Outdoor recreation participation and attitudes to the environment

Abstract

Recreation researchers must explicitly recognize the influence of values on recreation behaviour. Values are usefully measured as attitudes to the environment. Two hypotheses developed by Dunlap and Heffernan (1975) are examined in a Canadian study: that participants in ‘appreciative’ activities (e.g. cross-country skiing, hiking) hold stronger pro-environmental attitudes than participants in ‘consumptive’ activities (hunting, fishing) or ‘mechanized’ activities (e.g. snowmobiling, trail biking); and that outdoor recreation participation is more strongly related to attitudes towards specific aspects of the environment necessary for pursuing such activities than to attitudes towards more ‘distant’ environmental issues. Both hypotheses are supported. Because the main attitudinal differences associated with activity preferences also characterize the values of the ‘conserver society’, changes from the consumer to the conserver society should result in a growing preference for appreciative activities and a decline in mechanized and consumptive activities. Suggestions for applying environmental attitudes to the understanding of recreation conflict are also made.