A tool for measuring ecological literacy: coupled human-ecosystem interactions

ABSTRACT

Purpose: Ecological and natural resource management (NRM) decisions have far-reaching implications for global ecological change. Because beliefs influence behaviors, it is vital that decision-makers’ beliefs reflect the shift to include humans as an integrated component of ecosystems. Our study, grounded in socio-cultural theory, analyzed how undergraduate participants situated humans in relation to ecosystems and describes the continuum we developed to characterize individuals’ conceptions.

Design/Methodology/Approach: To develop a grounded theory we analyzed participants’ perceptions of human-environment relationships through semi-structured interviews. We used both triangulation of codes through student course artifacts and inter-rater coding to establish trustworthiness of findings.

Findings: We present a continuum of coupled human-ecosystems conceptions developed from the participants’ conceptions: (i) exclusion, (ii) uncertain-exclusion, (iii) uncertain, (iv) uncertain-inclusion, and (v) inclusion.

Practical Implications: Our tool is useful for NRM educators and professionals to assess how people perceive human-environment relationships and to study shifts in ecological literacy.

Theoretical Implications: If people believe that humans are independent from ecosystems, their decisions about interacting with the environment will reflect this. Each individual contributes to societal practices through the officials, policies, and causes they support, and their consumption and land management decisions. Without a conception of ecosystems that includes humans, future NRM professionals may select policies and practices that result in ineffective or destructive management.

Originality/Value: Our study responds to the need for an instrument that measures how people situate humans in relationship to ecosystems that is open-ended, can be used across a variety contexts, and does not require specialized statistical knowledge.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

KEYWORDS:

• Ecological literacy
• grounded theory
• social ecological system
• natural resource management
• socio-cultural theory
• coupled human-environment system

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available because they contain information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne Marie A. Casper

Anne Marie A. Casper was a graduate student in the Graduate Degree Program in Ecology and in the Department of Biology at Colorado State University at the time this research was performed. She is currently a research scientist in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Colorado State University and the Mountain Studies Institute. Her research spans natural and social sciences and works to address pressing social and ecological problems from a socially justice rooted social ecological systems thinking perspective.

María E. Fernández-Giménez

M.E. Fernández-Giménez is a Professor of Rangeland Social-ecological Systems in the Department of Forest & Rangeland Stewardship. She teaches ecosystem management, monitoring and community-based natural resource management, and studies individual and collective decision-making in ranching and pastoral systems around the world.

Meena M. Balgopal

Meena M. Balgopal is an Associate Professor of Science Education in the Department of Biology. Her research centers on ecological literacy and how people make meaning of and decisions about environmental issues.