Barriers

As we have seen that experiencing nature is a very important aspect in fostering pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors. The Singapore National Park Board has organized many workshops and programs to provide the public many opportunities to gain direct experience. However, I think that the programmes has yet to reach majority Singaporeans. Therefore, the first step is to encourage the public to join the programs that would allow them to experience nature. So how do we encourage people to participate in more of such programs? Firstly, It is important to identify the barriers that are obstructing individuals to participate in the programs.

In my opinion, the predominant barriers are,

  • Lack of knowledge of the existence of such programs
  • Importance of nature on individual’s well-being
  • Know-how to join the programs
  • Parents
Parents play an important role in helping their child experience nature. Richard Louv also mentioned that children in the current generation are  largely restricted by parents. As a result, children do not have the freedom to explore nature and experience is greatly reduced. In addition, the main strategy to engage more participants is through word-of-mouth. As more people enjoyed their experience and spread the word, more people would be interested to join the programs.

 

Changing attitude indirectly

Why do we target to change behavior instead of directly changing pro-environmental attitude? This works through the process of cognitive dissonance reduction. When an individual perform a new behavior (joins an outdoor educational program), the individual would change the underlying attitude to justify for the change in behavior so as to reduce the cognitive dissonance.

Therefore, we should try to focus on overcoming the barriers that are mentioned above and strongly encourage the public to experience nature by visiting the nature parks and joining outdoor educational programs, this include parents bringing their kids to the nature parks!