ConclusionThe importance of individ

Conclusion
The importance of individual “nature encounter” and “nature
experiences” is often cited in calls for increasing levels of individual
environmental concern as a remedy to environmental degradation.
Lately, this idea has found scholarly application in the perspective
of environmental connectedness and related studies looking for
possible pro-environmental behavior as outcomes of “nature
encounter.” The study presented in this article uses nature based
outdoor recreation as the general context to explore behavior
outcomes from nature experience. However, the study fails to
present a strong relationship between the measures of environmental
connectedness and environmental behavior. Results indicate
that connectedness does not automatically imply a
commitment to engage in the specific behaviors noted. This lack of
solidity is consistent with results presented in earlier research.
Urged by this, our article moves on to examine the environmental
connectedness perspective on a basis of perspectives
derived from the wider human geographical discussion regarding
the humaneenvironmental relationship. The examination reveals
that the construct of environmental connectedness is rooted in a
material/objective perspective, neglecting the human domain of
perceptions, values, and representations. The environment is portrayed
as a geographically undefined agent, “nature”, with the
inherent power to change human attitudes and behavior. Thus, the
environmental connectedness perspective bears resemblance to
environmental determinism, a set of ideas that is widely contested
within contemporary human geography.
This article argues that the environmental connectedness
perspective may suffer from dualistic thinking and a reliance on
simple causality. While this is also the case for most mainstream
geographical thought on the humaneenvironment relationship,
there are various disciplinary approaches that attempt to move on
from the unilateral relationship of dominance apparent in all
dualist thinking. In accordance with these, we suggest that the
nebulous category of nature should be replaced with the relational
concept of place. In fact, it can be stated with certainty that “nature
encounter” always takes place somewhere, remembering that the
previously noted environmental luminaries Henry David Thoreau,
John Muir, and Aldo Leopold grounded their thoughts and writings
in the experience of particular places: i.e. long term experiences in
and attachment to Walden, Yosemite, and the farm in Wisconsin's
Sand County.
Humanistic geographer Yi-Fu Tuan refers in his book, Topophilia:
a study of environmental perception (1974), to the significance of the
affective place-based bond between people and the environment.
Yet, to assume pro-environmental behavioral change as a necessary
outcome of spending time at particular places is to once again
relapse into simplicity and reductionism. Understanding reasons
for human behavior change calls for a much greater consideration
of covariance and complexity. This complexity goes beyond plain
progression models and their inherent pursuit for universality and
necessity, and refers to environmental concern as a phenomenon
occurring within the relations between individuals and their
various interacting contexts. One of these contexts, and the context
of the data from this research, may be that of outdoor recreation.
Though “nature encounter” is likely to fail as a general prescription
for pro-environmental change, regardless the suitability of any
particular location, there are still reasons to believe that recreational
settings, places, may facilitate and frame interpersonal relationships,
social formation, and behavior.
For further research we concur with the recommendation of
Müller et al. (2009) and promote their suggestion for more elaborate
developmental studies. We encourage a broadened methodological
approach as well, especially various qualitative methods.
Deliberate investigation of lived experience, i.e. stories of place
affiliation, may be able to provide better understanding into the
conditions and context necessary for motivation of proenvironmental
behavior. Qualitative inquiry may also offer insight
into how place can be more specifically operationalized for application
within future quantitative efforts.
Ultimately, we recommend conceptualizing not one pathway
from “nature” experience to environmental behavior, but many
paths of interplay between places of human affiliation and proenvironmental
behavior.