Environmental ethics of wilderness visitors

During wilderness recreation, people find themselves immersed in a myriad of thoughts and emotions. Through these, the interaction between human and non-human becomes a relationship. "The relationship with the resource," (Watson & Daigle, 1990) the state of being connected or having a significant association is the issue we assessed in the Caney Creek Wilderness study. To understand the values of people who directly use the wilderness through recreational pursuits is a concern in management practices. This paper is based on a study of Caney Creek Wilderness visitors from February to August of 1999. The Caney Creek Wilderness is a 5,854 hectare wilderness located on the southern edge of the Ouachita Mountains in southwestern Arkansas. The steep topography, shaped sandstone outcrops, pine-hardwood forests and swift creeks and rivers attract a variety of outdoor enthusiasts from a number of surrounding southern states. This study consists of three dimensions: (1) recreation behavior (2) environmental ethics and (3) psychological dimensions of the wilderness experience. In this paper, we concentrate on the analysis of the environmental ethics of wilderness visitors in the southern United States. Environmental ethics was measured using an index developed by Manning and Valiere (1996). This environmental ethics index places individuals into five categories including religious stewardship, benign indifference, deep ecological, anti-environmental, and utilitarian conservation. These categories closely reflect the philosophical underpinnings of the components of environmentalism.