“People with greater socioeconomic privilege are more likely to view wildlife as having intrinsic value, whereas people living in poverty are more likely to value wildlife primarily for its survival-related utility.”

Our results suggest that children of low socio-economic backgrounds may have a more utilitarian interest in wildlife (e.g. having a stronger preference for species people watch) and those of higher socio-economic backgrounds may be interested in biodiversity conservation for its own sake (e.g. a stronger preference for species with declining numbers).

We found positive associations between county-level examples of modernization and mutualism (a wildlife value orientation that prioritizes the perceived needs of wildlife) independent of a respondent's sociodemographics, and negative associations between modernization and domination (a wildlife value orientation that prioritizes human needs).

Rural people, who use the forest frequently and belong to the least wealthy category, were concerned with Concern for crop/livestock destruction and Concern for safety, and Nutrition/taste. … In contrast, urban people from the wealthiest category were associated with Mutualism, Identity, Attraction for wildlife, Concern for health, and Repugnance for wild meat. … Therefore, our findings support Inglehart’s thesis that people who are more dependent on natural resources for fulfilling their needs have a stronger materialistic value orientation (Inglehart, 1997).

Individuals with a Materialist value set were more likely than Post-Materialists to have a utilitarian orientation toward wildlife. … Findings revealed a strong positive relationship between active participation in hunting and possession of traditional values, defined by a Materialist values set and a utilitarian orientation toward wildlife.

Material livelihoods provided by ecosystem services from parks can spark interest in conservation, especially at lower levels of Maslow’s hierarchy, where survival is the primary focus [15,16]. … This study assumes that less vulnerable people are satisfied to some extent with their basic needs and can pay attention to conservation issues. … A positive relationship between livelihood vulnerability and a positive conservation attitude might indicate that poor people are overly dependent on resources from national parks and that natural resources are like their life insurance.

Respondents who were happier and had smaller households were more pro-conservation than those who were unhappier, with larger households. Household income and size may correlate with poverty levels, and therefore happiness, and serve as indices of respondents' capacity to support pro-conservation attitudes.

values are subjective and as such are perceived differently among stakeholders according to their social, economic, cultural, and ecological context … Urban populations usually place more mutualistic values on wildlife than do rural people … Costs have heavier impacts on vulnerable groups and tend to aggravate poverty conditions. Values are also perceived differently by stakeholders according to economic dependences (e.g., when the main source of income is from hunting or tourism), on the availability of protein sources from wild animals (e.g., wildmeat is a main protein source), as well as socio-cultural factors

The findings identifying the engagement activities that demonstrate continued support for wildlife conservation reveal that HLS is a strong predictor of conservation support, with secure households showing noticeably higher conservation support than insecure and moderately secure households.

The community in the study area, like their three chiefs, exhibited a utilitarian wildlife value orientation, holding that wild animals are essentially for human use even if this entails harming or killing the wild animals (Kansky et al., 2016). … This explains, at least in part, their apathy to wildlife conservation once immediate benefits from wildlife were not forthcoming.

Accordingly, illegal wildlife hunting may not simply be a way of averting want and deprivation, it may be a means of seeking and affirming identity, status, lifeways, custom, and local prestige. … MacDonald's ([2005](#cobi12622-bib-0056)) work on the Himalayan ibex trophy hunting scheme in northern Pakistan underlines the importance of this perspective (2005). Aiming to conserve a declining ibex population, the IUCN worked to establish a trophy-hunting scheme that required local people to refrain from hunting, an activity they had engaged in for centuries and sold hunting permits to international hunters. The proceeds from the sale of permits were split between local people and the national government. However, the scheme failed to halt local ibex hunting, largely because hunting was a source of prestige and status.

In our present study, therefore, it is highly plausible that respondents' house hold income and household size are inextricably linked with their levels of poverty and, by extension, happiness, which in turn serve as an index of respondents' capacity to support pro-conservation attitudes, and their likelihood of supporting non-consumptive income streams.

Significant differences in wildlife value orientations were found. Mutualists and distanced dominated in the public; most landowners and hunters were utilitarian followed by pluralist.

Respondents who perceived most differences were likely to report moderate utilitarian value orientations and to have grown up in urban areas, lived in more than one state, and attended college. Results link values shifts to three current trends: urbanization, residential mobility, and increasing education.

Charismatic carnivore species like African lions and tigers are highly valuable to societies, and this is especially true at the national or global level58,59, but at more local scales they often have little or even negative value9,15. … Despite the lamentations of western governments and celebrities over declining carnivore populations, the global community suffers little to no personal cost from large carnivores. This lies in stark contrast to the experiences of local communities living alongside these predators in the developing world for whom a single predation event represents on average a third of their annual income.

Subsequently, two key WVOs that affect relationships with wildlife have been identified [12,14]: domination (prioritizing human well-being over wildlife and treating wildlife as resources to be used for human benefit) and mutualism (seeing wildlife as part of one’s social community and deserving of rights like humans). … Manfredo et al. [35] and Manfredo et al. [36] found that WVOs are changing in western societies, with traditionalists decreasing and mutualists increasing. They attributed this change to several socioeconomic factors, most importantly to the increased rates of urbanization.

First, socio-economic measures are typically externally defined, rather than stakeholder-defined, and therefore not necessarily relevant to human well-being across different cultures and contexts [12]. Second, these measures omit non-socio-economic determinants of human well-being and may not accommodate individuals who are, for example, materially prosperous but otherwise unhappy or unwell [1].

Furthermore, most of the respondents (73%) from the majority agro‐pastoralist group in the two villages surveyed showed a negative perception toward the benefits received from the BWMA by responding that they do not benefit. In contrast, most of the respondents who deal with small businesses (86%) and weaving activities (83%) responded that BWMA is beneficial to them (Figure 2b), while only a small number of fish mongers (15%) and agro‐pastoralists (27%) acknowledged any benefit.

Yet, some empirical research suggests that substitutability of relational values may differ with place-attachment and across income groups (43).

Those whose livelihoods depend on prey species commonly perceive predators as threats.

We also found that people living in rural areas were more likely to attribute intrinsic and relational values, and less likely to attribute instrumental values, to the ecosystems of the mid- and upper stream of the Otún River watershed (Table 5). … Instead, we support the view that the strong connection of rural people with ecosystems, in terms of their cultural relations and their material dependence on ecosystems (Martínez-Alier 2002, Anguelovski and Martínez Alier 2014) can explain why they primarily express the importance of ecosystems in terms of relational and intrinsic values.

values are subjective and as such are perceived differently among stakeholders according to their social, economic, cultural, and ecological context … Urban populations usually place more mutualistic values on wildlife than do rural people … Costs have heavier impacts on vulnerable groups and tend to aggravate poverty conditions. Values are also perceived differently by stakeholders according to economic dependences (e.g., when the main source of income is from hunting or tourism), on the availability of protein sources from wild animals (e.g., wildmeat is a main protein source), as well as socio-cultural factors

We use the existence value framework to develop a coupled ecological-economic model of the use and non-use, existence values of wildlife for a tribe that derives spiritual value from a wildlife population. … The bioeconomic model developed in this paper attempts to fill this gap by using a nonlinear specification of an existence value function and estimating existence values for a tribe that derives spiritual values from the tiger, as opposed to identifying a range of such values for society at large that typically capture moral satisfaction, "warm glow," and ethical dimensions (Alpizar et al. 2003).

The premise of community-based conservation is that if local people have control and ownership over the design and management of biodiversity conservation and see tangible benefits emerging from this management, support for conservation will increase and conservation will ultimately be more successful (NACSO, 2013; Ashley, 1998; Ashenafi et al., 2007).

The current work will clarify: the origins and current disciplinary affiliation of hunting participation literature, the relationship of alternative food support with prohunting behaviors and attitudes, and the relationship between value orientations and socioeconomic characteristics of individuals in Ohio. … Subsequent research ultimately identified two independent orientations, labeled "domination" and "mutualism," that characterize American’s beliefs about the treatment and management of animals (Manfredo et al., 2009). In subsequent articles wildlife value orientations (WVOs) were found to be associated with “materialist” and “postmaterialist” values, as defined by Ronald Inglehart (Inglehart, 1990, 1997). … Results from chapter 4 indicate mutualism values are positively correlated with income. Also, domination values positively correlated with PREP and residency at formative years, but negatively correlated with education.

Studies have shown that HWC-efficient compensation schemes and other conflict mitigation efforts can mitigate this negative impact, increasing the likelihood of community support for conservation [67,68,69]. Additionally, cultural beliefs and traditional values regarding wildlife play an important role in shaping attitudes and support toward biodiversity conservation, with some communities viewing wildlife as an integral part of their heritage, thus providing an intrinsic motivation for conservation support [70,71]. … The chi-square test reveal a significant relationship (p ≤ 0.001) between HLS and support for wildlife conservation efforts. Among participants categorized as “insecure”, a majority (67.4%) reported “moderate-to-no support” for conservation, with 32.6% indicating “strong support”. … Household livelihood security status was also a significant predictor of conservation support (p < 0.001). Specifically, households categorized as “secure” were more likely to strongly support conservation than both “insecure” and “moderately secure” households.

Preliminary human dimension research certainly measured value orientations toward wildlife, for example, by asking individuals how strongly they recognize biocentric or protectionist belief statements (e.g. wildlife should have equal rights as humans) and utilitarian or use beliefs about wildlife (e.g. Wildlife should be used by humans to add to the quality of human life). … Compared with urban residents, rural residents were more likely to have strong positive value orientations toward wildlife use and hunting (Vaske, 2011). … Most of the literature, on the other hand, shows that higher education is related with biocentric (or mutualism) value orientations (J. Vaske, et al., 2011).

Over 90% of participants reported collecting natural resources such as firewood, grass, medicinal plants, and fruits to support their livelihoods. … Participants generally expressed positive attitudes toward wildlife and conservation. However, certain factors including proximity to the park, women, food insecurity, and crop and livestock loss were linked to negative attitudes.

More than 90% of the population reported that they hunted wildlife and harvested wild vegetables at least one day during the prior week as a direct means to cope with their food insecurity.

While wildlife consumption does not appear to have significant economic or health benefits in the communities in the Alaotra wetland complex, high food insecurity significantly increased the number of forest and marshland mammals eaten by households.

because the ethical division between valuing nature for its own sake (ecocentrism) and valuing it for human benefit (anthropocentrism) has contributed to polarized approaches to conservation.

The current approach to conservation in Maasai group ranches in Amboseli closely parallels dominant ES/CES approaches that emphasize instrumental and intrinsic values of “nature out there” as the key for fostering human-nonhuman “coexistence.” … Our case study highlights how values are formed through dynamic, heterogeneous, context specific social relations that are inseparable from relations with nonhumans. In particular, our case study shows how both natural and cultural dimensions mutually constitute instrumental domains that are often conceptually distinguished in ES/CES.

The 2018 landmark America’s Wildlife Values report identified four types of value orientations towards wildlife based on national and regional survey data from 2004 and 2018: … UTILITARIAN/TRADITIONALIST: This type is characterized by a view of human mastery over wildlife and a prioritization of human well-being over wildlife. Specifically, utilitarians believe wildlife should be managed for human benefit. … MUTUALIST: This type views wildlife as capable of relationships of trust with humans. Mutualists believe that humans and wildlife are meant to co-exist or live in harmony, and thus wildlife deserve rights similar to the rights of humans.