Why do local inhabitants take action? Motivation and egagement to act voluntarily for nature
Abstract:
Although a biodiversity loss on the European continent is regarded as a conservation priority, it has not been halted as preliminary planned by 2010. However, current monitoring activities seem to be still inadequate to develop strategies for maintaining biodiversity at current levels. Here, based on a Polish case qualitative and quantitative material, we present what is the value of volunteers’ (nature amateurs) work for biodiversity protection and what conditions are to be fulfilled in order to decrease the costs and improve the effectiveness of national monitoring. Special attention is paid to analysis of amateurs’ motivation, engagement and causes which make them acting voluntarily for nature. Issues of volunteerism is complemented by a detailed characteristics of biodiversity monitoring system over the country and the EU (European Union) (e.g. its’ management, cooperation among various institutions etc.) as well as other variables of social-historic origin. Based on these approaches, recommendation are made regarding those features that need to be included in Polish and the EU policies due to maximize efficiency of biodiversity conservation.
References:
Bell S, Marzano M, Cent J, Kobierska H, Podjed D, Vandzinskaitė D, Reinert H, Armaitiene A, Grodzinska-Jurczak M, Mursic R (2008) What counts? Volunteers and their organizations in the recording and monitoring of biodiversity. Biodiversity and Conservation 17(14): 3443-3454
Bell S, Reinert H, Cent J, Kobierska H, Grodzińska-Jurczak M, Podjed D, Vandzinskaite D (2011) Volunteers on the political anvil: Citizenship and volunteer biodiversity monitoring in three post-communist countries. Environmental and Planning C – Government and Policy 29:170-185
Bowen BW, Bass AL, Aguiar JM, Anderson W, Marshall DB, Noss RF (1996) Are naturalists dying off? Conservation Biology 10:923–924
Chambre SM (1993) Volunteerism by elders: Past trends and future prospects. Gerontologist 33:221–228
Chuenpagdee R, Fraga J, Euan-Avila JI (2004) Progressing toward co-management through participatory research. Society and Natural Resources 17(2):147–161
Danielsen F, Jensen AE, Alviola PA, Balete DS, Mendoza MM, Tagtag A, Custodio C, Enghoff M (2005) Does monitoring matter? A quantitative assessment of management decisions from locally-based monitoring of protected areas. Biodiversity Conservation 14:2633–2652
Govaart MM, van Daal HJ, Münz A (2001) Volunteering Worldwide. Netherlands Institute of Care and Welfare, Utrecht
Greenwood JJD (2007) Citizens, science and bird conservation. J. Ornithol. 148:77–124
Grodzińska-Jurczak M, Cent J (2011) Can public participation increase nature conservation effectiveness? Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research 24 (3): 371-378
Hopkins GW, Freckleton RP (2002) Declines in the numbers of amateur and professional taxonomists: implications for conservation. Animal Conservation 5: 245–249
Juknevicius S, Savicka A (2003) From Restitution to Innovation: Volunteering in Postcommunist Countries. In Dekker P, Halman L (eds) The Values of Volunteering: Cross-Cultural Perspectives Cross-cultural studies. Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, pp 127-142
Kluvánková-Oravská T, Chobotová V, Banaszek I (2009) From Government to Governance for Biodiversity: The Perspective of Central and Eastern European Transition Countries. Environmental Planning and Governance 19:186-196
Marta E, Pozzi M (2008) Young People and Volunteerism: A Model of Sustained Volunteerism During the Transition to Adulthood. Journal of Adult Development 15(1): 35-46
Penner LA (2002) Dispositional and organizational influences on sustained volunteerism: An interactionist perspective, University of South Florida Press, Tampa
Vandzinskaitė D, Kobierska H, Schmeller DS, Grodzińska-Jurczak M (2010) Cultural diversity issues in biodiversity monitoring – cases of Lithuania, Poland and Denmark. Diversity 2:1130-1145