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As outdoor recreation wanes, will conservation commitment go with it?
Photo: ©Nathan Watkins/iStock.comPergams, O.R.W. and P.A. Zaradic. 2008. Evidence for a fundamental and pervasive shift away from nature-based recreation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(7):2295-2300.
Two years ago, when Oliver Pergams and Patricia Zaradic declared that people were forsaking U.S. national parks to play video games and surf the Net, their research sparked an intense and wide-ranging debate. Pergams and Zaradic had declared that declining per capita visits to U.S. national parks meant people were losing interest in nature and, in turn, conservation. But some doubters wondered whether it was fair for them to infer that Americans were less invested in the great outdoors simply because per capita attendance was dropping at national parks. Others argued that the attendance declines occurred not because people didn’t want to visit the parks, but because they were overcrowded and poorly maintained.
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