Who joins advocacy organizations? Water quality and participation in rural shoreline Great Lakes communities

Abstract

Civic organizations play an important role in translating individual preferences into the emergence of collective action for protection of the environment. The purpose of this article is to examine factors that help explain why individuals become aware of, and to ultimately join, local environmental advocacy groups. We conducted a mail survey of property owners in four slow growing, politically conservative rural watersheds along the southeast corner of Lake Ontario, inquiring about length of property ownership, engagement in outdoor activities, observations of impaired water quality, level of concern about the watershed environment, and awareness of and membership in local environmental organizations. We used two binary logistic regressions and find that owning property on the waterfront and length of tenure strongly predicts both awareness of and membership in stewardship and advocacy organizations in these watersheds.