Ecological Attitudes Research Articles

Evaluating Attitudes towards Large Carnivores within the Great Bear Rainforest

Cohabitation between humans and carnivores is vital to the continued existence and integrity of ecosystems, often playing a large role in the success of large carnivore conservation. We focus on interactions between humans and carnivores in the world’s largest, relatively intact temperate rainforest—The Great Bear Rainforest (GBR), British Columbia, Canada. Specifically, we focus on residents of Prince Rupert, a city within the GBR, and examine its residents’ ecological and relational attitudes towards the surrounding area of protected rainforest and the large carnivores present in the area. We aim to determine the strength of public attitudes and values of the environment and carnivores in the GBR, and to examine whether they differ between First Nations and non-First Nations residents of Prince Rupert, British Columbia. We conducted 28 semi-structured interviews of Prince Rupert residents. At the start of the interview, respondents self-administered a survey consisting of statements from the Social Ecological Relational Value and the New Ecological Paradigm scales. We find no significant difference between First Nations and non-First Nations respondent attitudes. This is possibly due to three factors: (1) cultural influence from the local First Nations, (2) the fact that these carnivores are important for the local economy through tourism, and (3) a strong sense of place associated with the area and the carnivores that inhabit it regardless of positive or negative encounters with these animals. While we find positive attitudes towards carnivores and little evidence of human–wildlife conflict, feelings towards carnivores encountered in town or while hiking tend to be negative, especially when they involve wolves. In order to mitigate these effects in a way that protects these valuable creatures, respondents overwhelmingly clamored for a conservation officer to be assigned to Prince Rupert. We conclude that policy and management might alleviate human–carnivore conflicts in the area should our results be corroborated by studies with larger sample sizes.

마인드맵을 활용한 청소년의 생태적 이해 진단도구 개발 및 타당화1)

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate an assessment tool to diagnose adolescents’ ecological understanding applying mind map. Ecological understanding in this study was defined as the ability to understand the interdependence between human and nature based on basic knowledge and principles on ecosystem and to analyze chain relationship among ecosystem components. A total of 549 elementary and middle school students participated in a performance task of drawing mind map that we created, and their performance was graded by 7 raters based on the checklist type rubric of two scoring dimensions – analyzing chain relationship and illustrating basic knowledge of ecosystems. The data were fitted to a many-facet Rasch model, and major findings were as follows. First, the item ‘Student can explain the effects of his/her action to nature or global environment’ in the dimension of ‘analyzing chain relationship’ was found to be the easiest, while ‘Student can use ecological concepts properly’ item in the dimension of ‘illustrating basic knowledge of ecosystems’ was shown the highest difficulty. Second, middle school students’ scores were significantly higher than elementary students except for ‘Student can explain the effects of animals/plants to me’. Third, while ecological understanding was positively associated with ecological sensibility and ecological attitude in middle school students, no significant relationship was observed in elementary students. Based on the results, benefits of and further directions for applying the mind map task to assess students’ ecological understanding were discussed.

Playing marbles, playing music

Playing marbles, playing music

Nuclear Energy Perception and Ecological Attitudes

This paper focuses on the analysis of trends in the development of nuclear energy in selected European and non-European countries in the context of the pace of renewable energy development in the world. The perception of Poles related to their openness to various energy sources against the background of European trends was also examined, as well as their ecological approach to the quality of the environment in this context. The survey was carried out using the Computer Assisted Web Interview (CAWI) technique. The total number of correctly completed forms was 923. To identify the ecological attitude, purchasing attitude, and the perception of nuclear energy, the research tool contained a number of statements on the issues studied, and the respondents assessed compliance with their opinion using a seven-point bipolar scale. The semantic differential was also used to gather opinions on the characteristics of nuclear energy. This paper shows that global trends are promoting the development of unstable renewable energy sources and the reduction of the share of nuclear power plants as an energy source. It has also been shown that the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries are more skeptical about nuclear power than countries that do not belong to the OECD (for example, China and Africa).

PARTICIPATION IN ECOTOURISM EDUCATION, GENDER AND PLACE OF RESIDENCE AS DETERMINANTS OF ATTITUDES TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE TOURISM

The aim of the research was examination of pro-environmental attitudes of the students participating in optional classes of Sustainable Tourism on the background of students who did not participate in such classes. In the research participated 126 students of tourism and recreation. From among 7 factors creating Sustainable Tourism Attitude Scale (SUS-TAS), 9 statements forming the first component of the scale of Environmental Sustainability – were used. The results do not confirm more positive attitudes of students realizing Sustainable Tourism. No differences were found either, in pro-environmental attitudes between respondents from a town or from a village. According to the expectations, women are characterized by more positive ecological attitudes than men. Educational contact with sustainable tourism and place of origin had no effect on environmental attitudes.

Environment as a sociocultural phenomenon

This article is dedicated to consideration of the environment as a sociocultural phenomenon. Emphasis is placed on the trend of changing the attitude towards environment from technological to sociocultural. Examination of the environment in such paradigm allows reconsidering the phenomenon from axiological perspective, which transforms the attitude towards environment, at times fundamentally. The article employs the analysis of secondary data of the conducted applies research, as well as the expert survey of specialists from the three neighboring countries – Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. The following conclusions were formulated: the environment is perceived as universal and regional value that impacts the spiritual life of an individual and the society, thereby ensuring their spiritual security; 2) the adoption of managerial decisions in the environmental sphere should be associated with conceptualization of this phenomenon as sociocultural, which increases the degree of responsibility and importance of the environment for the intergenerational continuity of culture-bearers. The novelty of the work consists in substantiation of the need for paradigm shift in comprehension of the environment as a sociocultural phenomenon. The focus may move from the economic or ultimately ecological attitude towards environment to sociocultural.

Permaculture gardening, the first step of food sustainability in the tropical freshwater wetland

Climate change has been causing severe damage in Kalimantan, such as forest fires in the dry season and flooding in the monsoon rain has been understood. Both of these results in loss of social-economic properties and environmental assets, and possible to create a climate emergence, especially in wetlands. The research about how the local people use traditional ways to revive their food and income through Permaculture garden in wetland has been conducted from 2018 – 2020. This research aims to elucidate the local people capability in use their local wisdom, traditional knowledge and ecological attitude on providing food in the transition of the wetland environment, through implementation of Permaculture concepts, learning and interaction.. About sixty voluntary respondents involve in forum group discussion, deep interview, and Permaculture gardening. The result shows that informal and local unique interaction among the local in implementing traditional, ecological knowledge and attitude in Permaculture gardening able to produce vegetables and fruits for daily, monthly and annual income. Thus, the observation of the implementation and the interaction on the concept of Permacultures may be possible to ensure us about the local sustainable food provision.

Pangenomics of the Symbiotic Rhizobiales. Core and Accessory Functions Across a Group Endowed with High Levels of Genomic Plasticity.

Pangenome analyses reveal major clues on evolutionary instances and critical genome core conservation. The order Rhizobiales encompasses several families with rather disparate ecological attitudes. Among them, Rhizobiaceae, Bradyrhizobiaceae, Phyllobacteriacreae and Xanthobacteriaceae, include members proficient in mutualistic symbioses with plants based on the bacterial conversion of N2 into ammonia (nitrogen-fixation). The pangenome of 12 nitrogen-fixing plant symbionts of the Rhizobiales was analyzed yielding total 37,364 loci, with a core genome constituting 700 genes. The percentage of core genes averaged 10.2% over single genomes, and between 5% to 7% were found to be plasmid-associated. The comparison between a representative reference genome and the core genome subset, showed the core genome highly enriched in genes for macromolecule metabolism, ribosomal constituents and overall translation machinery, while membrane/periplasm-associated genes, and transport domains resulted under-represented. The analysis of protein functions revealed that between 1.7% and 4.9% of core proteins could putatively have different functions.

Civil Participation-Driven Social Capitalization-Enabled Resilience Cycle for Community-based Tourism

Community-based tourism (CBT) is flourishing in Thailand, partly credited to the active local participation and engagement-driven national policies that aim to stimulate effective uses of local resources and destination attributes for income-earning and sustainable socio-cultural and ecological development. Against this policy-grassroot synergistic backdrop and given the scare literature on the civil roles in CBT, this study examines the civil participation as an important social capitalization bridge to enable and thrust the community development and organization towards realizing CBT potentials while creating positive impacts on the economics, cultural, social and environmental domains of sustainability. In particular, a civil participation-driven social capitalization-enabled resilience cycle model, with a root taken to social capitalization structure of destination management that relates and integrates thestructural andrelational elements, and the cognitive goals, is proposed, as a key conceptual contribution to the extant literature of CBT and tourism, and is empirically supported by the neural network simulations and structural equation modeling (SEM) fitting. The samples were drawn from the agriculture- livelihood based communities who exploit community-based tourism (CBT) to supplement their earnings and help them develop socio-cultural and ecological attitudes and sustainability results. The SEM and the neural network results were well-aligned and cross-supportive, which manifests another domain of contribution in the methodological aspect in social sciences, tourism and hospitality disciplines. The resilience cycle model fit is dynamic in nature, and provides a base for the continuous development of the communities in sustainable manner

Ecological knowledge and connectedness to nature as predictors of farmers’ ecological attitudes

Environmental attitudes are one of the determinants of farmers? ecologically responsible behaviour. However, it is not easy to determine factors which influence individuals? environmental attitudes. The literature suggests the existence of a number of influencing factors. In this paper, the environmental attitudes of the farmers? in Vojvodina have been tested in relation to environmental knowledge and connectedness to nature, which are important elements of environmental awareness. As far as the authors know, these variables have not yet been linked to the concept of the new ecological paradigm (NEP), and this paper provides new insight into the relations between the NEP scale and the selected elements of environmental awareness. A multiple regression was conducted to see if environmental knowledge and connectedness to nature predicted the environmental attitudes. The results show that both variables explain 9.6% variance in NEP values. The results show that the farmers? environmental knowledge and their connectedness to nature are statistically significant, but in a small percentage explain the achieved values on the NEP scale. ?herefore, one can say that the tested variables are predictors of environmental attitudes, but they are also influenced by other factors which need to be investigated in the future researches.

Reader-Specific aspects of the formation of ecological culture in young people

The aggravation of global problems, the deterioration of the ecological situation, the emergence of more and more natural disasters, the wasteful and disrespectful attitude to the nature of individuals require increased attention of society to environmental problems. These problems can be solved only by increasing the general ecological culture, value attitude to nature and the formation of an ecological worldview in all people. The ecological culture of a society is understood as a system of social norms, values, human relations in the field of environmental protection and harmonious development. One of the elements of ecological culture is an ecological attitude towards the natural world-an efficiently practical, strong-willed, environmentally healthy behavior in accordance with the laws of interaction with humans in nature, legal norms, moral norms. Therefore, this article analyzes the features of the formation of ecological culture among students from a scientific and practical point of view. It was also revealed from the pedagogical point of view that the peculiarities of the ecological culture of students are reflected in their understanding of the ecological situation, understanding of the essence of the content, their attitude to public life.

Study on the ecological attitudes of Italian cruise passengers

This study investigates the interaction between element of background of Italian cruise passengers and their attitude to predict their ecological behaviour and implement green practices. Notwithstanding that the cruise sector experienced continuous growth in recent years, generating a great environmental impact, it did not receive a valuable consideration in the scientific literature especially on sustainability issues. Therefore, this paper provides new insights for scientific research on the ecological attitudes. In particular, the analysis was based on data from a tourism questionnaire survey conducted for Italian cruise passengers, in order to empirically investigate their awareness and behaviour concerning environmental issues and to uncover the relationships between background elements and cruise passengers' sustainable behaviours. The results show that most cruise passengers paid attention to sustainability criteria adopted by the cruise ship operators and would be willing to pay additional charges to tackle the environmental burden caused by the cruise.

Analysis of search query statistics as a tool for monitoring the ecological attitudes of the region's population

The article reveals the main approaches to understanding the essence of ecological culture, as well as its basic components: cognitive, value and activity. The article focuses on the fact that pro-ecological behaviorur is a leading indicator of ecological culture. It is noted that a society can have a sufficiently high level of environmental knowledge and correct values, but in the absence of pro-environmental behaviorur, we cannot speak about the proper level of environmental culture. Attention is focused on the difficulties of empirical study of the real state of the components of ecological culture. The definition of the term "digital footprint" is given. The possibility and expediency of studying the ecological attitudes of the population as the most mobile element of ecological culture using the analysis of statistics of search queries is shown. The purpose of the study is to identify the ecological attitudes of the inhabitants of the Sverdlovsk region and approbation of the methodology for analyzing statistics of search queries of the population on environmental topics, recorded by the Yandex search engine. The study was carried out within the framework of a quantitative approach. To collect empirical information, a continuous collection of search queries from the population of the Sverdlovsk region was carried out from 2010 to 2019 inclusive. The technique of collection, processing and analysis of search queries of the population is described. The analysis made it possible to identify a number of significant pro-ecological attitudes of the population, for example, for a significant part of the population of the Sverdlovsk region it is important to know and apply technologies for waste disposal, to know the state of air and water in the place of residence, as well as technologies for checking and cleaning them. It was found that children and adolescents are more interested in information about various kinds of environmental pollution, and young people and people of the middle age group are more interested in means and technologies for waste disposal and cleaning of natural resources. In general, the results of the study showed that search query data can serve as a source of up-to-date information on the ecological attitudes of the region's population. The advantages and disadvantages of the analysis of search queries as an empirical research method are shown.

The Scale "New Ecological Paradigm": Use Experience in Ukraine

The results of adaptation and use of the scale "New ecological paradigm" (NEP) are presented. In 2010-2017, 862 people, 547 women and 315 men aged 17 to 80 took part, including 622 students of various specialties and 254 adults of different social status. The Russian version of the NEP-R scale was used. In 2021, the Russian-language and Ukrainian versions of the NEP sample were used - 41 people (27 women and 14 men aged 17 to 49). The sample was randomly divided into two groups (20 people - 23 women and 7 men and 21 people - 24 women and 7 men), so that all respondents completed both versions of the scale with an interval of two weeks, but in one group initially worked with the NEP -U, and then with NEP‑R, and in the second group - on the contrary. The results of psychometric verification of the Ukrainian-language and Russian-language adaptations of the scale are given, their compliance with the English-language version in terms of reliability-consistency, rather high test-retest reliability is shown. The verification of the convergent reliability of the scale confirmed its focus on identifying a worldview ecological attitude that responds to the environmental concerns and expresses anxiety about environmental risks, interest in environmentally relevant information, recognition of their connection with the environment, and readiness for eco-friendly behavior. The calculated percentiles for the overall NEP indicator allow determining the level of respondent’s environmental concern taking into account his gender. The overall NEP indicator is valid for predicting concern of environmental risks and individual readiness to participate in social projects aimed at eco-conservation.

Study on the ecological attitudes of Italian cruise passengers

Study on the ecological attitudes of Italian cruise passengers

NATURAL RESOURCE POTENTIAL - BASIS FOR DEVELOPMENT OF THE BIOECONOMY, RELATED TO CONVENTIONAL AND ORGANIC FARMING IN BULGARIA

The lithosphere is the solid foundation formed during the formation of our planet. Natural resources have been formed in its layers, which directly influence the Socio-economic development of human civilization during different time periods. The natural complex of Bulgaria is formed by three basic components: natural environment, natural resources and natural conditions. They take part in one way or another in the formation and development of economic, economic and environmental territorial structural units at the local level. Unlike the classical branch economy - Bioeconomy could form and analyze its synergetic models based on ecological attitude to all economic activities of the landscape such as: extraction of mineral and forest resources, tillage, extraction of non-metallic minerals (low carbon), mineral waters, processing of waste for secondary industrial use and other economic activities. The aim of the present study is to study the natural resource potential on the territory of Bulgaria and to analyze the existing opportunities for development of the bioeconomy. To compare and analyze the relationship between conventional and bio culture crops in ha. on the territory of the country, the possibility for their practical application in the systems of the circular economy.

An ecological perspective in the evolutionary theology

A new paradigm in theology, termed evolutionary theology, supports the understanding of ecology as the proper ordering of the relations between living organisms and their environment. It is argued that evolutionary theology yields a unique conceptual framework in which the human species share a common history with the entire Universe and respecting nature’s integrity means securing a common destiny to everything that exists. This is a powerful motivation for adopting a balanced ecological attitude aimed at respecting nature’s inherent integrity. Furthermore, proposing theological arguments to substantiate ecological claims will help neutralize the objections that religion as such promotes anti-ecological attitudes. Such objections become more pressing when religion focuses exclusively on the afterlife in the immaterial and eternal world to come, and neglects the well-being of the material and temporal Universe.
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 Received: 30/08/2020. Reviewed: 07/10/2020. Accepted: 12/11/2020

Africa and the Awakening of the Senses in “L’Africain” by J. M. G. Le Clézio

<p>This article focuses on issues concerning Central Africa as depicted in the essay by Le Clézio <em>L’Africain</em> (2004)<em>. </em>The geocritical approach to the story told in the piece, will allow us to consider the polisensorism present in the scriptural, and, at times, in the pictorial language by Le Clézio, as all the senses are important and present in his perception of the African landscape. We strive to study the impact of such understanding of space on the development of the subject and its relationship with the world. We also investigate whether this empirical knowledge shapes, to some extent, his ecological attitudes.</p>

Environmental policy of Novokuznetsk in the context of modern requirements for metallurgical industry development

Analysis of air pollution by pollutants, sources of pollution, types of economic activity, and administrative areas in the city of Novokuznetsk over 5 years was carried out. The largest share in the city air emissions is accounted for: CO – 61.8 %; SO2 – 17.4 %; solids – 11.3 %; NO2 – 5.9 %; CH4 – 1.8 %. Dynamics of gross emissions by years is shown. Planned implementation of the approved measures of the national project Ecology will make it possible to reduce air pollution in the city by more than 20 % by 2024, which corresponds to the federal project Clean Air. According to planes of the city industrial enterprises, environmental programs have been prepared, with monitoring by environmental specialists from the city administration and public control. Various measures were taken: automatic stationary posts were put into operation to monitor air pollution in real time; mobile laboratory was acquired to measure urban air. To improve waste management in the city, separate collection projects were implemented. Environmental assets exist and develop in the city, which ideas and projects find common understanding and form ecological attitude of the urban community. Trends in gross emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere of Novokuznetsk are shown for the period of 2014 – 2018; refinements and explanations of the observed trends are given.

Green consumption: consumer behavior after an environmental tragedy

The aim of this study was to identify whether there is a difference in the environmentally‐conscious consumer behavior (ECCB) of a region directly impacted by an environmental tragedy, as compared to the ECCB of non-impacted regions. We empirically tested the main argument of the protection motivation theory, through the design of a structural model, based on the literature, that was estimated with cross-sectional data, which allowed us to distinguish the effects of both green behavior and perceived consumer effectiveness on the ECCB from both regions. Our model also considers the antecedents of both green behavior and perceived consumer effectiveness, thereby attempting to accurately model the complex process of forming the ECCB in a context of environmental tragedy. Using a sample of 420 individuals from an impacted region, and 394 individuals from non-impacted regions, results show that perceived consumer effectiveness affects the ECCB only in the impacted region. In this region, perceived consumer effectiveness is strongly influenced by ecological attitudes compared to environmental concern and external motivators. Conversely, green behavior affects the ECCB more in the non-impacted regions. Our evidence suggests that, after experiencing an environmental tragedy, consumers began to reflect on the effects of their consumption, which in turn influenced the ECCB. However, the effect of their green actions on their consumption behavior seems to decrease in the impacted region relative to the non-impacted regions.