Henwood, Karen Linda ![]() ![]() |
Abstract
The paper reports on an investigation into the importance, significance and value to people of woods and trees, making special reference to the symbolic space they occupy in people's personal worlds and within their local community and cultural environments. The research design follows a mixed-methods format, where both quantitative and qualitative data were elicited during a series of community focus groups that were conducted with members of the public in North Wales. A three-part analysis is presented of: (1) the attributes of wooded sites people choose as personally significant to them; (2) importance rankings of a range of values that attach to woods and trees; and (3) a grounded theory analysis of the symbolic quality of ‘naturalness’ and three other major themes to emerge from the qualitative data (‘threat of urbanization’ ‘stability’, and ‘biodiversity’). The research establishes that woods and trees are important to people at personal, local, community, cultural and global levels, and there is an extended discussion of the relationship between the findings and other Welsh community and cultural studies. Other commentaries reflect upon the limits of contingent valuation for conveying the range of ways in which woods and trees are important, the possibility of a cultural repositioning of the economic role of forestry, and the need to take account of intangible environmental meanings and goods in contemporary forestry policy.
Item Type: | Article |
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Status: | Published |
Schools: | Psychology Social Sciences (Includes Criminology and Education) |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
ISSN: | 0272-4944 |
Last Modified: | 21 Oct 2022 08:46 |
URI: | https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/34355 |
Citation Data
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