Analyzing the farmers' pro-environmental behavior intention and their rural tourism livelihood in tourist village where its ecological environment is polluted.

Zhaoyin Liu,Xiaojie Long,Hongjiu Tang,Bing Xue

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0247407

Zhaoyin Liu, Xiaojie Long + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247407

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Mar 11, 2021
Citations: 12	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Hunan Agricultural University, Sun Yat-sen University

Abstract

This study examines farmers’ intentions towards pro-environmental behavior in a famous tourist village in China called Guanshan, whose ecological environment is polluted. By adopting the empirically validated norm activation model (NAM) of Schwartz and merging it with Vroom’s expectancy theory, the current research aims to develop a refined framework for understanding the formation of and predicting changes in pro-environmental intention. Field surveys were conducted in Guanshan, which resulted in sample data consisting of 275 valid responses collected by the research team. We develop a refined model, including six latent variables and 24 observational items. The structural equation modeling results show that the final model enjoys a better predictive accuracy of pro-environmental intention than does the original NAM. The study also discovers that the motivational force of expectancy theory significantly influences pro-environmental intention, whose motivational force comes from the impact of valence and expectancy. The pro-environmental intentions of farmers are mainly affected by the environmental personal norm and by a certain degree of personal expectancy. The improvement of farmers’ pro-environmental intention needs be promoted in two approaches: the cultivation of personal environmental protection norms and the guidance of producing a desired expectation for pro-environmental intention.

Highlights

China has many beautiful tourist villages; some of them are close to urban agglomeration and are affected by polluting industries, which significantly affects their natural ecological environment and reduces their local tourism value [1]
As some local governments in China are gradually becoming aware of the negative impact of environmental pollution on the sustainable development of rural tourism, they have formulated some effective governance policies to improve the ecological environment of polluted tourist villages; many of these policies have not achieved satisfactory results [2], and some farmers are not enthusiastic
From the total variance explained by the final model, the results indicated that 25.5% of the ascription of environmental responsibility was explained by awareness of environmental consequences

Summary

Introduction

China has many beautiful tourist villages; some of them are close to urban agglomeration and are affected by polluting industries, which significantly affects their natural ecological environment and reduces their local tourism value [1]. As some local governments in China are gradually becoming aware of the negative impact of environmental pollution on the sustainable development of rural tourism, they have formulated some effective governance policies to improve the ecological environment of polluted tourist villages; many of these policies have not achieved satisfactory results [2], and some farmers are not enthusiastic. The pro-environmental behavior intention of farmers in the tourist destinations form of a grant (18C0135) awarded to HT. No additional external funding was received for this study

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