Evaluating the influence of nature connection and values on conservation attitudes at a tropical deforestation frontier
Article impact statement: Inner motivations are important factors shaping the conservation attitudes of tropical farmers and need to be considered in policy design.
Abstract
enInner phenomena, such as personal motivations for pursuing sustainability, may be critical levers for improving conservation outcomes. Most conservation research and policies, however, focus on external phenomena (e.g., ecological change or economic processes). We explored the factors shaping 9 conservation attitudes toward forest and wildlife protection among colonist farmers around an Amazonian deforestation frontier. Our data comprised 241 face-to-face quantitative surveys, complemented with qualitative insights from open-ended questionnaire responses and opportunistic semistructured interviews. To account for the full spectrum of possible inner motivations, we employed measures of nature connection (indicating biospheric motivation) and personal values organized around the traditionalism (traditionalist through to high openness to change) and universalism dimensions (egoistic through to altruistic motivations). We used averaged beta-binomial generalized linear models to assess the role of external factors (socioeconomic, sociodemographic, and environmental) and personal (inner) motivations on the variation in attitudes. Each attitude was modeled separately. The relative importance of each predictor was judged by the proportion of models where it appeared as significant. Proconservation views were expressed by the majority (at least 65%) of the respondents in 7 out of the 9 attitude models. The most consistent predictors were emotional nature connection and personal values (significant in 4–6 out of 9 models), rather than external phenomena (significant in 0–5 models). However, the poorest farmers had lower scores on the agreement with prioritizing nature over development (𝛽 = –0.52, 95% CI: –0.96 to –0.07). Qualitative data also indicated that economic barriers hinder forest conservation on farms. These results suggest that biospheric, traditionalistic, and altruistic motivations promote people's proconservation attitudes, but nurturing these latent motivations is unlikely to improve conservation outcomes if material poverty remains unaddressed. Integrating the inner–outer perspective into conservation thinking and practical interventions could foster environmental stewardship and increase human well-being.
Abstract
esEvaluación de la influencia de la conexión y los valores naturales sobre las actitudes de conservación es una frontera tropical de deforestación
Resumen
Los fenómenos interiores, como los motivos personales para ser sustentables, pueden ser niveladores importantes para aumentar los resultados de conservación. Sin embargo, la mayor parte de la investigación y las políticas se enfocan en los fenómenos exteriores (cambios ecológicos o procesos económicos, por ejemplo). Exploramos los factores que moldean nueve actitudes de conservación relacionadas con la protección de los bosques y la fauna en un grupo de agricultores colonos cercanos a una frontera de deforestación en la Amazonía. Nuestros datos se obtuvieron de 241 encuestas presenciales cuantitativas complementadas con información cualitativa tomada de las respuestas en cuestionarios de preguntas abiertas y entrevistas oportunistas semiestructuradas. Para considerar el espectro completo de las posibles motivaciones interiores empleamos medidas de la conexión natural (lo que indica motivos relacionados a la biósfera) y valores personales organizados en torno a las dimensiones del tradicionalismo (del tradicionalista hasta una gran apertura al cambio) y el universalismo (del egoísta hasta los motivos altruistas). Usamos modelos lineales generalizados betabinomiales promediados para evaluar el papel que tienen los factores externos (socioeconómicos, sociodemográficos y ambientales) y los motivos personales (interiores) en la variación de las actitudes. Modelamos cada actitud por separado. Juzgamos la importancia relativa de cada predictor mediante la proporción de modelos en los que aparecían como significativos. La mayoría (al menos el 65%) de los respondientes expresó las opiniones en pro de la conservación en siete de los nueve modelos de actitud. Los predictores más uniformes fueron la conexión emocional natural y los valores personales (significativos en cuatro a seis de los nueve modelos), en lugar de los fenómenos externos (significativos en cero a cinco modelos). Sin embargo, los agricultores más pobres tuvieron un puntaje más bajo en cuanto a estar de acuerdo con la priorización de la naturaleza sobre el desarrollo (𝛽 = -0.52, 95% CI -0.96 a -0.07). Los datos cualitativos también indicaron que las barreras económicas impiden la conservación de los bosques en las fincas. Estos resultados sugieren que los motivos tradicionalistas, altruistas y aquellos relacionados con la biósfera promueven las actitudes en pro de la conservación de las personas, pero es poco probable que propiciar estos motivos latentes aumente los resultados de conservación si sigue sin solucionarse la pobreza material. La inclusión de las perspectivas internas y externas dentro del pensamiento de conservación y las intervenciones prácticas podría fomentar la administración ambiental e incrementar el bienestar humano.
【摘要】
zh内在现象, 如追求可持续性的个人动机, 可能是改善保护结果的关键杠杆。然而, 大多数保护研究和政策都仅关注外在现象, 如生态变化或经济过程。本研究探讨了在亚马逊森林砍伐前线的殖民农民中, 影响对森林和野生动物保护的 9 种保护态度的因素。我们的数据包含 241 个面对面的定量调查, 辅以来自开放式问卷调查和机会性半结构化访谈的定性调查结果。为了说明所有可能的内在动机, 我们采用了对自然联系 (生物圈动机) 和个人价值观的测量, 围绕传统主义 (从传统主义者到对变化高度接受) 和普遍主义维度 (从利己主义动机到利他主义动机) 。我们使用了平均 beta 二项式广义线性模型评估外在因素 (社会经济、社会人口和环境) 和个人 (内在) 动机在态度变化中的作用, 并对每种态度单独建模, 并用每个预测因子在模型中出现的显著比例来确定其相对重要性。结果表明, 在 9 个态度模型的 7 个中, 大多数 (至少 65%) 受访者表达了支持保护的观点。最一致的预测因子是与自然的情感联系和个人价值观 (在9个模型的 4–6 个模型中显著), 而不是外在现象 (在 0–5 个模型中显著) 。然而, 最贫穷的农民在认同自然优先于发展方面的打分较低 (𝛽= −0.52, 95% 置信区间为 −0.96 至 −0.07) 。 定性数据还表明, 经济障碍阻碍了农场的森林保护。以上结果表明, 生物圈、传统主义和利他主义动机促进了人们支持保护的态度, 但如果物质贫困问题得不到解决, 培养这些潜在动机也不太可能改善保护结果。我们提出, 将内在-外在视角纳入保护思想和实际干预措施, 有助于促进环境管理并提高人类福祉。【翻译: 胡怡思; 审校: 聂永刚】
INTRODUCTION
The neglect of inner worlds is thought to hamper efforts to conserve tropical forests (Campos Tisovec-Dufner et al., 2019; Rueda et al., 2019), which are threatened by deforestation, degradation, fragmentation, and defaunation (Barlow et al., 2018). Emerging scholarship proposes that external environmental outcomes, such as climate change, ecological degradation, and biodiversity loss, are intrinsically connected to internal phenomena, including emotions, values, connections, and worldviews (Ives et al., 2020; Wamsler et al., 2021; Woiwode et al., 2021). Yet, most conservation research remains devoted to understanding and intervening in the outer world, constituted by the physical environment, governance systems, and economic and social structures (Hoelle, 2018; Rueda et al., 2019; Wamsler et al., 2021). A number of theoretical frameworks have been advanced to help conceptualize the relationship between inner and outer change for environmental sustainability. Examples include the “3 spheres of transformation” (O'Brien, 2018), which emphasizes the importance of subjective mindsets that influence how problems and solutions are perceived, the “leverage points” framework (Abson et al., 2017), which highlights the power of deep interventions that target actors’ underlying values, goals, and worldviews, and the “inner–outer transformation model” (Wamsler et al., 2021), which demonstrates the interconnectedness of consciousness, cultures, behaviors, and systems. Failure to consider inner worlds across individual and collective scales can limit the transformative potential of environmental policy and action.
This oversight of inner phenomena is evidenced in Amazonia, where research into environmental change has mostly focused on the external factors, showing, for example, how a lack of economic assets, misaligned policy incentives, or inadequate storage and supply chains can trap farming households in low-income and environmentally degrading practices (Garrett et al., 2017). Some notable exceptions focusing on inner phenomena include survey-based studies highlighting the importance of psychosocial factors, such as intrinsic motivations, attitudes, and identities, on Amazonian farmers’ forest preservation decisions (Campos Tisovec-Dufner et al., 2019; Rueda et al., 2019); anthropological insights into processes underpinning cultural embeddedness of cattle raising and the association of cultural values, such as wealth and progress, with deforested areas (Hoelle, 2011, 2018); and political ecology research, showing how joint conservation and development projects based on limited interpretations of farmers’ motivations often fail to benefit both people and biodiversity (Chambers et al., 2020). Nonetheless, understanding how a variety of inner-world phenomena—worldviews, values, and psychological attachments—may intersect with external factors to shape conservation outcomes remains understudied, especially in the Global South.
We addressed this important research gap by focusing on the relative effects of inner motivational drivers and external economic, sociodemographic, and environmental factors on conservation attitudes of Amazonian farmers. Conservation attitudes refer to the subset of environmental attitudes that concern biodiversity conservation. Attitudes matter because they partially determine people's decision-making and the level of support for policies (Milfont et al., 2010). For example, a person holding a positive attitude to forest protection is more likely to protect the forest on their land or support policies that foster forest conservation (Mastrangelo et al., 2014). In psychological research, variation in environmental attitudes between individuals is typically ascribed to differences in deeper sources of psychological motivation (Milfont et al., 2010; Tam, 2013). Based on these differences, environmental attitudes are often classified as egoistic (i.e., motivated by concern for self and close others), altruistic (i.e., concerned with the well-being of other people), or biospheric (i.e., motivated by concern for the well-being of nature) (de Groot & Steg, 2009). In contrast, research in sociology, economics, and environmental sciences has focused more on the links between environmental attitudes and external, contextual factors, such as income, age, or ecosystem services (e.g., Beiser-McGrath & Huber, 2018; Campos Tisovec-Dufner et al., 2019). However, few researchers have explored the influence of inner and outer phenomena on attitudes simultaneously.
Our approach to the inner-world concept draws on methods from environmental psychology. We evaluated how 2 types of deep inner motivational drivers—nature connection and personal values—influence conservation attitudes. Nature connection refers to the extent to which people believe themselves to be part of nature (cognitive nature connection or connectedness) and feel emotionally attached to nature (emotional connection) (Perkins, 2010; Schultz, 2002). This connection is thought to originate from meaningful nature experiences that expand a person's concept of self to include elements of nature (e.g., mountains, birds), which become cared-for objects (Clayton et al., 2017; Schultz, 2002). Personal values, in turn, describe a set of universal, relatively stable abstract goals and principles, such as fairness or health, that serve to express human needs and guide action across different situations (Schwartz, 1992). They are organized along 2 principal dimensions: traditionalism and universalism. Universalism captures values broadly corresponding to the spectrum from the egoistic (or self-enhancement) to altruistic and biospheric (or self-transcendent) values (de Groot & Steg, 2009). Traditionalism, in contrast, captures a spectrum from conservative values, emphasizing restraint and control, to openness-to-change values, favoring stimulation and self-direction (Schwartz, 1992). At the individual level, values and nature connection can influence attitudes and behaviors (Milfont et al., 2010; Whitburn et al., 2020). At the societal level, dominant values underlie the goals or intent of the paradigms that govern our planetary socioecological system (Abson et al., 2017). Set against the primacy of the global economic growth paradigm (Díaz et al., 2019), reconnecting people to nature and cultivating proenvironmental values are some of the deep-system levers necessary to transition toward sustainable economy and halt biodiversity decline (Abson et al., 2017; Chan et al., 2020; IPBES, 2022; Ives et al., 2018).
The relative importance of inner world and external world phenomena in shaping conservation attitudes in real-world landscapes in the Global South remains unclear. Despite the growing body of academic literature asserting that inner motivational drivers, such as values and nature connection, are important for promoting conservation (Abson et al., 2017; Ives et al., 2018; Zylstra et al., 2014), there is scant empirical evidence comparing their effect on conservation attitudes relative to the effects of external factors, such as socioeconomic circumstances, sociodemographic characteristics, or local environmental conditions. Likewise, a clear understanding of which inner motivation dimensions (e.g., biospheric, egoistic, traditionalist) underpin people's conservation attitudes is lacking. A recent report highlights that environmental policies often fail to accommodate the plurality of values that societies hold for nature, typically treating nature only as a material resource (IPBES, 2022). This failure has been linked to the hegemony of neoliberal conservation agendas, which are based on the assumption that people act egoistically, in pursuit of material self-interest, and must be externally incentivized or legally obliged to behave in alignment with conservation goals (Chambers et al., 2020; Fletcher, 2010). Accordingly, the standard conservation toolbox is based primarily on material incentives and sanctions (e.g., payments for ecosystem services or fines for environmental rule breaking), overlooking other potential motivations for nature protection (Chambers et al., 2020; Muradian & Gómez-Baggethun, 2021).
A more nuanced version of the logic underpinning many common conservation approaches proposes a positive correlation between the external, material conditions of life and attitudes toward nature protection. This assumption intersects with affluence-based theories in economy, politics, and sociology (e.g., environmental Kuznets curve [Magnani, 2000] or the postmaterialist value change theory [Inglehart, 1997, 2018]), which view nature as a “luxury good” or a “postmaterialist” concern that poor people cannot afford to care about except in the context of pressing environmental issues and conflicts over natural resources (e.g., Guha & Alier, 2013; Mayerl & Best, 2018; Roberts & Mangold, 2021).
Accordingly, these concepts emphasize that biospheric motivations only influence people's attitudes toward the environment in wealthy societies and have little traction in economically more deprived contexts. However, studies supporting the affluence-based theories have tended to rely on large multicountry data sets with narrow definitions of environmental concern (framed mostly around the trade-off between economic development and nature protection preferences) and without explicit measures of biospheric motivations (Brechin, 1999; Dunlap & York, 2008). Typically, biospheric motivations behind environmental concern in these studies can only be inferred indirectly from correlations with other “postmaterialist” values, such as freedom of speech and self-expression, versus “materialist” values, such as maintaining social order and economic stability (e.g., Mayerl & Best, 2018, 2019).
We explored the importance of inner and outer phenomena by assessing the relative influence of nature connection, personal values, and external factors on conservation attitudes among non-Indigenous colonist farmers living along the Transamazon Highway—a major deforestation frontier. With 44−49% of the population earning half a Brazilian minimal salary or less and the GINI inequality index of 0.45−0.68 (IBGE, 2010), this region is characterized by relatively high levels of poverty and income inequality.
Understanding the basis of concern about environment and nature protection at this frontier—as a case study of a low-income, peopled, and highly biodiverse landscape in the Global South—has important implications for policy design. If conservation attitudes were mostly influenced by socioeconomic circumstances, then it might be most effective to focus on improving material circumstances and incentivizing desired behaviors through the conventional array of material rewards and sanctions. If, however, biospheric motivations also shape attitudes among this population, then the conservation agenda may benefit from efforts to recognize and potentially cultivate these motivations. In other words, perhaps there is a need for a new inner–outer conservation paradigm in the Global South.
Specifically, we asked: what are the levels of proconservation attitudes among Amazonian farmers along the Transamazon Highway; what are the associations of conservation attitudes with inner motivations (cognitive and emotional nature connection and personal values) compared with outer world dimensions (economic, sociodemographic, and environmental factors); and what are the differences and similarities in the way that different dimensions of inner motivations (biospheric, altruistic, traditionalist) associate with proconservation attitudes?
METHODS
The study area was in Pará state in the municipalities of Brasil Novo, Medicilândia, and Uruará (Figure 1). This area is characterized by a human-modified mosaic of forests and farmland, where balancing people's well-being and livelihood opportunities with conservation and environmental sustainability remains a constant challenge. The farm–forest landscapes are dominated by low-capitalized, family-based agriculture, centered primarily around extensive cattle farming and cocoa production. The vast majority of the inhabitants are non-Indigenous colonos (colonists), migrants who, following government incentives for colonization, settled there from 1972 onward along with their locally born descendants (Moran, 1981). High nature connection is prevalent among the colonist farmers in the study area (Mikołajczak et al., 2019), but the political influence of right-wing ruralist perspectives on agriculture and deforestation in Amazonia (de Area Leão Pereira et al., 2020) demonstrates the on-going power of a development paradigm centered on production gains (Moran, 1981). This paradigm favors economic factors in decision-making and exemplifies motivational conflicts and limits to biospheric motivations in promoting proconservation attitudes. The study area, therefore, provides a suitable context for exploring the role of diverse inner motivations in shaping conservation attitudes in low-income, rural contexts in the Global South.
Sampling was stratified across 45 points along 15 of the fishbone side roads (i.e., 3 points per side road) running perpendicular to the highway. These points incorporated gradients in forest cover and distance from the subregional urban center Altamira (details in Mikołajczak et al. [2019]). We aimed to interview the landowners and their spouses (or close family involved in running the farm) on the 4 properties closest to each sampling point. Hence, the target sample was 12 properties per side road (total target 180 properties). When some landowners refused (n = 23) or were unavailable (number unrecorded), we moved to the next closest farm property, not exceeding a 5-km radius from the sampling point. Six points were abandoned due to inaccessibility to cars or an apparent lack of inhabitants. In total, we collected 241 individual responses.
Dependent variables
Using a structured questionnaire administered by an interviewer, we assessed 9 diverse and locally relevant conservation attitudes (Table 1). Four were general attitudes related to preferences between development and nature protection, extinction prevention, forest preservation, and the control of numbers of problematic wildlife on private properties. We use problematic wildlife to refer to animals that can be dangerous or damaging, without specifying species (Table 1, control problem wildlife). We also measured 5 attitudes specific to landowner tolerance of different animal taxa: the lowland tapir (anta [Tapirus terrestris]), hyacinth macaw (arara azul [Anodorhynchus hyacinthinus]), jaguar (onça pintada [Panthera onca]), vipers (jararaca [Bothrops]), and vine snakes (cobra cipó [Chironius]). One of the indicators of tolerance is the size of the population of a species a person is willing to coexist with (Marino et al., 2021). We measured species tolerance by asking about the desired changes in the population status of each animal on the farmer's property over the next 10 years (Table 1).
| Attitude | Statementa | Response scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| General conservation | |||
| Prioritize natureb |
Original: The development of our region is much more important than the protection of nature. Reverse scored: expresses support for prioritizing nature protection over development in the region. |
1 = Completely disagree 2 = Somewhat disagree 3 = Neither agree nor disagree 4 = Somewhat agree 5 = Completely agree |
|
| Prevent extinctions | If some animal in the area begins to decline, people should act to not let that animal disappear. | ||
| Protect forests | All the forests that still remain in the region should be protected. | ||
| Control problem wildlifeb |
Original: Animals that are dangerous or damage crops need to be controlled on private properties, even if they are rare. Reverse scored: Expresses objection to the need for controlling wild animals on private properties, even if they are dangerous or damage crops. |
||
| Species tolerance | |||
|
Tapir Hyacinth macaw Jaguar Vine snakes Vipers |
In the next 10 years, how would you prefer the population of [animal name] to change on your property? |
0 = Disappear completely 1 = Decrease a lot 2 = Decrease a little 3 = No change 4 = Increase a little 5 = Increase a lot |
|
- a When responses to negative, anticonservation attitudes are reversed scored, they are presumed to express the opposite sentiments.
- b Items phrased as negative, anticonservation attitudes in the questionnaire.
We selected animal taxa that would be widely known to interviewees (verified during prestudy interviews in November 2015) and that would enable us to contrast the drivers of Amazonian farmers’ tolerance to species perceived as threatening versus benign and to contrast those generally considered charismatic versus uncharismatic. We classified jaguar and vipers as threatening because they injure and kill cattle and, sometimes, humans (Campos Neto et al., 2011; Feitosa et al., 2015). In contrast, we classified tapir, hyacinth macaw, and vine snakes as relatively benign. Although tapirs and macaws occasionally damage crops (mentioned anecdotally by several respondents), they are herbivores that pose little bodily threat to humans, while bites from vine snakes are rare and, unlike vipers, harmless to humans. Charisma, in turn, refers to the aesthetic and emotional appeal of a species to humans (Lorimer, 2007). Aesthetically, animal charisma has been linked to characteristics such as large size and bright or striking coloration (Macdonald et al., 2015; Mesquita et al., 2015). Emotionally, birds and mammals (especially large cats) are typically more appealing than insects, spiders, or snakes (Macdonald et al., 2015; Mesquita et al., 2015). Based on these distinctions, the tapir, hyacinth macaw, and jaguar, being large-bodied birds and mammals, were classified as charismatic, whereas the snakes (vipers and vine snakes) were classified as uncharismatic.
We also collected responses to open-ended questions regarding the perceptions of desired levels of forest cover on the respondents’ properties, how much forest should be protected by law, and respondents’ approval or disapproval for selective logging projects in forest reserves on farming properties. All questionnaire items used in this study are in Appendix S3.
Explanatory variables
To assess cognitive nature connection, we used a graphical, single-item, 7-point scale called “inclusion of nature in self” (INS) (Schultz, 2002), selected for its brevity and simplicity. For emotional nature connection, we used a 5-point Likert scale (from 1 = Completely disagree to 5 = Completely agree) called “love and care for nature—rural” (LCNR), which consisted of 7 simply worded items intended to capture feelings, such as love, beauty, joy, and psychological well-being, derived from nature (Mikołajczak et al., 2019) (Appendix S3).
Values were measured using the “portrait value questionnaire 21” (PVQ−21), translated and validated for use in Brazil (Sambiase et al., 2014). Raw value scores on the PVQ-21 measure were transformed to the universalism and traditionalism dimensions with fixed equations derived through exploratory factor analysis (Strack & Dobewall, 2012) (Appendix S1). According to Schwartz's (1992) theory of basic human values, personal values have a near-universal structure organized along the 2 main axes of universalism and traditionalism. The traditionalism dimension comprises the spectrum from conservative values (e.g., conformity, security, and tradition) to openness-to-change values (e.g., freedom, self-direction, and pleasurable experiences) and has rarely been linked to proenvironmental attitudes. The universalism dimension comprises the spectrum from self-enhancement and self-transcendence values. Self-enhancement values are egoistic, concerned with the well-being of self and close others (e.g., power and achievement). Self-transcendence includes altruistic values, concerned with the well-being of other people (e.g., helping others), and biospheric values, concerned with the well-being of nature (e.g., living in harmony with nature). However, in the PVQ-21 measure, out of the 21 items (of which 6 capture self-transcendence), only 1 indicates a biospheric orientation. Thus, we considered that the PVQ-21 captured the egoistic–altruistic spectrum and considered nature connection measures indicators of biospheric motivation.
Socioeconomic factors included monetary income, material insecurity experienced in childhood, years of formal education, and household remoteness from Altamira (the largest local urban center affording better access to health care, markets, and services). Income was assessed at the household level and its potential effect was analyzed either as a linear predictor or as a binary measure of relative poverty. Households in the lowest monetary income quartile (<R$1650 per month, equivalent to US$511 in 2016) were classified as income poor, others as not poor. Wealth measured as household income did not show any significant associations and was excluded from further analyses in favor of the binary poor–nonpoor measure. Material, or existential, insecurity experienced in childhood was assessed with a question: “When you were a child, did you ever have difficulty in acquiring food and/or medicine?” Responses never and sometimes were grouped into the category not much, and responses often and everyday were grouped into the category a lot. This measure was included to account for the assertion in the postmaterialist theory that utilitarian attitudes toward nature are shaped by scarcity and a sense of existential insecurity experienced during formative childhood years rather than in adult life (Inglehart, 1997, 2018).
Sociodemographic factors included interviewee age and gender and environmental factors included forest cover as a proxy for the amount of nature remaining in the household's neighborhood. Forest cover was calculated using global forest change maps (Hansen et al., 2013) (details in Appendix S1) and measured at 4 different distances: 500-, 1000-, 1500-, and 2000-m radii around the household. For each attitude, only the distance with the lowest corrected Akaike information criterion in single-predictor models was included in subsequent model averaging (Appendix S1)
Our research protocol was approved by the Lancaster University Research Ethics Committee (RS2015/68).
Attitude modeling
Quantitative data were analyzed in R 3.3.3 (R Core Team, 2018). The effects of the explanatory variables (summarized in Table 2) on the variation in attitudes were estimated with averaged beta-binomial generalized linear models, separately for each attitude. Predictors were considered significant if their 95% confidence intervals for the averaged beta coefficients excluded 0. Predictors’ relative importance was judged by the proportion of the 9 averaged models where their effects were significant. Further analytical details and model outputs are in Appendix S1.
| Indicated latent construct | Measured variable (scale) | n | Mean | SD | Median | Range |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biospheric motivation | Cognitive nature connection (INS scale) | 240 | 5.15 | 1.48 | 5 | 1–7 |
| Affective nature connection (LCNR scale) | 241 | 4.5 | 0.62 | 4.71 | 2.12–5 | |
| Altruistic over egoistic motivation | Universalism (PVQ-21) | 238 | 0.68 | 0.9 | 0.6 | –1.56 to 3.12 |
| Traditionalist over openness-to-change motivation | Traditionalism (PVQ-21) | 238 | 0.5 | 0.79 | 0.49 | –1.77 to 2.62 |
| Socioeconomic status | Household monthly income (R$) | 241 | 4095 | 3646 | 2846 | 286–43,450 |
| Travel distance to urban center Altamira (km) | 236 | 141 | 72 | 111 | 42–262 | |
| Education (years) | 241 | 4.95 | 3.84 | 4.00 | 0–19 | |
| Environment: amount of nature | Forest cover % (500-m radius) | 238 | 51 | 18 | 51 | 14–93 |
| Forest cover % (1000-m radius) | 238 | 54 | 16 | 53 | 25–87 | |
| Forest cover % (1500-m radius) | 238 | 57 | 16 | 57 | 58–89 | |
| Forest cover % (2000-m radius) | 238 | 59 | 14 | 59 | 59–90 | |
| Demographic characteristics | Age (years) | 241 | 46.91 | 13.27 | 48.00 | 18–75 |
| Gender | 241 | Female 42%, male 58% | ||||
| Socioeconomic status | Childhood material insecurity | 239 | A lot 26%, not much 74% | |||
- Abbreviations: INS, inclusion of nature in self scale; LCNR, love and are for nature—rural scale; PVQ-21, portrait values questionnaire 21 scale.
For each attitude, we collected complimentary qualitative data from comments relating to questionnaire statements and from opportunistic semistructured interviews, analyzed thematically in Microsoft Excel.
RESULTS
Most respondents were male (58% of 241). Respondents’ ages ranged from 18 to 75 years (mean 47), and the mean number of years of formal education was 5.0 (median 4.0) (Table 2). Mean household monthly income was R$4095, and median income was R$2846. Twenty-six percent of respondents experienced substantial material insecurity in childhood. On average, households were 140 km of travel distance from the city of Altamira (range: 42–262 km). Forest cover around households ranged from 14% to 93%. Mean cover increased from 51% within a 500-m radius to 59% cover within a 2000-m radius.
General attitudes were largely proconservation, except for preferences to control populations of problematic wildlife (Figure 2a). Sixty-five percent of respondents wanted to prioritize nature over development, at least to some degree; 92% at least partially agreed with the need for local action to prevent extinctions; and 80% agreed partially or fully with the need to protect all remaining local forests. Only 16% agreed that problematic wildlife did not need control on farms.
Charismatic and benign species were more widely tolerated than those considered uncharismatic or threatening (Figure 2b). Virtually everyone wanted the populations of relatively benign species to stay the same or increase, but a sizable proportion of interviewees (29%) did not want to see population reductions even of venomous snakes. Nonetheless, 52% of respondents wished to eradicate vipers from their farms completely—in line with the wish to control problematic wildlife but somewhat contradicting the stated widespread desire to prevent local extinctions.
Positive associations between emotional nature connection and proconservation attitudes were identified. We found no evidence that cognitive nature connection affects environmental attitudes. Emotional nature connection and values in the traditionalism dimension were positively associated with 6 out of 9 attitudes, more than any other predictors (Figure 3). Nature connection related positively to all attitudes except tolerance of snakes and opposition to controlling problematic wildlife on farms. Traditionalism was associated positively with all attitudes except tolerance of benign species. Values in the universalism dimension explained variation in 4 attitudes, positively associating with tolerance of threatening or uncharismatic animals, support for preventing extinctions, and disapproval of prioritizing development over nature protection. Gender was also important: men were generally more tolerant of tapirs, jaguars, and vine snakes and more supportive of preventing local extinctions, but less opposed than women to controlling problematic wildlife populations on farms.
Formal education enhanced tolerance of threatening animals and support for preventing extinctions but was also associated with prioritizing development over nature. Economic factors and geographic covariates explained variation in few attitudes. However, people living in income poverty were more likely to put development before nature; this association persisted when observations with imputed income data were excluded from the analysis. Farmers living farther from the urban center Altamira were less tolerant of macaws and less supportive of preventing local extinctions. Farmers in high-forest-cover environments were also less supportive of preventing local extinctions. The remaining variables, including cognitive nature connection, were not significantly related to conservation attitudes. In summary, diverse conservation attitudes were more related to inner motivational drivers (emotional nature connection, values) than to external factors (socioeconomic, sociodemographic, environmental). Nonetheless, some external factors were associated with specific attitudes.
Qualitative insights revealed important barriers to farmers taking actions to protect forests or wildlife (Appendix S2). The most common was the perceived lack of viable economic alternatives to deforestation. Farmers frequently expressed a personal tension in feeling unable to simultaneously meet their families’ subsistence needs and preserve as much forest as they would like: “…the desire is to protect, but one has to deforest some, too [to survive].” This was often compounded by the perception that without government assistance, “there is no way” to protect more. Several women highlighted their perceived lack of agency to protect forests as a source of emotional distress: “If it depended on me, I wouldn't burn the forest, it's the greatest sorrow for me.” Another barrier was the perceived unfairness of rule enforcement. Some respondents did not feel responsible or obliged to follow legal restrictions on deforestation because they were not seen as fairly applied to all actors; fazendeiros (large-scale cattle ranchers) were often perceived as “do[ing] what they want” and going unpunished despite causing much greater per capita damage to forests than medium- and smallholders. Even farmers who expressed biospheric motivations to conserve nature often had opposing beliefs and attitudes about forest management practices, such as commercial selective logging. For example, some believed that even selective logging “ends up destroying lots” and is unacceptable, whereas others approved of it, believing that “logging doesn't harm the forest at all. If you remove one tree, thousands of new ones are born in its place.”
DISCUSSION
We found that a diverse set of 9 conservation attitudes related to forest and wildlife conservation was most consistently explained by inner motivational drivers: emotional nature connection and personal values summarized along the axes of universalism and traditionalism. In contrast, external factors—relative household poverty, material and health insecurity experienced in childhood, household remoteness, local forest cover, formal education, and gender—were associated only with specific attitudes.
The use of psychological measures of nature connection and values is a novel approach to exploring conservation motivations in the Global South, and our results contribute much-needed empirical evidence to substantiate emerging conceptual research on the role of inner motivations in conservation and sustainability (Raymond et al., 2019; Wamsler et al., 2021). First, the results provide support for the importance of inner motivations in understanding attitudinal antecedents of proconservation behavior. Second, they suggest that biospheric motivations to protect nature can be common in low-income tropical areas and are not exclusively associated with wealthy and economically developed societies (although poverty may still constrain the willingness to protect nature in the face of perceived trade-offs with development). Third, our results suggest that farmers’ inner motivations and attitudes generally support nature protection and point instead toward economic, governance, and knowledge barriers as the primary factors restricting nature conservation in Amazonian farm–forest landscapes.
Our findings are consistent with suggestions that intrinsic motivation to protect nature promotes greater forest preservation by farmers in Latin America (Chambers et al., 2020; Rueda et al., 2019) and with agricultural economic research showing the interrelated persistence of poverty and environmentally degrading land uses in Amazonia (Garrett et al., 2017). We propose that integrating inner motivations with economically oriented policies in conservation and development interventions could simultaneously help cultivate biospheric attitudes and reduce poverty. Specifically, alongside poverty-alleviation measures, policies should seek to enable latent sustainability-aligned motivations to be voiced and “unleashed” (Chan et al., 2020), for example, through public deliberation and citizen engagement (IPBES, 2022). This inner–outer conservation approach would also speak to development agendas that foster environmental justice, human rights, and dignity.
Internal and external drivers shaping conservation attitudes
Consistent with environmental–psychological theory, our results suggest that although external, outer-world drivers often associate with specific attitudes, inner motivational drivers (values, psychological connections) provide the underlying coherence to a person's stance on diverse environmental attitudes (de Groot & Steg, 2009; Zylstra et al., 2014). High levels of emotional nature connection, traditionalism, and universalism values all contributed positively to a wide range of proconservation attitudes (4–6 each). Cognitive nature connection did not associate with any attitudes; this may be true or an artifact of the INS scale used to measure it (chosen for its simplicity), which has previously shown somewhat lower correlations with attitudes and behaviors than other measures of nature connection (Tam, 2013). Traditionalism (indicating priority for tradition and conformity over socially liberal values) appeared to positively influence a wider spectrum of attitudes than universalism (indicating priority for altruistic over egoistic values). This finding is important, given that in Western societies, traditionalism shows little association with proenvironmental views and studies on proenvironmental attitudes and behaviors often focus only on values in the universalism dimension, usually categorized as biospheric, altruistic, and egoistic (de Groot & Steg, 2009).
Differences in the way emotional nature connection, traditionalism, and universalism were associated with different attitudes related mainly to wildlife tolerance. Tolerance of jaguar—a threatening but charismatic mammal (Campos Neto et al., 2011; Macdonald et al., 2015)—was positively associated with emotional nature connection, traditionalism, and universalism. However, only emotional nature connection promoted tolerance of the charismatic and benign tapirs and macaws, and only traditionalism and universalism promoted tolerance of the uncharismatic vine snakes (benign) and vipers (threatening). Although people have evolved to fear snakes (Barrett & Broesch, 2012), in Hungary, where wild snakes present minimal risks to lay people (Malina et al., 2008), stronger nature connection has been associated with lower fear of snakes and spiders (Zsido et al., 2022). However, for rural Amazonians, the fear of snakes is easily reinforced through experience, due to a high incidence of snakebites, which may be fatal or cause life-changing injuries (Feitosa et al., 2015). Thus, it is possible that a sense of connection with nature may not easily encompass taxa perceived as uncharismatic and experienced as threatening. Moreover, the discord between the seemingly widespread support for preventing local extinction and the simultaneous desire to control problematic wildlife and eradicate vipers from private properties suggests that phenomena, such as not-in-my-backyard attitudes (whereby stakeholders approve of something in principle but not directly in their vicinity), may also be at play in shaping attitudes to more problematic fauna (von Essen & Allen, 2020). These results show that nature connection is not always associated with biophilic attitudes; hence, the dominant framing of nature as benevolent in research from Western nations is overly simplistic and may not always be generalizable to other contexts (Zylstra et al., 2014).
The influence of external factors on attitudes was less consistent; nonetheless, some interesting patterns were apparent. For instance, people living in more forested areas and who lived farther from Altamira were less supportive than average of preventing local extinctions and had less desire to increase macaw populations. Given that remote areas and those with high forest cover are generally more abundant in wildlife (Parry & Peres, 2015), their inhabitants might perceive less need for wildlife conservation.
Other external effects also highlight that people's inner worlds interact with outer phenomena, such as social processes and structures (O'Brien, 2018; Wamsler et al., 2021). For instance, conservation attitudes differed between genders; men were more tolerant than women of certain species and supportive of preventing extinctions, yet more willing than women to control problematic wildlife on farms. According to the concept of ecological habitus, people's thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and actions toward the environment are influenced by the social world they inhabit (Kasper, 2009). In rural Amazonia, socialization into a gendered division of livelihood-related tasks begins in childhood (Menegaldo et al., 2013). For example, boys may go fishing or hunting with their fathers, developing knowledge of local fauna, whereas girls are generally expected to perform more domestic tasks, assisting their mothers. The gendered lives of adult men and women embody the socially constructed differentiation in attitudes, responsibilities, knowledge, and abilities in interacting with the local environment (e.g., farming, hunting, preparing food, etc.) (Menegaldo et al., 2013). This illustrates how outer phenomena, such as social structures and gender, may interact to affect inner phenomena, such as individuals’ environmental attitudes or group-level norms and practices (which, in turn, reproduce social structures). This constant interplay between inner and outer worlds calls for an integrated perspective on conservation challenges, which accounts for inner and outer dimensions across the individual, social, and institutional scales (O'Brien, 2018; Wamsler et al., 2021).
Poverty, development, and endorsement of biospheric motivations for nature protection in the Global South
Following the emergence of environmental economics (and associated logics of narrow self-interest and infinite rationality) in the 1990s, many present-day conservation interventions rely on the assumption that people in economically developing societies can only be motivated to protect nature for materialistic reasons (i.e., for material gain or avoidance of sanctions). This view goes back to the argument that biospheric motivations and valuing nature as a good in itself are “postmaterialist” concerns that promote proenvironmental views only in societies that have reached a threshold of affluence and stability that allows their young people to grow up without a constant fear for their physical and economic security (Inglehart, 1997; Mayerl & Best, 2018).
We contribute to this debate by showing that biospheric motivations for nature protection—as indicated by emotional nature connection—was associated consistently and positively with various proconservation attitudes among Transamazonian farmers. Hence, biospheric motivations may play a significant role in promoting local support for conservation in Amazonia and, potentially, in other income-poor areas in the Global South.
We also found that, independent of nature connection and personal values, poor farmers were more likely than their wealthier peers to reject the proposition of putting nature before development. Hence, where trade-offs exist between environmental protection and socioeconomic outcomes, unmet material needs and precarity of the rural poor may constrain their willingness and capacity to translate nature connection into conservation actions. Relatedly, several studies report a positive association between relative income and the willingness to prioritize nature over development or to pay for environmental protection (although this association is suppressed by income inequality) (e.g., Mayerl & Best, 2018; Roberts & Mangold, 2021). However, relative poverty was not related to any of the other conservation attitudes in our study, highlighting the importance of using a range of diverse attitudes when examining the association between socioeconomic drivers and environmentalism (Brechin, 1999; Dunlap & York, 2008). Thus, our results support the claim that poverty constrains willingness to protect nature where trade-offs between conservation and development are perceived, but, following Dunlap and York (2008), we challenge the assertion that poor people lack biospheric concern for nature. Consequently, conservation efforts in the tropics may benefit from complementing current externally oriented interventions with others that aim to understand, and possibly foster, biospheric motivations (IPBES, 2022).
Strengthening conservation policy through the inner–outer perspective
Recent developments in climate policy, in particular during COP26, have unlocked unprecedented levels of interest and finance for the protection and restoration of forested landscapes (UN, 2021). Our results suggest that biospheric motivations and proconservation attitudes are common among Transamazonian farmers, which could provide a rich foundation of support for conservation action. Nonetheless, Amazonian deforestation continues, and our qualitative results point to external rather than internal factors—most of all to the lack of viable economic alternatives to deforestation—as the main constraints on effective forest conservation on private farms in our study region. Many respondents were torn because without governmental assistance, they felt unable to support their families without continued deforestation on their properties. This suggests that the apparent discord between farmers’ internal motivations and economic needs has costs to their emotional well-being (Riechers et al., 2021). In line with a recent report (IPBES, 2022), these tensions indicate that current policies fail to ensure conditions that would allow people to fully realize their “existing, but latent” proconservation values.
The inner–outer sustainability perspective posits that the adoption of sustainable practices is most likely when people's inner worlds and outer conditions are aligned and conducive to this goal (Hoelle, 2018; Wamsler et al., 2021). In behavioral terms, people must feel capable and motivated for change and have the means to do so (Maller, 2021; Michie et al., 2011). We propose that conservation policy should integrate both dimensions by combining classical outer-oriented interventions, such as monetary mechanisms, regulations, monitoring, and rule enforcement, with inner-oriented interventions aimed at cultivating caring for and stewardship of nonhuman nature.
Investment is undoubtedly necessary to overcome external barriers to sustainability, but comes with challenges. In the Amazon, support is urgently required for colonist farmers to adopt more sustainable agricultural practices (e.g., rotational grazing) and improve access to certification and foreign markets for high-end-value products (Garrett et al., 2017; Metzger et al., 2019). In addition to better ecological outcomes and higher returns for farmers, support for adopting more sustainable practices could also have emotional benefits, empowering biospherically motivated farmers to conserve more without sacrificing their material circumstances. It is also crucial to increase compliance with environmental regulations and, as highlighted by our qualitative insights, these regulations must be more fairly applied. However, outer-oriented interventions alone, especially based on monetary mechanisms, can replace or crowd out biospheric and altruistic motivations to protect nature with egoistic ones (e.g., increasing profits, making long-term protection more conditional on continual funding) (Cinner et al., 2021; García-Amado et al., 2013). Moreover, in the absence of biospheric motivations, interventions to increase farm profits can facilitate more deforestation as farmers gain capital necessary for further expansion (Chambers et al., 2020). Outer-oriented interventions also rarely succeed in instilling biospheric motivations where they are not already embraced (Chambers et al., 2020). Approaches fostering nature stewardship may help mitigate these challenges (García-Amado et al., 2013).
West et al. (2018) frame stewardship as the intersection of knowledge, agency, and care, arguing that an ethic of care emerges from embedded, complex social–ecological relationships. In practice, establishing cultures of care and stewardship could involve multiple approaches, for example, deliberation and covisioning exercises (Horcea-Milcu et al., 2019); communication strategies (Bicchieri, 2017); and engaging people in social proenvironmental activities, such as community forest management (Agrawal, 2005; Maller, 2021). Combined, outer- and inner-oriented interventions could help create enabling socioecological environments necessary to cultivate proconservation motivations, incentivize sustainable practices, and foment a mutually reinforcing culture of meanings, norms, and identities aligned with conservation goals (Maller, 2021; Walton & Wilson, 2018). These cultural levers can exercise strong external pressure to conform to conservation practices and, over time, potentially even internalize the underlying proenvironmental motivations (Agrawal, 2005; Bicchieri, 2017; Maller, 2021; Walton & Wilson, 2018). Thus, the integrated inner–outer approach to conservation interventions holds the promise of enhanced ecological and well-being benefits, supported by positive socioecological relationships.
Although the importance of intrinsic motivations for nature protection is increasingly recognized in theory, empirical measurement of nature connection, personal values, and environmental attitudes remains scarce in the Global South. We characterized the personal values and nature connection among colonist farmers in an Amazonian deforestation frontier, finding that biospheric motivations shape proconservation attitudes. We suggest these linkages should be leveraged for change toward greater sustainability. The integrated inner–outer approach to conservation policy has the potential to simultaneously advance conservationist and well-being objectives in farm–forest landscapes in Amazonia and elsewhere, offering an exciting new direction for transformative conservation research and practice.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank M. Sambiase for assistance with the Brazilian PVQ-21 questionnaire, Universidade Federal do Pará for institutional support during fieldwork, W. P. Schultz and C. Lira-Pato for discussions about the relation between nature connection and values, and the hundreds of farmers who gave us their trust and time to participate in this study.
