Community Conservation in Action
In 2002/3 ten community conservation sites across Oxfordshire were awarded the title of Jubilee Wildlife Spaces following an initiative led by the Lord Lieutenant Hugo Brunner and Oxford Nature Conservation Forum. The groups were selected to represent a range of worthwhile projects across the area and the groups vary in size, purpose and outcome. We thought these groups presented an ideal opportunity to learn more about the processes of successful community conservation in action. Anna had already met many of the instigators of these groups while giving a talk to their celebration meeting arranged by ONCF.
What kind of questions they raise
In September 2006 we therefore started looking at these groups with the aim of understanding what motivates people to take up conservation action, and what that in turn achieves. In particular our project aims to shed light on the relationship between experience, worldview and action. From the interdisciplinary platform of Human Ecology we hope to bridge the gap between social science perspectives on environmental action and social capital, with ideas about individual motivation and experience, from the environmental psychology and human ecology literature.
Inspired by the action research work of Bath (Reason and Bradbury 2006) we adopted a qualitative approach developing from our relationship to the groups and people involved. We made our starting point the ten Jubilee Wildlife Spaces around Oxfordshire. We approached these groups and asked if we could come along to join in on workdays or meetings to get a feel for what each project was about. Stemming from this initial contact we have selected six groups to follow on with. For each of these groups we are in the process of in-depth interviews with individuals, both key organisers as well as more casual participants. We are using a snowballing approach to sampling, starting with the project leaders and proactively seeking people who come from different social and professional backgrounds, who have any relationship with the community conservation site, whether volunteering for work parties or walking the dog.
The focus of the interviews is to hear the experiences of these individuals with the aim of better understanding how and why people engage in these activities, and what changes for them as a result. Along with the interviews we are asking people to complete a short attitude questionnaire based on Dunlap and Van Liere’s New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale which has been widely used as a measure of pro-environmental orientation (Dunlap et al. 2000).
So far we can see considerable diversity in the groups’ structure with varying levels of formality adopted; trustees, committees etc, and yet on a personal level many of the stories resonate with similar themes. We are seeing a remarkable amount of pride and satisfaction from involvement in these projects at all levels, even where views differ about the relative importance of the ecological and social functions of the sites.
References
Dunlap, R., K. Van Liere, A. Mertig, and R. E. Jones. 2000. Measuring Endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm: A Revised NEP Scale. Journal of Social Issues 56:425-442.
Reason, P., and H. Bradbury. Editors. 2006. Handbook of action research: concise paperback edition. London: Sage.