Backyard Biodiversity: Community and Wildlife Gardener Attitudes and Practices

BACKYARD BIODIVERSITY: COMMUNITY AND WILDLIFE GARDENER ATTITUDES AND PRACTICES AMY E. SHAW Backyard Biodiversity: Community and wildlife gardener attitudes and practices by Amy E. Shaw BAnSc, Dip Ed, BEnvSc (Hons) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Deakin University January, 2014 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS July 2013 I wish to thank first and foremost my children Evie and Loddy, and husband Andrew for all their love and support throughout this long process. As a reward, I promise to take you all for trips in my Tardis. I must also thank my parents for always supporting me in all my endeavours and I am forever grateful for the sacrifices they have made so that I could be in the position to undertake a PhD. This work would not have been possible without the support and guidance from my principle supervisor Dr Kelly Miller. Her encouragement and enthusiasm have helped immeasurably and inspired me to pursue this research. I would also like to thank my associate supervisor A/Prof Geoff Wescott for his support and feedback throughout this process, and Dr John White whose early input was greatly appreciated. I am thankful to the School of Life and Environmental Sciences for awarding me a scholarship that allowed me to undertake this work. I would also like to acknowledge fellow candidates Justin (now Dr Lawson!) and Belinda for their support and friendship, although I wasn’t often on campus, our chats certainly helped me power on! I am grateful to all members of the public who took the time to participate in this study. I know very well how busy life can be and appreciate the time you took to be involved. I wish to also thank the eight wildlife gardening programs that agreed to participate and recruit members to the study. Thank you to all the wildlife gardeners that provided their experiences with their programs – you should all be very proud that you are involved in helping improve the environment, both for animals and people. iv DEDICATION July 2013 I dedicate this work to my children. For Evie, who pretends to be the Lorax and shouts ‘I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees!’ For Loddy, who squeals with unparalleled delight at the sight of any animal. I hope this work will help un-pave the way to a greener future for you both. v ABSTRACT The greatest threat to global biodiversity is the actions of humans, and one of the biggest contributors to biodiversity loss is urbanisation. This thesis is concerned with how members of the community and wildlife gardeners view nature in the backyard, and their attitude toward wildlife in urban areas. In doing this, this thesis examines the role that wildlife gardening, defined as any actions undertaken in gardens to encourage and provide habitat for wildlife, may be able to play in improving biodiversity in urban areas. A mixed methods approach was employed, incorporating postal and online questionnaires and face-to-face interviews. A total of 5536 questionnaires were distributed to members of the general public, with a total of 704 useable questionnaires returned. In addition, 2199 wildlife gardeners were sent links to an online questionnaire by their wildlife gardening program, which resulted in 261 useable questionnaires returned. Face-to-face interviews were held with 10 wildlife gardening program members. In total 965 participants provided information analysed in this thesis. The study found that members of the general community are supportive of planting native vegetation in their gardens and are generally in favour of having wildlife in the suburbs and in their backyards. The sense of connection to nature that both the general community and wildlife gardeners feel was examined and it was found that having a sense of connection to nature was not essential to being involved in wildlife vi gardening. Also, the degree of connection to nature varied across the general community and wildlife gardeners and almost a quarter of current wildlife gardeners felt less of a connectedness to nature than the average member of the general community. Based on these results this study suggests that there is scope among the wider community to increase the use of native or indigenous vegetation and encourage wildlife in yards. Despite this potential, this research shows that wildlife gardening programs are currently not succeeding in recruiting unengaged individuals in large numbers, and their membership predominately consists of people who were planning to create wildlife gardens of their own accord. Self-reports from those currently involved in wildlife gardening programs suggest that their actions can succeed in attracting native wildlife to yards. It was found that the use of native and indigenous plants is more likely to result in participants reporting they had attracted wildlife. Features offered by programs, such as newsletters and native plant giveaways, were analysed to see if they had an influence on the reported attraction of wildlife, as well as the recruitment of previously unengaged individuals. No program features were found to impact upon the likelihood of wildlife being reportedly attracted, however some features were found to positively impact upon the recruitment of previously unengaged members. These features were site assessments and the provision of native or indigenous plants. Despite these features being shown to increase the recruitment of previously unengaged individuals, such individuals still represent a very small proportion of total program members. The study identifies a series of barriers, benefits, and community involvement strategies vii that may be useful in marketing wildlife gardening to the broader community and overcoming the current lack of previously unengaged individuals. This study concludes that there is community support for the use of native vegetation being planted in gardens, as well as support for sharing the urban environment with wildlife. However, in their current form, wildlife gardening programs are not succeeding in attracting the broader community to the cause; therefore they are not reaching their full potential as tools to significantly enhance local biodiversity. Despite this, the results do suggest that there is the potential for programs to engage the broader community in wildlife gardening activities, and this study provides recommendations that those working in the field of urban conservation could implement to hopefully enhance the benefits to local biodiversity. viii CONTENTS July 2013 Acknowledgements .................................................................................................. iv Dedication .................................................................................................................. v Abstract ..................................................................................................................... vi List of Figures .......................................................................................................... xiii List of Tables ............................................................................................................xiv CHAPTER 1- INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 1.1 Background ...................................................................................................................1 1.1.1 Potential contribution to habitat loss ................................................................4 1.1.2 The value of native vegetation ...........................................................................5 1.1.3 Nature disconnect ..............................................................................................8 1.1.4 Wildlife gardening as an education tool ............................................................8 1.2 Research needs and aims .......................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 2 – RESEARCH DESIGN .............................................................................. 13 2.1 Scoping phase ............................................................................................................ 13 2.2. Indentifying samples ................................................................................................ 15 2.2.1 Phase 1 - Scoping ............................................................................................. 15 2.2.2 Phase 2 - Nature in the backyard .................................................................... 18 2.3 Method selection....................................................................................................... 19 2.3.1 Self administered postal questionnaires ......................................................... 20 2.3.2 Self administered online questionnaires ........................................................ 22 2.3.3 Face-to-face interviews ................................................................................... 24 2.4 Questionnaire development and content ................................................................ 27 2.4.1 Public Scoping sample questionnaire content ................................................ 27 2.4.2 General Public sample questionnaire content ................................................ 31 2.4.3 Wildlife Gardener sample questionnaire content .......................................... 35 2.4.4 Choosing an attitude scale .............................................................................. 38 2.4.4.1 Nature Relatedness Scale .......................................................................

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