Nature conservation from a Junior High School perspective

Journal for Nature Conservation 20 (2012) 153–161

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Journal for Nature Conservation journal homepage: www.elsevier.de/jnc

Nature conservation from a Junior High School perspective Luís M. Rosalino a,b,∗ , Cristina Rosalino c a

Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências de Lisboa, Edifício C2, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal Laboratório de Ecologia, Turismo e Sustentabilidade (LETSISLA), ISLA Campus Lisboa Quinta do Bom Nome, Estrada da Correia, 53-1500-210 Lisboa, Portugal c Escola Secundária Leal da Câmara, Av. Pedro Nunes, n◦ 1, 2635-317 Rio de Mouro, Portugal b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 27 July 2011 Received in revised form 30 December 2011 Accepted 7 January 2012 Keywords: Education Environmental attitudes Knowledge Middle school Portugal

a b s t r a c t Nature conservation has a higher probability of being successful when it is backed by public support. This is influenced by knowledge and values, many of which may derive from school curricula, experiments and activities. We implemented a study in a Portuguese Junior High School aiming to evaluate: (1) which factors influence how people subscribe reasons for conserving nature; (2) the criteria used to identify conservation priority species; and, (3) the proposed recovery measures for priority species. A survey of 91 students in a suburban area revealed that nature conservation was regarded as being more important than tourism or industry, but less than values related to public health. Students who have close contacts with wildlife and whose parents have higher education levels exhibited positive attitudes towards nature conservation, which seems to derive from exposure to information related to nature, in their home environment. The criteria chosen to identify conservation priority species and to select appropriate conservation measures indicate that they are likely to be influenced by the media. These results emphasise that the relationship between parental education levels and access to information is an important factor in shaping urban students’ attitudes towards nature conservation. © 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Introduction The world is facing a global extinction crisis with many vertebrate species threatened with extinction (Baillie et al. 2004; Hambler et al. 2011). The need for global awareness relating to the importance of nature and biodiversity conservation has never been greater. Several approaches are required to achieve this goal, including politics, the media, economic assessments of ecosystem services, surveys of public attitudes, industrial support and academic research (Baillie et al. 2004). Whatever the approach considered, conservation has a higher probability of being successful when it is aided by public support, or when arising from public needs or willingness (e.g., bear, Ursus spp., conservation in the USA – Jacobson & McDuff 1998; Kellert 1994; Miller 2005; Schenk et al. 2007). However, it has to be supported by knowledge (e.g., Light 2003) and values (e.g., Jepson & Canney 2003), defined as concepts or beliefs (i.e. facts as an individual perceives them) that guide selection or evaluation of behaviour and events (Dietz et al. 2005). Patry et al. (2007) defended

∗ Corresponding author at: Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências de Lisboa, Edifício C2, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal. Tel.: +351 217500000; fax: +351 217500028. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L.M. Rosalino), [email protected] (C. Rosalino). 1617-1381/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jnc.2012.01.001

that the model “Values and Knowledge Education” (VaKE), which combines knowledge acquisition and values in a constructivist educational perspective, is an efficient approach where values may theoretically derive from school curricula, experiments and activities. This association is based on the fact that a caring attitude (i.e. a positive or negative evaluation of a particular situation – Dietz et al. 2005), apart from the emotional involvement (i.e. attributes of feelings, beliefs and emotions towards nature – environmental sensitivity; Metzger & Mcewen 1999; Sivek 2002) is also developed by knowledge (Brewer 2006). Independent of the considered age group, knowledge (which may be defined as the expertise and skills acquired by a person through experience or education, i.e. formal knowledge – Pope 1982) is usually a common factor associated with positive attitudes towards nature conservation. For example, in Slovenia, teenagers’ positive attitudes regarding Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) conservation were correlated with a higher factual knowledge of the species (Torkar et al. 2010). In the National University of Singapore, biological knowledge is one of the features promoting pro-conservation attitudes among undergraduate students (Chua et al. 2008). However, the relationship between these two factors (experience and education) and the presentation of pro-environmental behaviours is somewhat controversial. In a review paper, Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) discussed the possible factors that affect whether people decide to take action regarding environmental issues. They presented a highly complex behavioural model,

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which divides interacting influential factors into: internal (e.g. knowledge, values, attitudes feelings, emotional involvement); and, external (e.g. economic situation, politics, social and cultural factors); with several barriers to positive influences on proenvironmental behaviour (e.g. old behaviour patterns). Although this model has suffered from some criticism (due to the attempt to reduce the environmental behaviour to a schematic “diagram with boxes and arrows” – Courtenay-Hall & Rogers 2002), this environmental behaviour model is a useful, timely and informative approach (Gough 2002), which may also be a starting point to study the behavioural process involved in displaying proenvironmental behaviours. Other authors have also stressed that pro-environmental concerns are more prone to be long lasting if anchored in significant and meaningful experiences (Maiteny 2002). Assuming the simplification of those models, by reducing the reality to a snapshot of the complex variables and interactions involved in pro-environmental attitudes, we will consider and focus on the above mentioned factors (experience and education) as elements that will surely influence people’s attitudes towards conservation. In rural areas there is a high sense of responsibility and moral obligation to conserve nature, due to people’s familiarity with the wilderness experience (Berenguer et al. 2005), whereas teenagers in urban or suburban areas have little or no contact with wilderness or wildlife. In the latter group the commitment towards conservation is more dependent on the formal knowledge transmitted in schools. The rural population’s role in nature conservation has been well established through the maintenance of traditional land-use practices (Pinto-Correia 2000; Plieninger et al. 2006), by participating in the planning processes and implementing activities that might promote conservation (e.g. tourism) (Törn et al. 2007). Alternatively, in industrialised or newly industrialised countries (e.g. western Europe or China) the importance of urban residents in nature conservation issues derives from the fact that they usually have higher levels of education (e.g. Eastwood & Lipton 2000; Paúl et al. 2003), income (e.g. Paúl et al. 2003; Sicular et al. 2007), have increased exposure to the mass media and knowledge of environmental degradation (e.g. Liu & Leiserowitz 2009), and therefore may have a higher intervention power. Moreover, urban inhabitants usually consider nature for leisure and contemplation and not for survival (Berenguer et al. 2005), therefore may be more prone to conserve it since it does not imply restrictions in their way of life (e.g. Bandara & Tisdell 2003). Based on these assumptions, an a priori assessment of urban and suburban student’s knowledge and attitudes is valuable in helping to improve nature conservation teaching approaches. This is especially important in southern Mediterranean Europe (especially Portugal) where the population shows lower levels of education (Baró 2010), that might constrain nature conservation strategies. This characteristic of the Portuguese population, together with an almost absence of data regarding what might be influencing how students value nature (e.g. experience, education) led us to conduct the present study. We implemented a study aiming to evaluate the knowledge and attitudes of a suburban junior high school population towards nature conservation in Portugal. This was carried out prior to formal education relating to this topic. Our specific questions were: (1) which values strongly influence how students subscribe to different reasons for conserving biodiversity (cultural heritage, social values, tourism, health care, ecosystem services, science, intrinsic value and industry); (2) what criteria do students use to identify priority species for conservation; and, (3) what are the proposed recovery measures for these priority species. To study these questions we assumed two main environmental attitude patterns: the anthropocentric attitude (valuing nature because of material or physical benefits it can provide for humans),

associated with Instrumental Values (i.e. means to human ends – Dietz et al. 2005), and the ecocentric (valuing nature for its own sake) attitudes, which derives from Intrinsic values (independent of the values that humans assign to them – Dietz et al. 2005) (Thompson & Barton 1994). In this line of reasoning, Caro et al. (2003) considered that the reasons for conserving biological diversity can derive from different values, that might induce the attitudes identified by Thompson and Barton (1994): anthropocentric [cultural heritage, tourism, health care, ecosystem services (processes by which natural ecosystems sustain human life – Lindenmayer & Burgman 2005), science, industry and social values] or ecocentric [Intrinsic values (“ethical positions that place value on species and communities, independent of people, i.e., the valuation of nature per se” – Lindenmayer & Burgman 2005)]. Furthermore, assuming a pro-nature conservation attitude, the decision of what to conserve may also be based on two opposite value types: Intrinsic (e.g., endemic species) or Instrumental (e.g. edible species) (Dietz et al. 2005). The evaluation of the dominant values associated with this decision is a fundamental issue needed to guide the baseline strategy implicit to all conservation plans. To be successful this strategy requires public support – environmental and conservation awareness (e.g. Padua 1994), and needs to match the manager defined recovery measures focused on priority species to those considered by the general public. Methods Study area and population This study was conducted in a Junior and High School located in Agualva, a suburban area of Lisbon (Portugal, south western Europe). Students reside in a region defined by a 3 km radius from the school. This area is characterised mainly by a middle-class population, but low socio-economic neighbourhoods still exist in the area. Within the student population, we randomly selected 91 students (54% of males) from 15 classes of the 7th and 8th grades (12–15 years old) in the first trimester of the school year of 2008–2009 (21% of the 7th and 8th grade student populations). Fifty-nine percent (N = 54) of the students were included from seven classes of the 7th grade, and the remaining from eight classes of the 8th grade. The random selection allowed inclusion of students from different socio-economic, cultural and intellectual backgrounds. This selection was taken among students that willingly accepted to participate in the study and whose parents had previously given authorisation to allow their students to participate in every extracurricular school activity developed by the school. These grades were selected because nature conservation issues are only discussed in schools as a part of the curricula after the 2nd trimester of the 8th grade. This allowed us to test students’ values and knowledge prior to the influence of the school curriculum. Questionnaire development Each of the 91 selected students was asked to anonymously fill out a questionnaire which focused on nature conservation issues. It was subdivided into three sections (see Appendix I for details): 1) The relative importance of eight different values (cultural heritage, tourism, health care, ecosystem services, science, industry, intrinsic and social values) compared to Nature Conservation. To assure that students were not answering at random, two questions evaluating each of the mentioned values were presented to the students. These questions were adapted from Caro et al. (2003) study and derived from the reasons why nature

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should be conserved, as described by Ehrenfeld’s (1976) scale for measuring conservation values. In each question, respondents were asked to choose the score that best described their feelings towards the issue using the Likert scale (1 = Strongly disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Neither agree nor disagree; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly agree; Likert 1932). The scores of both questions per value factor were averaged and those that presented mean scores higher than 3 (intermediate value in the 1–5 scale) were used to indicate that the respondents placed greater weight on the value mentioned in the statement compared with nature conservation. Mean scores lower than 3 were used to indicate that nature conservation values are more important than the remainder values. 2) Adequate criteria to identify conservation priority species. Students were asked to select four from the following list, which represented different values: (a) intrinsic values – endemic species (organisms with a distribution limited to specific habitats and native of restricted geographical areas – for example existing only in the Iberian Peninsula), species with a fragmented distribution, species whose habitat is being destroyed and disappearing, and species with few individuals, and whose numbers are decreasing; and (b) instrumental value – edible species, poisonous species, species that do not directly negatively affect and can cohabit with humans, and aesthetic species. 3) Adequate recovery measures for conservation of priority species. Students were asked to select three from the following list, which represent different environmental management philosophies: (a) ex situ reproduction; (b) re-introduction of animals from the same species from geographically and genetically disconnected populations; (c) creation of National/Natural Parks, in areas where populations of those species still subsist and where the general public can see and interact with those animals; (d) creation of National/Natural Parks (landscape level), where the species protection level is at a maximum (with the prohibition of any contact between the wild animals and humans); (e) recovery of the species natural habitats; (f) general public awareness and sensitivity for the need to preserve the remaining populations of the species, through environmental education; (g) creation of legal tools (e.g. law) that prohibit any contact, interaction or manipulation of the species by humans. In addition to the three sections previously described, we added a set of questions aimed at describing the respondents’ background. Several factors have already been identified in different human populations that affect environmental knowledge and attitudes: social class (upper and middle classes may have surplus incomes that could be allocated to aesthetic aspects of their lives – Samdahl & Robertson 1989; Van Liere & Dunlap 1980), economic status (e.g. Turkish students with high family incomes have positive attitudes towards nature conservation – Yilmaz et al. 2004), cultural patterns (e.g. Norwegian youths belonging to the working class that harbour reactionary and racist views showed anti-environmental attitudes – Skogen 1999), political orientation (e.g. pro-regulatory liberal ideology influences environmental concern; Dunlap 1975; Samdahl & Robertson 1989), the area of residence (e.g. Spanish city populations possess a larger number of environmental responsibility values – Berenguer et al. 2005), and school type and gender (e.g. in Turkey, girls have a more positive environmental attitude than boys – Tuncer et al. 2005 – and in a telephone survey performed in California, women were shown to have higher environmental concerns – Schultz 2001). The importance of these factors is corroborated by Van Liere and Dunlap (1980) in a study detailing five hypotheses concerning socioeconomic determinants of environmental concern attitudes, directly associated with age, gender, social class, residence and political related factors. Thus, our student sample was characterised accordingly. We asked the

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students to characterise their household and life experience by stating their sex, age, address (settlement, village or city), education level of both parents, and frequency of visits to the countryside, country villages, Protected Areas or Zoological Parks (e.g. Zoos, Aquariums, etc.). The full questionnaire is found in Appendix I. During the elaboration of the questionnaire we tried to expose simple concepts and avoided using technical expressions, to overcome/reduce possible misunderstanding of the questions. The questionnaire was read by the authors and each question was explained prior to being filled out by the respondents. The questionnaire was filled out in class, with a maximum duration of 45 min.

Data analysis To analyse the students’ attitudes towards nature conservation, we first averaged the scores of both questions per individual (since the questionnaire included two questions regarding each value – see above). We calculated the Cronbach’s alpha to evaluate the internal consistency and reliability of the questionnaire (Cronbach 1951). Since we were dealing with ranks we used a Kruskal–Wallis test (H – Zar 1999) to evaluate if there were differences in the importance of each of the considered values when compared to nature conservation. To test for differences between the importance of each pair of values (e.g. health care vs science) we used Mann–Whitney tests (U – Zar 1999). Due to the use of a multiple-comparison procedure, a Bonferroni correction was used to determine and adjust the alpha value to account for the number of comparisons being performed (Zuur et al. 2009). To evaluate what could be influencing the observed hierarchy of values that students exhibited, we used a General Linear Mixed Model (GLMM), with a Gaussian distribution (since we averaged the scores) and an identity link function (Zuur et al. 2009). Prior to GLMM, we tested data overdispersion using “qcc – Quality Control Charts” package (Scrucca 2004) for R software, version 2.11.0 (R Development Core Team 2008), and the multicollinearity between variables in order to exclude those that were highly correlated (Tabachnick & Fidell 1996). We only included the variables that presented significant correlations (p < 0.05) and had a higher correlation with the response variable. The GLMM was used to test three working hypothesis and we produced 12 different models clustered into three categories. Thus, pro-nature conservation attitudes may be mainly driven by: (i) parent’s educational level (which is associated with social and economic status and culture patterns) – education model (parent’s educational level); (ii) life experience (associated with area of residence, outdoor activities and gender) – experience model (frequency of visits to zoological parks and sex; the inclusion of sex as an experience variable is related with the difference in the type of the most common activities in which girls and boys are involved – e.g. boys are more involved in outdoor activities compared with girls – gender is also commonly referred to as an important factor influencing pro-conservation attitudes – Chan 1996; Torkar et al. 2010; Yilmaz et al. 2004) and (iii) a conjugation of both education and experience – hybrid models (all combinations of variables, including a full model with all variables). To control for the bias associated with the fact that each individual has contributed with data for all values considered (e.g. cultural, social, etc.) we considered the individual’s ID as a random effect. The GLMM was built using the “lme4 – Linear mixed-effects models using S4 classes” package for R (Bates & Maechler 2010). The most parsimonious model was selected based on the Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC) (Burnham & Anderson 2002). To assess model fit we calculated AIC (Burnham & Anderson 2002), which is the difference between the minimum AIC and the AIC of the ith model. Models with an AIC of less than 2.0 were considered equivalent

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Table 1 Candidate variables assumed to influence students values on conservation (the variables selected for the modelling procedure are shown in grey). Variable

Acronym

Type

Dependent Independent

Mean values score Values

Mean score Values

Random factor

Sex Educational level of the father Educational level of the mother Frequency of visits to countryside Frequency of visits to a village Frequency of visits to a Protected Area Frequency of visits to a Zoological Park Student

Sex Ed fath Ed moth Freq count Freq vill Freq prot Freq zoo ID

Covariate Factor (8 nominal levels: cultural heritage, social values, tourism, health care, ecosystem services, science, intrinsic value and industry) Factor (female; male) Factor (5 levels; 1st cycle to University) Factor (5 levels; 1st cycle to University) Factor (7 levels) Factor (7 levels) Factor (7 levels) Factor (7 levels) Factor

Results We detected a significant difference in how students prioritised different nature conservation values (H = 133.866, df = 7, p < 0.001). The Cronbach’s Alpha value reached 0.616, meeting the minimum acceptable value 0.6 (Hair et al. 2006). Since the Bonferroni correction decreased the value of alpha to 0.0018, we identified that industry and tourism were considered the least important values (p < 0.001 for all Mann–Whitney comparisons to the other values) and were less important than conservation (average score less than 3 – Fig. 1). Conversely, health care is the most important value (p < 0.001 for all Mann–Whitney comparisons to the other values), and is far more important than nature conservation for the majority of the students (U = 6.403, p < 0.001). The data were restricted to five explanatory variables (Table 1), as some of the candidate variables were multicollinear. The data showed a significant overdispersion (overdispersion = 0.531, t = 1697.803, p < 0.001). However, after log-transforming the dependent variable this problem was rectified (overdispersion = 0.246, t = 7.865, p > 0.05). Autocorrelation was accounted for in the models by including the study location as a random effect. Three models had a AIC < 2.0 and therefore it was not possible to discriminate between them. Therefore, we considered that all three were candidate models for describing the factors influencing students’ ranking of values on nature conservation. The best models included the variables “Value”, “Frequency of visits to a Zoological Park (Freq zoo)”, “Sex”, “Educational level of the father (Ed fath)” and “Educational level of the mother (Ed moth)” (Table 2). Our modelling results show that health care overruled all other values, when compared to conservation. Frequent visits to zoological parks have a positive influence in students attitudes towards conservation and girls are more susceptible to conservation values. In general a higher educational level of

5

4

Mean Score

(Burnham & Anderson 2002, 2004). Akaike weights (AICwi ) were also calculated to determine model’s probability of being the bestfit model for the data (Burnham & Anderson 2004). Since several models have AIC lower than 2.0 (see results), we implemented a model averaging approach to calculated average parameters estimates (Burnham & Anderson 2004). Finally, the structure of the data regarding the other two questions did not allow the application of a similar approach (as for the first question; count data from different individuals that did not allow assignment of a characteristic to each counter). Thus, we tested for differences in the importance of each criteria for identifying conservation priority species and conservation recovery measures, in the students’ perspective, by using a chi-square test (count data – Zar 1999). All the analyses described were performed using R software, version 2.11.0 (R Development Core Team 2008) or SPSS Windows, release 17 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, USA).

3

2

1

0

Medicine Ecos_serv Science

Cultural

Social

Intrinsic Industry Tourism

Type of value Fig. 1. Ranking of mean scores for each type of value when compared to nature conservation (2.5 suggests that the student considered the values to be of the same importance as nature conservation; <2.5 suggests that conservation is more important than that the value in the question; >2.5 suggests that the value is more important than nature conservation). The standard deviation is also represented by a vertical black line for each value type.

the parents is associated with a higher importance of conservation values for the student (see Appendix II). Finally, we detected differences between the criteria that students think should be used to identify conservation priority species (2 = 94.813, df = 7, p < 0.001; Section 2 of the questionnaire), with the majority of students selecting “Species with few individuals, and whose numbers are decreasing” and “Species whose habitat is being destroyed and disappearing” and avoiding to select

Table 2 Summary of fitted models Information Criteria (AIC – Akaike’s information Criterion; AIC – difference to the lowest AIC value; wi – Akaike weights). The best candidate model is identified in bold and grey (see Table 1 for acronyms). Models

AIC

AIC

AICwi

Full Model Experience Model Exp: Values + Sex + Freq zoo Educational Model Edu: Values + Ed fath + Ed moth Hybrid Models H1: Values + Sex + Ed fath H2: Values + Sex + Ed moth H3: Values + Freq zoo + Ed fath H4: Values + Freq zoo + Ed moth H5: Values + Ed moth + Ed fath H6: Values + Sex + Freq zoo + Ed fath H7: Values + Sex + Freq zoo + Ed moth H9: Values + Sex + Ed moth + Ed fath H10: Values + Freq zoo + Ed moth + Ed fath

1832 1798

35 1

<0.001 0.273

1808

11

0.002

1798 1797 1813 1812 1808 1815 1815 1814 1829

1 0 16 15 11 18 18 17 32

0.273 0.450 <0.001 <0.001 0.002 <0.001 <0.001 <0.001 <0.001

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“Poisonous species”. Furthermore, according to the students views the different conservation recovery measures are not equally effective (2 = 57.652, df = 6, p < 0.001; Section 3 of the questionnaire), with students pointing out that they thought the “Recovery of the species natural habitats”, “Creation of National/Natural Parks, where the species protection level is at a maximum (with the prohibition of any contact between the wild animals and Human)” and “Ex situ reproduction” are generally the most effective for a species recovery program (in that order).

Discussion We found that junior high students from a suburban area of Lisbon consider some values to be more important than nature conservation. However, the students also identified values with impacts on nature that they consider as being unacceptable. For these Portuguese students, health care values are considerably more important than nature conservation (Caro et al. 2003 also identified this factor as a reason to conserve biodiversity in a US student study). The results might derive from the fact that students may be valorising the possibility to cure or treat some diseases, using natural resources, regardless of the impact that this could have upon nature conservation. This was not surprising given that health care was the only value from the factors we analysed which has a direct effect on the student’s survival/health. The importance of health care may be revealing a self-interest value basis of environmental concern, since students might be prioritising values that directly impact them or their close kin (Dietz et al. 2005). Inversely, most students identified that Industry and Tourism are less important values when compared to nature conservation. Industry has a long history of negative impacts that have attracted media attention (e.g. main headlines in newspapers or television news programs), and therefore are easily noticed by students (e.g., Exxon Valdez oil spill – Monson et al. 2000; Prestige oil spill in Spain – Balseiro et al. 2005; air pollutions near factories – Newman 1979), without any immediate or direct benefit to them. For this reason, we believe that junior high students consider industry to be less important than nature conservation. In many areas of the world, tourism is often associated with dependence on nature conservation (e.g. tourism in Protected Areas – Nepal 2000). In Portugal alternative tourism (e.g. eco-tourism, golf) currently has little importance (Rosalino & Grilo 2011) or is restricted to high social economic classes. Therefore, students may associate this activity and values to vast resorts and hotels near the beach or golf courses, which are usually located in areas where their visual impact is high or where natural values had to be removed or destroyed (Gormsen 1997; Markwick 2000). For this reason our studied population may have some negative attitudes towards touristic activities. Furthermore, we also detected an interesting pattern regarding broader groups: a decreasing graduation of importance from social (e.g. health care, science, culture) to economic (e.g. tourism and industry) values. This is reinforced by the avoidance of students to refer to instrumental/economic measures to identify conservation priority species (e.g. edible species). The importance of health care to the studied population of Portuguese students was corroborated by our modelling analyses. Moreover, we also identified the frequency of visits to zoological parks and the level of the parents’ education as additional factors that positively influence teenager’s attitudes towards conservation. We believe that the two features are coding the same factor, namely the exposure to information regarding nature conservation. Caro et al. (2003) have already shown that students who had more knowledge regarding conservation were more prone to become committed to arguments for conserving nature. In the age class that

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we examined, information is better assimilated through experience (Mehalik et al. 2008; Schukar 1997). Thus, those that frequently visit zoological parks experienced being in the presence of animals more often than other students. Many of those animals are threatened, and are also the target of many environmental education programs that use those parks as a communication channel for divulging information regarding nature conservation (e.g. posters, leaflets, conservation projects, etc.). Students whose parents have higher levels of educational may also benefit from this factor since they will have a higher probability of being familiar with specific information channels (e.g. books, journals, magazines) and therefore may have improved access to conservation related information and discussions. On the other hand, teenagers may also mimic their parents’ attitudes towards the environment (e.g. recycling, conservation concerns, etc.). Bi et al. (2010) reported that since generally higher educated citizens are more aware of environmental concerns, their children might be more susceptible to acknowledge conservation issues. Moreover, parents with a higher level of education are likely to have higher salaries, which allow them to provide more commodities to their children such as internet access, thematic vacations and extracurricular activities. Another interesting result is that females have higher conservation concerns than males. When dealing with teenagers, these results seem to be in accordance to what was hypothesised by Wilson et al. (1998). These authors showed that males are more insensitive to the risk that their activities may cause to other people and the environment. This behaviour may be associated with the biological strategy that each sex might have had adopted to maximise their fitness: males investing in a short term approach (higher number of mates) and females in a long term approach (due to the long reproductive cycle and responsibility in parental care) (Wilson et al. 1998). For these reasons, females may show increased concern regarding the impact that their actions may have on their future fitness and survival (Wilson et al. 1998). On the other hand, female biased environmental concerns may also derive from social reasons attributed to gender such as environmental sensitivity (feminine attributes), which might indicate that females are more environmentally aware than males (Van Liere & Dunlap 1980). Many other studies have also shown that, when all other variables are controlled, females are more prone to reveal pro-conservation attitudes (Chan 1996; Torkar et al. 2010; Yilmaz et al. 2004). Most students show a perception for identifying conservation priority species that matches those criteria accepted as more efficient by conservation biologists (Meffe & Carroll 1997), since they have chosen to focus conservation efforts on species affected by habitat loss and on those with reduced/reducing population numbers. However, these criteria do not seem to apply to species that could have a deleterious effect on society, namely those that are poisonous. We believe that this result might derive from many of the successful conservation projects that have captured the media attention (e.g. BBC Wildlife documentaries), which clearly present conservation problems and their causes. However, students still show a tendency to prioritise their safety and health (by selecting health care as a higher value), since many consider poisonous animals a threat to their life. For example, in Norway 35% of the children and adolescents (aged between 9 and 15 years) considered that dangerous animals (e.g. snakes or stinging insects) should not exist (Bjerke et al. 1998). Students’ opinions regarding conservation recovery measures identified here reproduce the information that is being published in the media. Measures such as creation of Protected Areas, where the species protection level is at a maximum, and ex situ reproduction are two of the tools involved in the Iberian-Lynx recovery plan (Lynx pardinus – the most threatened felid in the

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world – Cabral et al. 2005), which is currently a national commitment and whose conservation program (Sarmento et al. 2005) was widely divulged through the media. The mass media is considered by students as one of the major sources of environmental information. For example, in Hong Kong almost 87% of the students mentioned television as the major sources of environmental information (Chan 1996). Moreover, parents also consider television as an important source of information. In Greece 30% of the parents whose children were attending a primary school in an urban area indicated that TV programs are a good starting point for discussing environmental issues and 70% state that they prefer to watch nature related programs alongside their children in order to raise their own environmental awareness (Abeliotis et al. 2010). Nowadays, this reasoning must be extended to the internet. This technological tool may currently be the main source of information for students (Jones 2002) who now spend considerably more time utilising the internet compared to watching television. Realising that the data presented here may have some limitations in relation to the sample size and restriction to one study area location, we believe that it shows some trends that may be useful to teachers and environmental education professionals, since it reinforces the relationship and the importance of parents’ education levels and access to information in shaping the attitudes of students towards nature conservation. At the same time our results revealed that students are placing health care above nature conservation values, when given a choice between them. Since students with varied life experiences (including their family environment) show differences in their attitudes towards conservation prior to a formal approach in school, we consider that schooling might provide a preponderant role in minimising the disparity between students with different educational backgrounds (by providing experiences and access to information) (see also AL-Shayaa et al. 2007 for recommendations). Furthermore, these results may be useful for the preparation of conservation programs, since they point out the factors that could constrain the commitment of young adults to nature conservation, which should be a main focus of future conservation programs. Since social values (especially those related with health care) are considered more important than environmental conservation, Portuguese conservation programs should be directed towards persuading students that environmental issues are also closely tied to human survival.

I – From the following list of statements, choose the score that best describes your feelings about it, using the provided Likert scale: 1 = Strongly disagree; 2 = Disagree; 3 = Neither agree nor disagree; 4 = Agree; 5 = Strongly agree; (Values: C – Culture; S – Social; T – Tourism; M – Health care; ES – Ecosystem Services; Sc – Science; IV – Intrinsic Value; I – Industry)

1 1 (C)

2 (S)

3 (T)

4 (M)

5 (ES)

6 (S)

7 (Sc)

8 (IV)

Acknowledgements We would like to thank C. Espírito-Santo for the help in building the questionnaire, S. Martins for assisting in delivering them to students and to all students from the Escola Secundária de Ferreira Dias who have freely participated in the study. We also would like to thank M. J. Santos for all the comments in an earlier version of this manuscript, and J. Mullins and J. Bluemel for manuscript revision.

9 (I)

10 (C)

Appendix I. This questionnaire includes questions relating to: 11 (ES)

- Nature Conservation (protection and management of natural environments, protection of species and landscape planning); - Protected areas (areas devoted to protect and maintain biological diversity, as well as natural resources and human heritage values associated – ex. National Parks, Natural Parks, Nature Reserves and Areas of Protected Landscape).

The government allowed the continued access of the public to a region with full protection status within a protected area as it is traditionally used for a holy festival. In order to raise funds to help families with economic problems, due to the lack of other alternatives, the mayor of a city sold a protected area for the construction of a residential area. A protected area was transformed into a golf camp because the implementation of that touristic structure increases the annual profits of the region and country. Many plants threatened by extinction have biochemical properties which could help to develop effective drugs for the cure of some diseases affecting humans. Therefore, the collection of these wild plants should be allowed whenever necessary. Rock extracting industries, which produce building materials, do not recover the habitats in the areas they explore after extraction if this results in an increase of the price of new houses. Due to the economic crisis that Portugal faces, and in an attempt to increase agriculture production to fulfil the population’s needs, the government authorised the deforestation of a protected area to increase the extent of agricultural lands. The Nature Conservation Agency issued a permit for a scientific study aiming to determine the diet of a threatened fish species, although this study will provoke the death of 30% of the population living in the wild. The government approved the use of a more efficient fertiliser in agriculture, increasing production, although it negatively affects an earthworm species, which is abundant throughout the country. Cod fish (a species threatened by extinction) fishing industry should be supported, since this fish is the basis of most traditional Portuguese gastronomy. The valley Foz Côa contains one of the main pre-historic art sites in Portugal. To preserve the site and improve accessibility for the public during guided visits, a dirt road was built along the river together with an art protective structure, which destroyed some endangered plants in the area. The Portuguese state currently uses taxpayer’s money to pay shepherds for the damages caused by wolves on livestock as a conservation measure towards this threatened carnivore species. This policy should be discontinued due to the current economic crisis.

2

3

4

5

L.M. Rosalino, C. Rosalino / Journal for Nature Conservation 20 (2012) 153–161

1 12 (T)

13 (M)

14 (IV)

15 (I)

16 (Sc)

2

3

4

II – Choose (using an X) 4 criteria that, according to your opinion, should be used to define priority conservation species: 34

35 36 37

IV – Personal data

Sex:  M

Species with a fragmented distribution Aesthetic species

40

Species that do not directly affect humans and can co-habit with our species Species whose habitat is being destroyed and disappearing

98

Ex situ reproduction Re-introduction of animals from the same species, but from populations far apart, and geographically and genetically not connected Creation of National/Natural Parks, in areas where populations of those species still subsist and where the general public can see and interact with those animals to learn more about them Creation of National/Natural Parks with the prohibition of any contact between the wild animals and Humans, giving maximum protection to those species inhabiting the parks Recovery of the species’ natural habitats

100

101

102 103

104

Improving general public awareness about the need to preserve the remaining populations of the species, through environmental education initiatives Creation of legal tools that prohibit any contact, interaction or manipulation of the species by man

School year: _________________________

•

Frequency of visits to the countryside:  1 or 2 times/month  Frequently ( +7 days/year)  Every week  Every 3 months  Only on summer holidays  Once/year  Almost never

•

Frequency of visits to a small country village:  Every week  1 or 2 times/month  Frequently ( +7 days/year)  Every 3 months  Only on summer holidays  Once/year  Almost never

•

Frequency of visits to Protected Areas (National Parks, Natural Parks, Nature Reserv es and Protected Landscapes):  1 or 2 times/month  Frequently ( +7 days/year)  Every week  Every 3 months  Only on summer holidays  Once/year  Almost never

• Frequency of visits to Zoological Parks (ex. Zoos, Aquariums, etc.):  Every week  1 or 2 times/month  Frequently ( +7 days/years)  Every 3 months  Only on summer holidays  Once/year  Almost never

Appendix II. Estimated coefficients and standard error for the variables of the best models (Acronyms as in Table 1; ˇ – Estimated coefficients; 1 Average parameter estimated coefficients; SE – Standard Error; *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001). ˇ

Model Exp

H1

III – If a particular species is in danger of extinction in Portugal, what measures would you think are generally more effective for a recovery program (select 3):

99

Age:____________

Parents’ highest level of education: Father:  No school  Elementary school  Junior High school  High school  University Mother:  No school  Elementary school  Junior High school  High school  University

Species with few individuals, and whose numbers are decreasing Edible species

38

F

Area of residence:  Small village  Country village  City

Endemic species (organisms with a distribution limited to specific habitats and native of restricted geographical areas – ex. existing only in the Iberian Peninsula) Poisonous species

39

41

IV

5

Setúbal City Hall authorised the construction of a touristic resort in the Arrábida Natural Park, which will bring investment and employment to the region, in an area used for reproduction by a threatened sea bird. The English government authorised badger culling operations in areas where bovine tuberculosis was detected - a disease affecting cows, and seldom humans, that can be transmitted by badgers. A road planned to cross a protected area which would impact upon a weasel population is not going to be redesigned since this would increase the budget and weasels are not a threatened species in Portugal. Fish farmer managers kill predators (some of which were threatened) which prey upon production of fish species, with the aim of increasing the number of individuals available for fishing, and consequently the fish farm activity profits. The Natural History Museum is implementing a collection campaign targeting all species of insects present in Portugal, with the aim of discovering new species and organising a biodiversity exposition.

159

H2

Intercept Value (Ecos serv) Value (Industry) Value (Intrinsic) Value (Health care) Value (Science) Value (Social) Value (Tourism) Sex (female) freq zoo(2) freq zoo(3) freq zoo(4) freq zoo(5) freq zoo(6) freq zoo(7) Intercept Value (Ecos serv) Value (Industry) Value (Intrinsic) Value (Health care) Value (Science) Value (Social) Value (Tourism) Sex (female) Ed fath (2) Ed fath (3) Ed fath (4) Ed fath (5) Ed fath (6) Intercept Value (Ecos serv) Value (Industry) Value (Intrinsic) Value (Health care) Value (Science) Value (Social) Value (Tourism) Sex (female) Ed moth (2) Ed moth (3) Ed moth (4) Ed moth (5) Ed moth (6)

3.323 0.445 −0.566 −0.220 0.566 0.126 −0.121 −0.753 0.097 −0.356 −0.600 −0.306 −0.404 −0.467 −0.499 2.896 0.445 −0.566 −0.220 0.566 0.126 −0.121 −0.753 0.119 −0.079 −0.007 −0.104 0.198 −0.035 2.866 0.445 −0.566 −0.220 0.566 0.126 −0.121 −0.753 0.102 0.176 0.025 0.009 0.181 −0.118

SE

T value

0.336 0.116 0.116 0.116 0.116 0.116 0.116 0.116 0.071 0.380 0.350 0.355 0.337 0.334 0.336 0.185 0.116 0.116 0.116 0.116 0.116 0.116 0.116 0.071 0.207 0.207 0.175 0.177 0.188 0.130 0.118 0.118 0.118 0.118 0.118 0.118 0.118 0.059 0.161 0.146 0.116 0.112 0.120

9.685*** 3.839*** −4.882*** −1.896 4.882*** 1.090 −1.043 −6.494*** 1.367 −0.936 −1.715 −0.863 −1.198 −1.398 −1.484 15.642*** 3.839*** −4.882*** −1.896 4.882*** 1.090 −1.043 −6.494*** 1.691 −0.380 −0.034 −0.592 −1.119 −0.186 22.030*** 3.766*** −4.789*** −1.860 4.789*** 1.069 −1.023 −6.369*** 1.708 1.093 0.172 0.081 −1.615 −0.982

160

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Model Average model

Intercept Value (Ecos serv) Value (Industry) Value (Intrinsic) Value (Health care) Value (Science) Value (Social) Value (Tourism) Sex (female) freq zoo(2) freq zoo(3) freq zoo(4) freq zoo(5) freq zoo(6) freq zoo(7) Ed fath (2) Ed fath (3) Ed fath (4) Ed fath (5) Ed fath (6) Ed moth (2) Ed moth (3) Ed moth (4) Ed moth (5) Ed moth (6)

SE

T value

1

3080.723 0.4451 −0.5661 −0.2201 0.5661 0.1261 −0.1211 −0.7531 0.1051 −0.3561 −0.6001 −0.3061 −0.4041 −0.4671 −0.4991 −0.0791 −0.0071 −0.1041 0.1981 −0.0351 0.1761 0.0251 0.0091 0.1811 −0.1181

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