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Motivations for committed nature conservation action in Europe

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 March 2017

JEROEN F. ADMIRAAL ,
RIYAN J.G. VAN DEN BORN ,
ALMUT BERINGER ,
FLAVIA BONAIUTO ,
LAVINIA CICERO ,
JUHA HIEDANPÄÄ ,
PAUL KNIGHTS ,
LUUK W.J. KNIPPENBERG ,
ERICA MOLINARIO  and
CORNELIS J.M. MUSTERS
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JEROEN F. ADMIRAAL*
Affiliation:
Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9518, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
RIYAN J.G. VAN DEN BORN
Affiliation:
Institute of Science, Innovation and Society. Faculty of Science. Radboud University. P.O. Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
ALMUT BERINGER
Affiliation:
Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology – Environmental Ethics, University of Greifswald, Soldmannstrasse 15, 17487 Greifswald, Germany
FLAVIA BONAIUTO
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Psicologia dei Processi di Sviluppo e Socializzazione, Sapienza Università di Roma, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185 Rome, Italy
LAVINIA CICERO
Affiliation:
Department of Human Studies, LUMSA University, Piazza delle Vaschette 101, 00193 Rome, Italy
JUHA HIEDANPÄÄ
Affiliation:
Natural Resources Institute Finland, Itäinen Pitkäkatu 3, 20520 Turku, Finland
PAUL KNIGHTS
Affiliation:
Philosophy, School of Social Sciences, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
LUUK W.J. KNIPPENBERG
Affiliation:
Institute of Science, Innovation and Society. Faculty of Science. Radboud University. P.O. Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
ERICA MOLINARIO
Affiliation:
Dipartimento di Psicologia dei Processi di Sviluppo e Socializzazione, Sapienza Università di Roma, Via dei Marsi, 78, 00185 Rome, Italy
CORNELIS J.M. MUSTERS
Affiliation:
Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, P.O. Box 9518, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
OSMA NAUKKARINEN
Affiliation:
Natural Resources Institute Finland, Itäinen Pitkäkatu 3, 20520 Turku, Finland
KATARINA POLAJNAR
Affiliation:
Anton Melik Geographical Institute, Research Centre of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, P.P. 306, 1001 Ljubljana, Slovenia
FLORIN POPA
Affiliation:
European Commission, DG Education and Culture, Rue de la Loi 200, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium
ALES SMREKAR
Affiliation:
Anton Melik Geographical Institute, Research Centre of Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, P.P. 306, 1001 Ljubljana, Slovenia
TIINA SOININEN
Affiliation:
Natural Resources Institute Finland, Itäinen Pitkäkatu 3, 20520 Turku, Finland
CARMEN PORRAS-GOMEZ
Affiliation:
BIOGOV, Centre for Philosophy of Law, College Thomas More, Université Catholique de Louvain, Place Montesquieu 2 (Bte 15) B - 1348 Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium
NATHALIE SOETHE
Affiliation:
Institute of Botany and Landscape Ecology – Environmental Ethics, University of Greifswald, Soldmannstrasse 15, 17487 Greifswald, Germany
JOSE-LUIS VIVERO-POL
Affiliation:
BIOGOV, Centre for Philosophy of Law, College Thomas More, Université Catholique de Louvain, Place Montesquieu 2 (Bte 15) B - 1348 Louvain-La-Neuve, Belgium
WOUTER T. DE GROOT
Affiliation:
Institute of Science, Innovation and Society. Faculty of Science. Radboud University. P.O. Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands
*
*Correspondence: Dr Jeroen F. Admiraal email: admiraal@cml.leidenuniv.nl
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Summary

Despite ongoing efforts to motivate politicians and publics in Europe regarding nature conservation, biodiversity continues to decline. Monetary valuation of ecosystem services appears to be insufficient to motivate people, suggesting that non-monetary values have a crucial role to play. There is insufficient information about the motivations of actors who have been instrumental in successful conservation projects. We investigated the motivations underlying these biodiversity actors using the ranking of cards and compared the results with the rankings of motivations of a second group of actors with more socially related interests. For both groups of actors, their action relating to biodiversity was supported in general by two groups of motivations related to living a meaningful life and moral values. The non-biodiversity actors also noted that their action relating to biodiversity rested more on beauty, place attachment and intrinsic values in comparison with their main non-biodiversity interests. Our results have implications for environmental policy and biodiversity conservation in that the current tendency of focusing on the economic valuation of biodiversity fails to address the motivations of successful actors, thereby failing to motivate nature conservation on an individual level.

Keywords

biodiversity conservationecosystem servicesenvironmental policyeconomic valuation
Type
Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 44 , Issue 2 , June 2017 , pp. 148 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2017 

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Footnotes

Supplementary material can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1017/S037689291700008X

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