TY - JOUR

T1 - Motivations of Volunteers in Danish Grazing Organizations

AU - Madsen, Sari F.

AU - Ekelund, Flemming

AU - Strange, Niels

AU - Sølver Schou, Jesper

N1 - Funding Information: Funding: The data collection partly funding by The Danish Botanical Organization and the “Botanical Travel Fund/M.P. Christiansen and his wife”. Niels Strange acknowledges the Danish National Research Foundation for funding the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Grant number DNRF96. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Global biodiversity is under pressure from human activities, and the effort for nature conservation and restoration and the allocation of economic resources for biodiversity policies remain insufficient. In such a context, volunteers can play an important role as a resource in nature conservation projects if their recreational activities interact with the objectives of nature management. In recent years, the number of volunteers in conservation work has increased in Denmark, with more people volunteering to contribute to nature conservation projects. Ensuring that volunteers remain motivated and engaged is crucial for the success of such conservation projects. In this study, we evaluated the motivation among members of grazing organizations, an activity that represents the most prominent voluntary nature conservation initiative in Denmark. We applied an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and an ordinal regression to analyze survey data from 25 Danish grazing organizations. We found that five motivational factors determine the engagement of the volunteers, namely social, nature value, instrumental, identification, and personal benefit. Whereas the social, nature value and personal benefit are factors also identified in the existing literature, the instrumental and identification factors add new perspectives to the motivation of environmental volunteers. We found that place attachment is an important driver, and that the chairpersons/coordinators of the grazing organizations especially emphasized the sharing of values and knowledge with their members as a driver. Lastly, volunteers were reluctant to support the idea of forming a more formal setup in terms of a “grazing organization union”.

AB - Global biodiversity is under pressure from human activities, and the effort for nature conservation and restoration and the allocation of economic resources for biodiversity policies remain insufficient. In such a context, volunteers can play an important role as a resource in nature conservation projects if their recreational activities interact with the objectives of nature management. In recent years, the number of volunteers in conservation work has increased in Denmark, with more people volunteering to contribute to nature conservation projects. Ensuring that volunteers remain motivated and engaged is crucial for the success of such conservation projects. In this study, we evaluated the motivation among members of grazing organizations, an activity that represents the most prominent voluntary nature conservation initiative in Denmark. We applied an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and an ordinal regression to analyze survey data from 25 Danish grazing organizations. We found that five motivational factors determine the engagement of the volunteers, namely social, nature value, instrumental, identification, and personal benefit. Whereas the social, nature value and personal benefit are factors also identified in the existing literature, the instrumental and identification factors add new perspectives to the motivation of environmental volunteers. We found that place attachment is an important driver, and that the chairpersons/coordinators of the grazing organizations especially emphasized the sharing of values and knowledge with their members as a driver. Lastly, volunteers were reluctant to support the idea of forming a more formal setup in terms of a “grazing organization union”.

KW - Grazing organizations

KW - Motivational factors

KW - Nature conservation

KW - Volunteers

U2 - 10.3390/su13158163

DO - 10.3390/su13158163

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85111333410

VL - 13

JO - Sustainability

JF - Sustainability

SN - 2071-1050

IS - 15

M1 - 8163

ER -