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   Location:Home > Research > Research Progress
Botanic gardens have positive effect on environmental attitudes
Author: Sophie J. Williams
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Update time: 2015-03-13
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Botanic gardens are frequently cited as a global network at the forefront of plant conservation. Botanic gardens apply a wide range of activities to educate and inspire the public, often aiming to generate support for conservation in its broadest sense. A previous study by Prof. Chen Jin and his student has shown that botanic garden visitor centers can positively influence visitor enjoyment, but the influence of botanic gardens on ecological knowledge requires further investigation. Indeed, little is known about how much knowledge botanic garden visitors acquire from their visits and how this affects their environmental attitudes environmental attitudes.

   Together with her colleagues, Ms. Sophie J. Williams, a postdoc of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG), investigated the relationship between knowledge and environmental attitudes. They wanted to check whether informal education in botanic gardens increases visitors’ ecological knowledge and influences their environmental attitudes.

  They surveyed 1054 visitors at five UK botanic gardens (Birmingham Botanical Gardens and Glasshouses, The Eden Project, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Cambridge University Botanic Garden and Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh), half of whom were interviewed on entry and half leaving. The questionnaire assessed visitor ecological knowledge, environmental attitudes and socio-demographic data (age, gender, level of education, frequency of visits to the garden) for all respondents.

  The results show that there is a strong positive relationship between ecological knowledge and environmental attitudes (defined here as ‘the degree to which people are aware of problems regarding the environment and support efforts to solve them and/or indicate a willingness to contribute personally to their solution’). But the researchers were unable to disentangle cause and effect. It shows that a single visit to a botanic garden is unlikely to substantially affect visitors’ ecological knowledge, their results. However, the results do indicate botanic gardens can have a positive effect on environmental attitudes. 

  There are over 2500 botanic gardens around the world and together they receive over 300 million visitors a year. Botanic gardens can increase their influence on their visitors, and contribute to greatly improve knowledge about, and attitudes towards, plant conservation.

  The researchers suggest that evaluation of the impact can be useful both in demonstrating to funders the contribution they make, and to allow learning and development of approaches to maximize the benefits of education schemes in botanic gardens. 

 The study entitled Botanic gardens can positively influence visitors’ environmental attitudes has been published online in Biodiversity and Conservation.

 

Author Contact:

Sophie J. Williams Ph.D

Center of Integrative Conservation, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, 666303, Yunnan Province, China
 
Key words
botanic garden, environment, education, conservation, environmental attitudes
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Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, China
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