Once upon a time: the impact of storytelling on connecting people to natural landscapes

Figures & data

Figure 1. Landscape Images.Sources: K’Gari (Fraser) Island: Fraser Coast Tourism & Events (https://www.fcte.com.au/); Blue Mountains: Tourism Australia (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/917/gallery/ Author: Dominic Harcourt Webster).

Table 1. Examples of the science, European human and indigenous creation stories used in the experiment.

Story type & location	Story
Barron River Gorge Science Story	The mountains inland of Cairns were once coral reefs under the sea. The shifting surface of the earth forced the seabed up into a huge mountain range. But they were made of soft crumbly rock and over time they have been worn down. For millions of years, the Barron River has wandered its way across this land. As it wanders it cuts through the soft rock as it makes its way to the sea. Above and behind the ranges the Barron River flows slowly past the homes of shy creatures such as platypus and their prickly relative, the echidna. It moves quietly through magnificent rainforest, where tall trees provide a leafy home for possums and kangaroos. As it bubbles over rocks and tree roots, brightly coloured parrots squawk in the treetops while emerald doves and bush turkeys scratch around on its banks. For most of its life the Barron River wanders alone, quiet and calm. But at the top of the mountain range the Barron River meets the Mitchell and Clohesy Rivers and then everything changes. When these three rivers get together they are much more powerful. It is this sudden new power that has created the Barron Falls at the top of the gorge. These falls are unique because they are in the middle of the gorge, not the edge of a cliff or valley. The power of these three rivers together has carved out the mighty Barron Gorge. (Adapted from: http://www.nprsr.qld.gov.au/parks/barron-gorge/culture.html)
Three Sisters Lookout over Jamieson Valley, Blue Mountains European Human Story	For many years the Blue Mountains formed an impenetrable barrier to the early expansion of Sydney. Despite numerous attempts, military expeditions, escaped convicts, and free settlers had all failed to guess or discover what lay beyond. More farming land was desperately needed to feed the growing colony, so in 1813 three explorers - Blaxland, Wentworth and Lawson - led an expedition party to try to cross the mountains. Their journey was a tremendous struggle. They had to hack through thick scrub, damp undergrowth and steep terrain; and were in constant fear of being attacked by Aborigines. Water and food were scarce, and all of them became ill. Despite these awful conditions, they never gave up! Every day the three explorers and two of their servants would set out, leaving the other two men at their campsite, and mark out a trail. In the afternoon they would return to cut a path for the horses and allow the rest of the party to progress. Often these paths led nowhere and morale waned as they began to get frustrated and tired. Finally, after twenty-one days of arduous walking in terrible conditions, they found their way through to a vast plain of forest and grass on the other side. The explorers’ success was largely due to their decision to travel on the ridges instead of through the valleys that you can see in front of you. (Adapted from: http://gallery.records.nsw.gov.au/index.php/galleries/westward-ho-a-trip-over-the-blue-mountains/westward-ho-crossing-the-blue-mountains/)
K’Gari (Fraser) Island Indigenous Creation Story	In the Dreamtime, Beiral, the great God in the sky, made all the people. He then sent two spirits called Yendingie and Princess K’Gari down from the sky to make the sea shores, the mountain ranges, the lakes and the rivers. It took a long time and was very hard work. One day Princess K’Gari lay down on the rocks and had a long, deep sleep. When she woke up she said to Yendingie, ‘I think this is the most beautiful place we have ever created. Please, may I stay here forever?’ Yendingie agreed that she could stay but said she couldn’t stay as a spirit. So he changed her into a beautiful island, now called Fraser Island. He made her clothes of trees and flowers and painted her a rainbow of colours. He made creeks and laughing waters that would become her voice; and gave her sparkling lakes as eyes so she could see into heaven. So she wouldn’t be lonely, he gave her birds and animals and the Butchulla people to keep her company. He gave the people knowledge and laws to make sure that their children and ancestors would always be there to keep K’Gari company. And she is still there today, looking up at the sky in one of the most truly beautiful places on earth, Fraser Island! The Butchulla People pass on the Aboriginal Dreamtime stories from generation to generation and in their language K’Gari became the word for ‘Paradise’. (Adapted from: http://www.emeraldene.com.au/blog/fraser-island-aboriginal-history-legends-part-2/ . The researchers acknowledge the Butchulla people of Fraser Island as the owners and custodians of the K’Gari story, and wish to express respect for their heritage and culture)

Table 2. Results of principal components analysis of landscape perceptions.

Statements	Mean rating (SD)	Factor 1 perception score	Factor 2 preference score	Factor 3 visit score
Variance explained		34.71%	28.15%	9.82%
I have a sense that I belong here	3.3 (1.5)	.77
Being in this place would suit my personality	4.2 (1.6)	.76
I could find ways to enjoy myself in this place	4.8 (1.5)	.70
I could do things that I like in this place	4.6 (1.5)	.61
This landscape appeals to me	4.8 (1.5)	.60
This is an important landscape	5.5 (1.4)		.81
This place has many interesting features	4.8 (1.4_		.78
This is a beautiful place	5.6 (1.3)		.65
This landscape looks familiar to me	4.4 (1.7)		−0.50
I would like to visit this place	4.7 (1.5)			.74
I would like to explore this landscape further	4.9 (1.6)			.61

Table 3. Results of principal components analysis of story evaluation statements.

Statements	Mean rating (SD)	Factor 1 (perception) score	Factor 2 (informative) score	Factor 3 (familiarity) score
Variance explained		48.9%	11.30%	10.00
The story gave me a greater appreciation of this place	4.9 (1.5)	.83
The story was interesting	4.8 (1.4)	.79
This story helped me make sense of this place	4.9 (1.4)	.79
I liked this story	4.8 (1.3)	.78
This story helped me make a personal connection to this place	4.3 (1.6)	.73
This story made me think about the place in different way	5.1 (1.4)	.68
The story was easy to follow	5.1 (1.3)		.71
The story is informative for visitors to this landscape	4.8 (1.3)		.68
The words and language used in this story were easy to read	5.2 (1.3)		.61
This story is similar to other stories I have heard	4.0 (1.6)			.88

Table 4. Results factorial ANOVA landscape by story conditions for landscape perception.

	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	P
Landscape type	42.88	3	8.06	8.8	<0.001
Story type	8.25	3	2.75	3.0	<0.05
Landscape by story interaction	4.89	8	0.61	0.7	0.72
Residuals	647.90	661	0.91

Table 5. Results factorial ANOVA landscape by story conditions for landscape preference.

	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	P
Landscape type	12.65	3	4.22	4.1	<0.05
Story type	6.59	3	2.86	2.8	<0.05
Landscape by story interaction	1.61	8	0.20	0.2	0.99
Residuals	687.82	661	1.04

Table 6. Results factorial ANOVA landscape by story conditions for intention to visit the landscape.

	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	P
Landscape type	272.19	3	90.73	11.8	<0.001
Story type	33.19	3	11.06	1.4	0.23
Landscape by story interaction	25.45	8	3.18	0.4	0.91
Residuals	5062.24	661	7.72

Table 7. Mean scores (Std. Dev) for types of landscape and story on perception, preference and visit.

Condition	Perception	Preference	Visit
Total Lake Alexandrina	−0.16 (1.0)	−0.21 (1.1)	8.8 (2.9)
Total Three Sisters Jamieson Valley	−0.22 (0.9)	.05 (1.1)	9.7 (2.6)
Total Barron Gorge	.11 (0.9)	.04 (0.9)	9.8 (2.7)
Total K’Gari (Fraser Island)	.40 (1.0)	.12 (.09)	10.1 (2.6)
Total No Story	−0.28 (1.0)	−0.18 (1.0)	9.7 (2.9)
Total Any Story	.07 (0.9)	.04 (1.0)	9.8 (2.8)
Total Science Story	.18 (0.9)	.09 (1.0)	10.2 (2.8)
Total European Human Story	−0.16 (1.0)	.05 (1.0)	9.3 (2.8)
Total Indigenous Creation Story	.15 (0.9)	−0.01 (1.0)	9.8 (2.9)

Table 8. Results of Factorial ANOVA Landscape by story conditions with story Evaluation covariates for landscape perception.

	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	P
Landscape type	28.4	4	7.1	8.6	<0.001
Story type	2.4	2	1.2	1.5	0.23
Landscape by story interaction	5.8	7	0.8	1.0	0.43
Perception covariate	3.7	1	3.7	4.4	<0.05
Informative covariate	8.9	1	8.9	10.8	<0.001
Familiarity covariate	1.2	1	1.2	1.4	0.24
Residuals	343.8	416

Table 9. Results of factorial ANOVA landscape by story conditions with story evaluation covariates for landscape preference.

	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	P
Landscape type	7.2	4	1.8	2.1	0.08
Story type	0.6	2	0.3	0.3	0.72
Landscape by story interaction	3.5	7	0.5	0.5	0.78
Perception covariate	52.3	1	52.3	60.7	<0.001
Informative covariate	16.4	1	16.4	19.1	<0.001
Familiarity covariate	1.1	1	1.1	1.3	0.25
Residuals	357.8	416

Table 10. Results of factorial ANOVA landscape by story conditions with story evaluation covariates for intention to visit the landscape.

	Sum of squares	df	Mean square	F	P
Landscape type	138.8	4	34.7	5.3	<0.001
Story type	3.1	2	1.5	0.2	0.79
Landscape by story interaction	36.2	7	5.2	0.8	0.60
Perception covariate	257.0	1	257.0	39.1	<0.001
Informative covariate	136.3	1	136.2	20.7	<0.001
Familiarity covariate	1.1	1	1.1	0.2	0.67
Residuals	2732.7	416

Table 11. Mean scores for place perception and informative assessments for stories across all conditions.

Condition	Story changed place perception mean (SD)	Informative story mean (SD)
Lake Alexandrina Science	.12 (0.8)	.61 (0.8)
Lake Alexandrina Euro Human	−0.29 (1.2)	.22 (1.1)
Lake Alexandrina Indigenous	.08 (0.9)	−0.36 (1.0)
Three Sisters Science	.12 (0.9)	.07 (0.7)
Three Sisters Euro Human	.01 (1.0)	−0.24 (1.0)
Three Sisters Indigenous	.02 (1.1)	−0.45 (1.1)
Barron Gorge Science	.44 (0.9)	.01 (0.9)
Barron Gorge Euro Human	−0.01 (1.1)	.12 (0.9)
Barron Gorge Indigenous	.18 (1.0)	−0.24 (0.9)
K’Gari Island Science	−0.04 (0.8)	.12 (1.2)
K’Gari Island Euro Human	−0.22 (1.0)	.02 (0.8)
K’Gari Island Indigenous	.05 (0.8)	.47 (.91)
Science Story Total	.15 (0.8)	.13 (0.9)
Euro Human Story Total	−0.18 (1.1)	.09 (1.0)
Indigenous Story Total	.04 (1.0)	−0.16 (1.0)

Table 12. Most commonly top ranked and least ranked stories.

K’Gari (Fraser) Island Science Story	Millions of years ago there was a volcano that created a land of hills and valleys that we now call Queensland. The wind and the rain wore down the hills and valleys creating dust and sand. The sand washed out to the sea. Then the winds, tides and currents carried it along the coast and out into the ocean. During this time the ice ages came and went and the sea level went up and down. When the sea was high some of the old hills became rocks in the ocean catching the sand as it drifted in the currents. An island was born in a place where the sand began to pile up on some of these rocks. This island grew very, very slowly as the sand washed up from the sea. At first the seeds that blew in on the wind or washed up on the beach could not take hold and grow. But the seeds were tough and they eventually found food from fungi that lived in the sand. These tough plants lived on the beaches creating more food so that other plants and trees could come. These plants spread across the island. When enough plants had grown, animals came to live amongst the trees. They drank from the creeks and the sparkling freshwater lakes that grew in the sand dunes. Today we have the beautiful and unique place called Fraser Island. Sources: http://www.fraser-island.com.au/geography.html ; http://www.fraserisland.net/fraser-island-formation.html
K’Gari (Fraser) Island Indigenous Creation Story	See Table 1
Lake Alexandrina European Human Story	John Peggotty was born in Ireland and never grew bigger than the size of a seven year old. When he was a teenager he travelled to South Africa where he learnt to ride ostriches. After that adventure he went back to England where he broke into houses and stealing jewels by squeezing down chimneys. But after a while he was caught and went to prison. Then he travelled to Australia and joined a gang of thieves. He found himself in the Coorong and Lake Alexandrina area where he became one of the strangest criminals in the history of Australia. He was often seen without a shirt, wearing stolen gold, waving two ornamental pistols and riding an ostrich. Peggotty was responsible for more than a dozen hold-ups and murdered several travellers before his last robbery. In 1899 he held up Henry Carmichael. Henry was not happy about being robbed by the tiny, jewelled ostrich rider and he chased after Peggotty. Henry was also a crack shot and he wounded Peggotty and killed the ostrich. Peggotty ran off leaving a thick trail of blood in the sand. Carmichael knew that Peggotty was dying and left him in the sand hills. Carmichael went back to tell officials what had happened. When they returned they could not find Peggotty’s body. Peggotty’s bones still lie in this area along with at least one million dollars’ worth of gold and jewels. Source: http://www.coorongcountry.com.au/html/coorong-bushranger.html