Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
• Socializing and meeting new people
• Gaining increased spirituality and peace
• Self-renewal and a renewed connection to the land and other people
Collectively these benefits shape the all-important shared culture of a volunteer
organization.
For agencies, volunteer coordinators, and volunteers, there are a number of essen-
tial components of the relationship:
• Consistent communication
•Trust
• A commitment to work together
• Being able to see tangible, positive results of volunteer efforts through the use of
field trips, presentations, and other efforts.
It is evident that both the volunteer groups we surveyed and the land managers
who work with them have a sense of what it takes to have successful volunteer groups.
We found few differences between the two groups as to what is needed to maintain
strong relationships and successful volunteer groups. Volunteer groups and land man-
agers share a common desire to care for and sustain the natural resources in their cus-
tody. Stewardship is at the heart of both land management and volunteering (West-
phal and Childs 1994).
An ecological restoration volunteer organization embodies a community of natural
resource stewards, a constituency for conservation of natural landscapes. As ecological
restoration efforts expand, their potential to benefit both nature and humans will be-
come even more apparent. In his topic
The Sunflower Forest
(2003), the noted propo-
nent of ecological restoration William R. Jordan III predicts that, during the next gen-
eration, restoration will emerge as the dominant paradigm for the conservation of
natural landscapes, that millions will want to participate, and restoration will become
widely valued not only as a mechanism for healing landscapes but for its equally im-
portant role in connecting people to nature, providing opportunities for learning
about nature and our relationship with it, and building a wide-reaching community of
environmental stewards. We hope so!
References
Ajzen, I. 1991. “The Theory of Planned Behavior.”
Organizational Behavior and Human Deci-
sion Processes
50: 179-211.
Ajzen, I., and M. Fishbein. 1980.
Understanding Attitudes and Predicting Social Behavior.
En-
glewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Boldero, J. 1995. “The Prediction of Household Recycling of Newspapers: The Role of Atti-
tudes, Intentions, and Situational Factors.”
Journal of Applied Social Psychology
25 (5):
440-62.
Bright, A. D., M. J. Manfredo, and D. C. Fulton. 2000. “Segmenting the Public: An Applica-
tion of Value Orientations to Wildlife Planning in Colorado.”
Wildlife Society Bulletin
28
(1): 218-26.
