Thinking About Nature in the East: An Empirical Investigation of Visions of Nature in Vietnam

Abstract

This study employed the ''Visions of nature'' framework (a ''scale'' in social-scientific terms), developed in the Netherlands, to investigate people's ideas on nature in an Eastern culture, namely, Vietnam. The scale encompasses images of nature, values attached to nature, and images of the human-nature relationship, such as mastery over nature, stewardship of nature, and partnership with nature. Taking care to translate the items of the scale into valid representations in Vietnamese, a questionnaire was designed and filled out in a face-toface setting by 229 respondents from six types of environments (urban, rural, forest, and so on). The results show differences and similarities between the East and the West. Most people hold a broad view of what nature is, attach high levels of intrinsic value to it, and strongly adhere to a vision of relationship that we labeled ''Family with nature,'' representing a more relational variant of the Western stewardship concept. Implications of practical conservation policies and a reflection on cross-cultural universality and particularity are highlighted.

Relational value, partnership, eudaimonia: a review

“…Overall, the results are remarkably even across gender, age and European countries (West and East), with Mastery over nature generally rejected, Stewardship of nature massively adhered to, but also Partnership with nature and Participation in nature receiving majority levels of adherence [17] contradicting the received philosophical idea that mastery over nature is the dominant worldview in Western culture. The HaN scale has recently been applied in Vietnam as well [18], with results that reinforce the impression that the adherence to relational values is more universally human than culturally determined; see also [19] on relational values in Colombia, De Vos et al (this volume) on relational values around protected areas and [20] on the universality of attitudes of children towards nature in very different cultural and class contexts.…”

Impact of biological education and gender on students’ connection to nature and relational values

“…Doung & van den Born (70), for example, were unable to detect any difference between the genders in a study of RVs in Vietnam. In Vietnam, this type of value is more important and can be seen as the main stream image of human nature relationship [ 70 ]. It can therefore be assumed that gender as a factor has only a minor influence on the characteristics of the RVs due to the high importance in Vietnamese society.…”

“…For the RVs, there are only few studies on potential gender effects (e.g. [ 48 , 70 ]). Therefore, this study is intended to provide important evidence about the impact of gender on the RVs.…”

Going Beyond the Instrumental View on Nature and the Human–Nature Relationship: Visions of Nature of the Metropolitan Population of Lima, Peru

“…In the past two decades, studies based on the visions of nature framework have been performed in The Netherlands, Poland, France, Germany, and most recently in Vietnam. In these studies different types of relationships of people and nature as well as environmental values and ideas about nature in lay people's minds underlying these relationships were investigated (De Groot, 1999;Duong & Van den Born, 2019;Hunka, De Groot & Biela, 2009;Van den Born, Lenders, De Groot, & Huijsman, 2001). Unlike philosophical reflections on the matter, visions of nature studies approach the meanings of humannature relationships empirically and find practical implementation in, for instance, nature planning and management, nature communication strategies, and environmental policies (Van den Born et al, 2001).…”