Attitudes towards the conservation of biological diversity—A case study in Kristianstad Municipality, Sweden

Abstract

Human actions towards land, freshwater and oceans have already caused biodiversity to decline. This study aims to investigate attitudes towards the conservation of biological biodiversity among different groups in a Swedish city, Kristianstad. An inquiry including statements measuring attitudes towards the conservation of habitats, animals and plants, to the biological diversity within selected local areas, to global and national areas, and to societal issues, was replied to by 271 persons. Deciduous forests, birds and wild flowers were given highest priority. An area categorized as wetland including lakeshore meadows with a rich bird life was prioritized as most important for conservation while a forest area was chosen as best for recreation. The experts gave lower priority to arable land, urban parks, domestic animals, agricultural and garden plants and to conifer forests compared to the other groups. Knowledge about what people in general value as important could facilitate the future planning of nature areas in the city of Kristianstad.

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to those people who responded to our questionnaire. This research was financed by the Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning. We would like to thank the representatives from the Ekomuséet and Kristianstad municipality for their support. We are very grateful to Professor Rikard Küller who provided us with methodological advice and to Professor Gunnar Sorte who introduced perspectives from landscape planning. Special thanks are due to our colleagues at the Environmental Psychology Unit, Lund Institute of Technology, for their support during the course of the study and valuable comments on previous drafts of this manuscript.