Environmental stewardship refers to the actions taken by an individual or a collective to protect, restore, and/or sustainably utilize natural resources. These actions can be taken on a variety of scales from the local to the global, in rural and urban contexts. 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. In addition, extrinsic rewards or sanctions, such as financial incentives, market premiums fines, or even the loss of access to markets can be used to stimulate the stewardship behavior.
Despite its widespread use as an expression for conservation, the concept of environmental stewardship is also a more holistic understanding of the relationship between humans and nature. It is based on the notion that humans are all interconnected with nature and should take care of it. This kind of stewardship includes concepts like sustainable livelihoods, adaptive comanagement, and the social-ecological ecosystem. These concepts provide a complete basis for thinking about the role humans play in managing natural resources.
The majority of abstracts related to stewardship are classified under Action with 76%, which indicates that the action of environmental stewardship plays a significant component of getting the 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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