Public values regarding an urban mangrove wetland in the United Arab Emirates
Abstract
Mangrove wetlands are facing an existential threat from rapid socio-economic development. In this study, public environmental values regarding mangrove wetlands in the Ras Al Khaimah (RAK) city in the United Arab Emirates were assessed, considering gender, age, education, income, length of residency in RAK, knowledge of RAK mangrove and awareness of sustainability. A population sample of 427 respondents were face-to-face interviewed. Results suggest that mangrove value orientations are highly associated with length of residency in RAK and awareness of sustainability at significance levels of 0.003 and 0.005, respectively. Value orientations are less associated with age, knowledge of RAK mangrove and education at significance levels of 0.023, 0.039 and 0.095, respectively, being largely independent of gender and income. The majority of the respondents support the preservation of the mangroves even at the expense of economic development. This indicates the need to draft policies and regulations to safeguard the mangroves.
Keyword : mangrove, environmental sustainability, environmental management, landscape management, environmental values, survey
How to Cite
Assaf, H., Idwan, S., Jallad, A. H., Ammari, M. Z. J., Al Chaar, A., & Kouja, M. (2022). Public values regarding an urban mangrove wetland in the United Arab Emirates. Journal of Environmental Engineering and Landscape Management, 30(1), 114-123. https://doi.org/10.3846/jeelm.2022.16333
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
References
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Jones, R. E., & Dunlap, R. E. (1992). The social bases of environmental concern: Have they changed over time? Rural Sociology, 57(1), 28–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.1992.tb00455.x
Joshi, A. R., Dinerstein, E., Wikramanayake, E., Anderson, M. L., Olson, D., Jones, B. S., Seidensticker, J., Lumpkin, S., Hansen, M. C., Sizer, N. C., Davis, C. L., Palminteri, S., & Hahn, N. R. (2016). Tracking changes and preventing loss in critical tiger habitat. Science Advances, 2(4), e1501675. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501675
Kathiresan, K., & Bingham, B. L. (2001). Biology of mangroves and mangrove Ecosystems. Advances in Marine Biology, 40, 81–251. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2881(01)40003-4
Kennedy, E., Beckley, T., McFarlane, B., & Nadeau, S. (2009). Why we don’t “Walk the Talk”: Understanding the environmental values/behaviour gap in Canada. Human Ecology Review, 16(2), 151–160. www.jstor.org/stable/24707539
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Liobikienė, G., & Poškus, M. S. (2019). The importance of environmental knowledge for private and public sphere pro-environmental behavior: Modifying the Value-Belief-Norm theory. Sustainability, 11(12), 3324. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11123324
Manfredo, M. J., & Zinn, H. C. (1996). Population change and its implications for wildlife management in the New West: A case study of Colorado. Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 1(3), 62–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/10871209609359070
Moriceau, J. (2014). The wolf threat in France from the middle ages to the twentieth century. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01011915
Muzikante, I., & Renge, V. (2011). Attitude function as a moderator in values-attitudes-behavior relations. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 30, 1003–1008. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.10.195
Naser, H. A. (2014). Marine ecosystem diversity in the Arabian Gulf: Threats and conservation. In O. Grillo (Ed.), Biodiversity – The dynamic balance of the planet. https://doi.org/10.5772/57425
Nasution, A., Perwitasari-Farajallah, D., & Utami-Atmoko, S. S. (2018). Declining orangutans population in the unprotected forest of Batang Toru. Tropical Life Sciences Research, 29(2), 77–87. https://doi.org/10.21315/tlsr2018.29.2.6
Onel, N., & Mukherjee, A. (2012). Analysis of the predictors of environmentally sensitive behavior. International Journal of Data Analysis and Information Systems, 4(1), 55–67.
Otto, S., & Kaiser, F. G. (2014). Ecological behavior across the lifespan: Why environmentalism increases as people grow older. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 40, 331–338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.08.004
Paudyal, R., Poudyal, N. C., Bowker, J. M., Dorison, A. M., Zarnoch, S. J., & Green, G. T. (2015). A value orientation approach to assess and compare climate change risk perception among trout anglers in Georgia, USA. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, 11, 22–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2015.06.004
Shen, J., & Saijo, T. (2008). Reexamining the relations between socio-demographic characteristics and individual environmental concern: Evidence from Shanghai data. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 28(1), 42–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2007.10.003
Smith, R., Purnama, A., & Al-Barwani, H. H. (2007). Sensitivity of hypersaline Arabian Gulf to seawater desalination plants. Applied Mathematical Modelling, 31(10), 2347–2354. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apm.2006.09.010
Sneed, C. T. (2014). Local food purchasing in the farmers’ market channel: Value-attitude-behavior theory [PhD dissertation, University of Tennessee, Knoxville]. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/3168
Teel, T. L., & Manfredo, M. J. (2010). Understanding the diversity of public interests in wildlife conservation. Conservation Biology, 24(1), 128–139. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01374.x
van Riper, C. J., & Kyle, G. T. (2014). Understanding the internal processes of behavioral engagement in a national park: A latent variable path analysis of the value-belief-norm theory. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 38, 288–297. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.03.002
van Uhm, D. P. (2016). A green criminological perspective on environmental crime: The anthropocentric, ecocentric and biocentric impact of defaunation. Revue Internationale de Droit Pénal, 87(1), 323–340.
Vaske, J. J., Donnelly, M. P., Williams, D. R., & Jonker, S. (2001). Demographic influences on environmental value orientations and normative beliefs about national forest management. Society & Natural Resources, 14(9), 761–776. https://doi.org/10.1080/089419201753210585
Xiao, C., & McCright, A. M. (2012). Explaining gender differences in concern about environmental problems in the United States. Society & Natural Resources, 25(11), 1067–1084. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2011.651191
Xiao, C., & McCright, A. M. (2013). Gender differences in environmental concern. Environment and Behavior, 47(1), 17–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916513491571
Ajzen, I., Joyce, N., Sheikh, S., & Cote, N. G. (2011). Knowledge and the prediction of behavior: The role of information accuracy in the theory of planned behavior. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 33(2), 101–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/01973533.2011.568834
Almardeai, S., Oyanedel, J.-R. B., Haris, S., & Schmidt, J. E. (2017). Avicennia marina biomass characterization towards bioproducts. Emirates Journal of Food and Agriculture, 29(9), 710–715. https://doi.org/10.9755/ejfa.2017.v29.i9.109
Atchison, J. (2019). Green and blue infrastructure in Darwin; carbon economies and the social and cultural dimensions of valuing urban mangroves in Australia. Urban Science, 3(3), 86. https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci3030086
Beech, M., & Hogarth, P. (2002). An archaeological perspective on the development and exploitation of mangroves in the United Arab Emirates. In Research and management options for mangrove and salt marsh ecosystems (pp. 196–198). ERWDA.
Blye, C. J. (2016). What are people doing in our parks? Understanding, comparing, and predicting the low-impact camping practices of Canadian Provincial Park over-night visitors [Master’s thesis]. University of Alberta, Canada. https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/c7645bdf-c81f-4f76-8173-3c2074ca5e81/view/e49ff7d5-9793-4c84-8321-9da010db97fd/blye_clara-jane_e_201609_MA.pdf
Brough, A. R., Wilkie, J. E. B., Ma, J., Isaac, M. S., & Gal, D. (2016). Is eco-friendly unmanly? The green-feminine stereotype and its effect on sustainable consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 43(4), 567–582. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucw044
Dietz, T., Kalof, L., & Stern, P. C. (2002). Gender, values, and environmentalism. Social Science Quarterly, 83(1), 353–364. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6237.00088
Feller, C. (2018). Mangroves. Smithsonian. https://ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/plants-algae/mangroves
Gamborg, C., & Jensen, F. S. (2015). Wildlife Value Orientations: A quantitative study of the general public in Denmark. Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 21(1), 34–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/10871209.2015.1098753
Gatersleben, B., Murtagh, N., & Abrahamse, W. (2014). Values, identity and pro-environmental behavior. Contemporary Social Science, 9(4), 374–392. https://doi.org/10.1080/21582041.2012.682086
Goldsmith, R., Fyegina, I., & Jost, J. T. (2013). The gender gap in environmental attitudes: A system justification perspective. In M. Alston & K. Whittenbury (Eds.), Research, action and policy: Addressing the gendered impacts of climate change (pp. 159–174). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5518-5_12
Grendstad, G., & Wollebaek, D. (1998). Greener still?: An empirical examination of Eckersley’s ecocentric approach. Environment and Behavior, 30(5), 653–675. https://doi.org/10.1177/001391659803000504
Heeren, A. J., Singh, A. S., Zwickle, A., Koontz, T. M., Slagle, K. M., & McCreery, A. C. (2016). Is sustainability knowledge half the battle? International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 17(5), 613–632. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-02-2015-0014
Holloway, M. V. (2009). Moderating effects of knowledge, gender, and education on the relationship between environmental value orientation and support for Louisiana coastal restoration [LSU Master’s theses No 3403]. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_theses/3403
Hsieh, H.-L., Lin, H.-J., Shih, S.-S., & Chen, C.-P. (2015). Ecosystem functions connecting contributions from ecosystem services to human wellbeing in a mangrove system in northern Taiwan. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 12(6), 6542–6560. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph120606542
Jenkins, J. (2016). Contested terrain of extractive development in the American West: Using a regional political ecology framework to understand scale, biocentric conservation values, and anthropocentric resource utility. Journal of Political Ecology, 23, 182–196. https://doi.org/10.2458/v23i1.20189
Jones, M. C., Wingard, G. L., Stackhouse, B., Keller, K., Willard, D., Marot, M., Landacre, B., & Bernhardt, C. E. (2019). Rapid inundation of southern Florida coastline despite low relative sea-level rise rates during the late-Holocene. Nature Communications, 10(1), 3231. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11138-4
Jones, R. E., & Dunlap, R. E. (1992). The social bases of environmental concern: Have they changed over time? Rural Sociology, 57(1), 28–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.1992.tb00455.x
Joshi, A. R., Dinerstein, E., Wikramanayake, E., Anderson, M. L., Olson, D., Jones, B. S., Seidensticker, J., Lumpkin, S., Hansen, M. C., Sizer, N. C., Davis, C. L., Palminteri, S., & Hahn, N. R. (2016). Tracking changes and preventing loss in critical tiger habitat. Science Advances, 2(4), e1501675. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1501675
Kathiresan, K., & Bingham, B. L. (2001). Biology of mangroves and mangrove Ecosystems. Advances in Marine Biology, 40, 81–251. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2881(01)40003-4
Kennedy, E., Beckley, T., McFarlane, B., & Nadeau, S. (2009). Why we don’t “Walk the Talk”: Understanding the environmental values/behaviour gap in Canada. Human Ecology Review, 16(2), 151–160. www.jstor.org/stable/24707539
Kölmek, E. F. (2011). Social determinants of environmental concern: The case of Cukurambar, Ankara [Master of Fine Arts, Dhsan Dogramaci Bdlkent University]. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/52926170.pdf
Lazzarini, M., Marpu, P. R., & Ghedira, H. (2012). Land cover and Land Surface Temperature interactions in desert areas: A case study of Abu Dhabi (UAE). IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (pp. 6325–6328). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/IGARSS.2012.6352706
Liobikienė, G., & Poškus, M. S. (2019). The importance of environmental knowledge for private and public sphere pro-environmental behavior: Modifying the Value-Belief-Norm theory. Sustainability, 11(12), 3324. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11123324
Manfredo, M. J., & Zinn, H. C. (1996). Population change and its implications for wildlife management in the New West: A case study of Colorado. Human Dimensions of Wildlife, 1(3), 62–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/10871209609359070
Moriceau, J. (2014). The wolf threat in France from the middle ages to the twentieth century. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01011915
Muzikante, I., & Renge, V. (2011). Attitude function as a moderator in values-attitudes-behavior relations. Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences, 30, 1003–1008. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.10.195
Naser, H. A. (2014). Marine ecosystem diversity in the Arabian Gulf: Threats and conservation. In O. Grillo (Ed.), Biodiversity – The dynamic balance of the planet. https://doi.org/10.5772/57425
Nasution, A., Perwitasari-Farajallah, D., & Utami-Atmoko, S. S. (2018). Declining orangutans population in the unprotected forest of Batang Toru. Tropical Life Sciences Research, 29(2), 77–87. https://doi.org/10.21315/tlsr2018.29.2.6
Onel, N., & Mukherjee, A. (2012). Analysis of the predictors of environmentally sensitive behavior. International Journal of Data Analysis and Information Systems, 4(1), 55–67.
Otto, S., & Kaiser, F. G. (2014). Ecological behavior across the lifespan: Why environmentalism increases as people grow older. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 40, 331–338. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.08.004
Paudyal, R., Poudyal, N. C., Bowker, J. M., Dorison, A. M., Zarnoch, S. J., & Green, G. T. (2015). A value orientation approach to assess and compare climate change risk perception among trout anglers in Georgia, USA. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, 11, 22–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2015.06.004
Shen, J., & Saijo, T. (2008). Reexamining the relations between socio-demographic characteristics and individual environmental concern: Evidence from Shanghai data. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 28(1), 42–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2007.10.003
Smith, R., Purnama, A., & Al-Barwani, H. H. (2007). Sensitivity of hypersaline Arabian Gulf to seawater desalination plants. Applied Mathematical Modelling, 31(10), 2347–2354. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apm.2006.09.010
Sneed, C. T. (2014). Local food purchasing in the farmers’ market channel: Value-attitude-behavior theory [PhD dissertation, University of Tennessee, Knoxville]. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/3168
Teel, T. L., & Manfredo, M. J. (2010). Understanding the diversity of public interests in wildlife conservation. Conservation Biology, 24(1), 128–139. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01374.x
van Riper, C. J., & Kyle, G. T. (2014). Understanding the internal processes of behavioral engagement in a national park: A latent variable path analysis of the value-belief-norm theory. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 38, 288–297. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2014.03.002
van Uhm, D. P. (2016). A green criminological perspective on environmental crime: The anthropocentric, ecocentric and biocentric impact of defaunation. Revue Internationale de Droit Pénal, 87(1), 323–340.
Vaske, J. J., Donnelly, M. P., Williams, D. R., & Jonker, S. (2001). Demographic influences on environmental value orientations and normative beliefs about national forest management. Society & Natural Resources, 14(9), 761–776. https://doi.org/10.1080/089419201753210585
Xiao, C., & McCright, A. M. (2012). Explaining gender differences in concern about environmental problems in the United States. Society & Natural Resources, 25(11), 1067–1084. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2011.651191
Xiao, C., & McCright, A. M. (2013). Gender differences in environmental concern. Environment and Behavior, 47(1), 17–37. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916513491571