What Is Environmental Stewardship?

Environmental Stewardship is a term used to describe the describes an individual’s actions to safeguard the environment, restore and sustainably use natural resources. These actions can be undertaken at a variety of levels from the local to the global, in both rural and urban settings. Stewardship-supporting activities can include educational programs, social marketing campaigns, and payments for ecosystem services (PES) that aim to promote intrinsic motivations by creating a connection with nature, or changing people’s ethics, values or beliefs. Extrinsic rewards or sanctions like financial incentives could be used to encourage to stewardship behaviors.

The concept of environmental stewardship is often used as a synonym for conservation. However it also encompasses a broad understanding of human relations with the natural environment. It is based upon the notion that humans are all interconnected with nature and must therefore take care of it. This kind of stewardship incorporates concepts like social-ecological systems, sustainable livelihoods, and adaptive co-management that can provide a more complete way of thinking about the role of humans in managing natural resources.

Abstracts that are primarily related to stewardship are coded under Action (76 percent) which indicates that environmental stewardship plays a crucial role in reaching desired ecological and social outcomes. Of the remaining abstracts, the smallest proportion is coded under Outcome with only 1%, suggesting that interventions that target outcomes tend to be at broader eco-regional and/or national-international scales, and not on the individual level.

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