural resources should be utilized are also dependent on what perceived or real threats are being felt by the public.
The development of perceptions related to natural resources can also be traced to the influencing role that various institutions play in our society. Force and Machlis (1997) define social institutions as collective solutions to universal social challenges or needs which include law, religion, agriculture, education, commerce, leisure and natural resource management. For example, a number of authors suggest that religion can exert an important influence on the perceptions and beliefs that an individual has towards natural resources (White, 1967;
Schultzet al., 2000). In a similar fashion, other studies have shown that level of education (Van Liere and Dunlap, 1980), type of educational discipline (Ewert and Baker, 2001; Hodgkinson and Innes, 2001), participation in outdoor recreation (Nord et al., 1998) and socioeconomic status (SES) (Kline and Armstrong, 2001) also play important roles in the formation of perceptions of natural resources and the management of those resources.
Process and decision making
A more recent collective solution that has emerged in the decision-making process concerned with natural resources is participatory involvement in which
various stakeholders and other concerned groups have some input into the process (Hornet al., 1993; Bettinger and Boston, 2001; Parkes and Panelli, 2001). Within this decision framework, proposed models have assumed that the group has a complete set of information from which to make decisions and/or recommendations (see also Chapter 7). This ‘rational’ model assumes that this complete knowledge base is necessary to reach effective solutions. In the second model, termed the semi-rational or procedural rational model, data are incom- plete and often necessitate selecting an alternative that is ‘good enough’. In a third model, labelled by Bettinger and Boston (2001) as the ‘garbage can’
model, both data and goals are incomplete and the participatory members are often transitory. As a result, the decisions are often poorly derived and even conflicting.
To sum up to this point, the literature is becoming relatively consistent in suggesting that the overall values being assigned to various natural resources is moving from a strict utilitarian perspective to one that is more multidimensional, involving a wide variety of values and expectations. For example, a forested area not only presents an opportunity for timber harvesting, but also increasingly represents an area more amenable to recreation, water quality, wildlife management, etc.
Whatever the process or method used in participatory decision making, Cortner (1996) argues that utilizing two-way communication, informal methods, and early and consistent participation will aid in the overall effectiveness. In addition, future questions regarding participatory models will need to address the fundamental issues of the proper roles of the various parties involved in the issue (e.g. special interest groups, managing agencies, etc.) and the various values that they have (Wondolleck, 1992; Cortner and Shannon, 1993; Cortner, 1996).
Theoretical frameworks
Not surprisingly, a number of theoretical frameworks have emerged that seek to explain how environmental perceptions, values and behaviours are formed.
The broad spectrum of these theories includes the following: (i) an individual view of the environment is a matter of one’s worldview (Dunlap and Van Liere, 1978); (ii) people make rational choices about the environment (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980); (iii) behaviours are linked to altruistic values (Herberlein, 1972); or (iv) people make decisions based on a combination of knowledge, moral beliefs and feelings of personal responsibility (Kaiser et al., 1999).
One of the more recent models to emerge is that proposed by Stern et al., 1999). Termed the VBN or values–belief–norm theory, Stern and his colleagues have attempted to combine components of a number of previous theories, as previously mentioned, suggesting the following connection:valuesÆbeliefsÆ personal normsÆbehaviours.
The research by Sternet al. (1999), using this theoretical framework, lends support to the belief that an individual’s predisposition to pro-environmental action is strongly influenced by his or her perceptual base and personal moral norms. Sternet al. also suggest that environmental behaviours are closely linked
to four causal variables, two of which are connected to the previous discussion of demographic changes and perceptions. These causal variables include: (i) attitu- dinal factors such as perceptions and beliefs; (ii) personal capabilities, such as those associated with the demographics of age, SES, etc.; (iii) habit or routine;
and (iv) contextual forces. In the latter case, contextual forces include issues such as personal choice, perceptions of environmental equity, the influence of the media and international influences. The following section discusses a number of these contextual forces in greater detail, including: individual choice and markets, environmental inequity and justice, policy tools and environmental philosophy.
Individual choice and markets
Based on circumstance, each individual goes through life with a set of opportuni- ties that provide him or her with various choices in the consumption of natural resources. These opportunities and choices join together to form a collective arrangement of natural resource consumption and an overall pattern of environ- mental stewardship. In more complex societies, individual roles have become increasingly specialized and, in order to meet rising quality of life expectations, individuals develop associations with others to produce certain goods and ser- vices for trade. The result is a market that creates a supply and demand for a range of natural resources in various quantities, and in an assortment of resource flows and distribution patterns. While individual consumption is often many steps removed from a decision to develop a resource (e.g. a nickel mine in Voisey Bay, Labrador, or a diamond mine in Sierra Leone), each individual’s consumption pattern stimulates demand that can lead to pressure to ‘produce’
more of the resource.
According to classical economic theory, each ‘individual’ has specific prefer- ences and acts rationally to optimize personal welfare, while everyone else tries to do the same. In the context of natural resource decision making, a rational choice is seen as the course of action that most efficiently allows an individual to attain his/her desired outcomes. This means that individuals will act in their own self-interest and, when necessary, will act competitively against the interests of others to maximize personal benefit. In the context of individual nations, such as the USA, the UK and Japan, these ‘individual’ countries have developed com- plex consumer markets and highly sophisticated industries that must rely on an almost insatiable appetite for natural resources. These countries have largely transformed their economies into consumer societies where the demand for goods and services and, as a consequence, demand for natural resources throughout the world, is no longer driven by what could reasonably be con- sidered rational demand but is one that is largely driven by a rather irrational craving for consumer goods. This heightened consumer demand is a largely self-driven phenomenon and can have profound consequences for natural resources.
What can be discerned from the previous section is that individuals in the developed world consume considerably more natural resources throughout their
lifetime than do those born in developing countries. It behoves those who live in developed countries to rethink their consumption patterns in order to make them more equitable and just. The idea of a sustainable society is one such initiative and, as will be seen throughout the rest of this chapter and the remainder of this book, such an initiative is much easier to talk about than to actually put into practice. IREM processes that take into account the diversity of resource needs and wants can be effective in developing new resource consumption patterns of use.
Environmental inequity and justice
The colour of your skin or the ethnic group to which you belong would not seem to be obvious influencing factors in explaining resource and environmental management behaviour. However, on a community or regional scale, there is growing evidence that in the USA, toxic or other unhealthful management pro- jects are situated increasingly in areas where, for example, Blacks, Hispanics and other lower socioeconomic segments of America live. Similar patterns of injustice are found in other countries such as in the UK, Australia and Canada. There are three complementary explanations. The first suggests that less economically advantaged groups, regardless of colour and ethnicity, migrate to where work is likely to be in greatest demand and where housing is most affordable. Such conditions can be found near industrial, environmental remediation sites (e.g.
landfills) and mining sites. A second explanation suggests that disagreeable pro- jects including landfills and polluting industries such as mining operations are more likely to find planning approval where the politically weakest groups live. A third possible explanation suggests that the more affluent in society are able to migrate away from environmentally risky neighbourhoods, just as the middle class have moved from the inner city to the suburbs.
Lester et al. (2001) suggest three phases of the environmental injustice movement. The first phase, in the 1970s, focused on civil rights in the inner cities; the second, in the 1980s, concentrated more directly on environmental racism; and the third phase, emerging in the late 1980s, focused more squarely on environmental justice or lack thereof. In legitimizing the case for environmen- tal ‘injustice’, researchers must show a clear relationship between environmental risk and an identifiable marginalized group, such as the poor or Blacks or Hispanics in, for example, a White-dominated society. Research by a number of scientists, including Lesteret al., suggests that there is a significant relationship throughout the USA between the increased proportion of Blacks or Hispanics in a county’s (local government) population and that county’s exposure to environ- mental risk and pollution-related factors such as total toxic releases, toxic stack air releases and toxic gas releases.
In theory, environmental injustice argues that the communities associated with class, ethnic group and race are directly linked to the level of environmental risk, and that privileged groups in society are able to organize themselves politically in a more effective way, in order to keep environmentally risky developments away from their communities. This latter phenomenon is known
as the ‘not-in-my-back-yard’ or NIMBY trend. NIMBY continually works to the advantage of predominantly White middle and upper class communities and redirects unpleasant resource management developments to where political mobilization is weakest. Regardless of the specific cause and effect relationship for environmental injustice, empirical research seeks to explain the relation- ships between race, ethnicity and socioeconomic standing regarding vicinity and environmental risk. From a neo-Marxist perspective, developed countries adopt stronger environmental regulations, thus creating the tendency for capital and environmental risk to be exported to developing countries where resource management regulations and political mobilization are weaker. This is sometimes referred to as ‘neo-colonialism’ (Mol, 2001, p. 63).
Policy tools
The way in which government responds to public policy needs, public opinion and media treatment may have profound impacts on resource and environ- mental management policy. The methods by which various policy tools are applied are critically important to how resource and environmental problems are dealt with in society.
In assessing the appropriate role for government, it is important to recognize that, prior to the Second World War, most Western governments had a relatively limited role to play in people’s everyday lives. Beginning with the Second World War, it was learned that the nation state (e.g. the USA or the UK) could accom- plish important national objectives by using a variety of policy tools such as regulations, propaganda and incentives. Following successes in public policy during and immediately following the war, the post-war era brought a period of national optimism where the public developed a belief that government could solve difficult social problems including environmental and resource management concerns through various forms of governmental intervention.
Interestingly, over 20 years ago, O’Riordan (1981) described a policy
‘pecking order’ that he referred to as a ‘hierarchy of national goals’ (p. 20). This hierarchy, as he described it, habitually placed environmental policy towards the bottom of the stack of public policy priorities. This action regularly left environ- mental problem solving to the lowest levels of government or to the weakest governmental departments where technical expertise, enforcement ability and remedial capacity were the least effective. Since O’Riordan provided this perspective, significant improvements, as well as noteworthy declines, have been made in various environmental policy arenas. More recently, there has been what Howlett calls ‘a hollowing out’ process in government (see Howlett, 2002, p. 25). Government functions that in relatively modern times (perhaps the last 40 years) were the responsibility of senior government (e.g. national and state/province) are increasingly transferred to regional and municipal govern- ments, to quasi-governmental organizations or to the private sector. Such shifts in responsibility have often relied on voluntary compliance or self-reporting mechanisms rather than direct regulation, with sometimes devastating results, such as in Walkerton, Ontario, Canada. In Walkerton, a transference of
responsibility from professional experts in water quality testing at the provincial level to poorly trained custodians at the municipal level resulted in disaster, causing several deaths and serious illness for hundreds more (O’Connor, 2002).
Knowing what level of government is most effective and efficient to handle various resource and environmental management problems is a difficult task, and making the appropriate choice can drive needed change or impede it. For example, at the federal level in the USA, some issues (e.g. such as requiring the use of unleaded gasoline in cars and the installation of catalytic converters on automobile exhaust systems) have been handled quite effectively. These enforcements have often provided significant environmental quality benefits.
Interestingly, however, the automobile industry and consumers alike sidestepped the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) regulations introduced in the USA in 1975, which was part of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. CAFÉ regulations were designed progressively to improve the gasoline consumption of private motor vehicles by increasingly adopting stricter regulations for the whole production fleet of each automobile manufacturing corporation. Given a fixed number of automobiles, this would have reduced the total amount of pollution.
Instead, consumers turned to gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles (SUVs) and simi- larly less energy-efficient mini-vans and pick-up trucks. These vehicles, which at the time of legislative introduction accounted for a relatively small proportion of privately owned and operated vehicles, were exempted from this legislation, largely because of their relatively small aggregate contribution to pollution at the time of legislative enactment. Unfortunately, a massive assemblage of SUV, mini-van and pick-up truck owners have now combined to create a substantial pollution problem. Moreover, from a political perspective, these owners have formed a powerful self-interest lobby to persuade federal legislators to keep these vehicles out of CAFÉ regulations. Interestingly, at least as far as road safety is concerned, the perception of greater safety with SUVs is not supported by scientific evidence (Yun, 2002).
Environmental philosophy
Rather than a driving force for resource and environmental management, De-Shalit (2000) argues that environmental philosophers and their thinking have had surprisingly little influence over policy making and are separated from main- stream policy making by too great a concentration on obscure theoretical ques- tions with little direct relevance to society. This detachment, he argues, stems from environmental philosophers’ preoccupation with a distinctly narrow view on environmental ethics rather than a more pluralistic and embracing view on how to involve ordinary citizens with environmental and resource management issues in their everyday lives. To draw philosophers and environmental philo- sophy closer to the mainstream of societal behaviour, De-Shalit argues that society at large must be given a greater profile in shaping philosophical questions and theories.
We have seen from various discussions in this chapter that the general public, on the one hand, supports policy through various public opinion polls to