Value orientations and the practice of conservation: Applications in fisheries management and agriculture

More than a half-century ago, Aldo Leopold argued that the successful conservation of natural resources would require people to form ethical obligations to the greater "land community." An individual's willingness to expand their ethical considerations to include non human others may be governed by their basic beliefs about nature's worth and how humanity should use, treat, and otherwise affect natural resources. Studies indicate that such beliefs can be aggregated to form "value orientations," which are conceptualized as expressions of more fundamental values. Three studies are discussed in which the value orientation approach—originally developed in studies of wildlife—is adapted to examine fisheries and private lands conservation behaviors. The first two studies detail the development of an instrument for measuring fisheries-related value orientations, and explore the relationship between value orientations and anglers' stewardship behaviors. The final study builds upon existing psychological models of environmentally significant behavior to propose a model predicting landowners' use of government-sponsored conservation programs.;Study 1 found biocentric value orientations were positively related with Minnesota anglers' endorsement of fisheries stewardship behaviors and negatively related with their support for the use of technological aids while fishing. Using a combination of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses, study 2 found that 10 items reliably measured three value orientations: utilitarianism, dominance, and protectionism. Regression analyses indicated that utilitarian value orientations are greatest among older people, people with lower levels of income and people with lower levels of education; dominance orientations are greatest among people with higher levels of education, and women; and protection orientations are greatest among women and people with lower levels of education. Study 3 tested a psychological model for predicting landowners' use of government sponsored land conservation programs. Results indicated enrollment in conservation programs was primarily determined by the perceived effectiveness of the programs for addressing ecological problems. In sum, model components explained 28% of the variance in conservation program enrollment. Implications for the study of natural resources-related value orientations and the prediction of conservation behaviors are discussed.