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"The time children spend in nature…determines their environmental awareness as adults."— Oliver Pergams and Patricia Zaradic
Go DeeperNBC Nightly News on the Report Youth and Nature Science at The Nature Conservancy Everyday Environmentalist "The large decreases in more popular activities like state park visits far outweigh the small increase in hiking."— Oliver Pergams and Patricia Zaradic |
Nature recreation worldwide — from camping, hunting and fishing to park visitation — has declined sharply since the 1980s, and the negative consequences for nature and conservation could soon be profound, says a new study sponsored by The Nature Conservancy.
The study examines data from the United States, Japan and Spain on everything from backpacking to duck hunting. It builds upon earlier Conservancy-funded studies by Oliver Pergams of the University of Illinois-Chicago and Patricia Zaradic of the Environmental Leadership Program that correlated a decline in visits to U.S. National Parks with an increase in television, video game and Internet use.
Nature.org talked with Pergams and Zaradic about their latest study — and whether their findings mean that people no longer care about nature.
Nature.org: Has the trend away from nature recreation been accelerating worldwide since it began in 1981, or has it been a steady decline?
Oliver Pergams and Patricia Zaradic: The decline in some nature use seems to be accelerating, such as U.S. state park and national forest visits, as well as fishing. Others show a more steady decline, such as U.S. and Japanese national park visits and U.S. Bureau of Public Lands visits.
Most reliable long-term per capita visitation measures of nature recreation peaked between 1981 and 1991. They've declined about 1.2 percent per year since then, and have declined a total of between 18 percent and 25 percent.
Nature.org: Hunting, camping and fishing activity all declined during this period — but hiking and backpacking went up. So can't we just say that people are switching to daytrips for their natural encounters?
Pergams and Zaradic: No, the increase in hiking is just a very small countertrend. The average person went from hiking once every 12½ years to hiking once every 10 years.
On the other hand, the average U.S. person visits a state park two or three times every single year. The large decreases in more popular activities like state park visits far outweigh the small increase in hiking.
Nature.org: Why is the decline in camping such an important indicator?
Pergams and Zaradic: Camping is the most popular outdoor activity — more popular than fishing and hunting, and much more popular than hiking and backpacking. So a decline in camping reflects the choices of a greater proportion of the American public.
Nature.org: Your previous work showed a strong correlation between what you call "videophilia" — a preference for TV, video games and the Internet — and the decline in visits to U.S. National Parks. You didn't make that correlation in this paper — but can we assume that's what's going on worldwide?
Pergams and Zaradic: You’re right, the purpose of this paper was not to talk about why people were moving away from nature, but rather to see if they were moving away from nature everywhere.
But going back to the videophilia paper for a moment, while we found a very strong relationship between videophilia and the decline in national park visits, it is possible that there are other causes. At this point, however, it’s by far the best hypothesis we know of.
Nature.org: Japan and the United States are two of the most videophilic societies on the planet. Are you confident that this study is demonstrating that there's an international trend away from nature recreation?
Pergams and Zaradic: It is certainly suggestive. It seems clear that major industrialized countries are moving towards videophilia. As the most videophilic societies, the United States along with Japan may be the first to experience its consequences — but it's likely that other nations are not far behind.
Nature.org: You suggest that children will model this declining lack of interest in nature and conservation. Why?
Pergams and Zaradic: Other research shows that the time children spend in nature — particularly the activities we looked at in this study — determines their environmental awareness as adults.
We recently wrote a review paper looking at this phenomenon as well as at the effects of videophilia on childhood development. These effects are substantial and include obesity, attentional disorders, lack of socialization and poor academic performance. By the way, this and our other papers are available at www.videophilia.org.
Nature.org: But these trends are happening in the midst of an explosion in awareness about the environment, particularly climate change. So do you need to have natural encounters to care about nature?
Pergams and Zaradic: We’ve known about global warming for 30 years, but it took a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina and huge reductions in polar ice for many people to notice climate change. So, yes — people need natural encounters to care about nature! Maybe with more exposure to nature we would notice more subtle changes to our environment.
Nature.org: You say that these results suggest conservation might need to emphasize the benefits of preserving ecosystem services rather than nature's intrinsic value. Why is that?
Pergams and Zaradic: Less exposure to nature seems to mean less environmental awareness and appreciation of nature for its own sake.
Instead, people may come to value nature more for the goods and services nature provides, like photosynthesis and pollinators. Making people aware of the incredible value of such ecosystem services would become the more pragmatic approach.
Nature.org: What do you take away personally from this analysis? Does it make you pessimistic about the future of conservation?
Pergams and Zaradic: It is troubling, but our hope in bringing this trend to light is to alter it. We are concerned about what is at stake and we need to have some idea of the scope of the problem before we can begin to address it.
We are clear that without addressing this issue, we have little hope of addressing other global issues. If people stop caring about nature, that would be the greatest environmental threat of all.
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Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photos © Ellen Banner (children exploring the intertidal zone of Puget Sound, Washington); © Ellen Banner (children exploring the intertidal zone of Puget Sound, Washington); Courtesy Oliver Pergams (Oliver Pergams); Courtesy Patricia Zaradic (Patricia Zaradic)
