Broadening our understanding of what drives stewardship engagement: Relationships between social capital and willingness to engage in nature stewardship

Diverse solutions are needed to reduce human impacts on nature. Fostering individual stewardship behaviours that protect, restore, and encourage sustainable use of nature will need to be part of this mix of solutions. A key challenge then is how to increase the uptake of such behaviours. Social capital provides a framework to explore the diverse types of social influences on nature stewardship. We surveyed a representative sample of residents of New South Wales, Australia (n = 3220) to explore how facets of social capital influenced individual willingness to adopt diverse types of stewardship behaviours. Analysis confirmed that parts of social capital differentially influence distinct types of stewardship behaviours including lifestyle, social, on-ground, and citizenship behaviours. All behaviours were positively influenced by perceptions of shared values within social network, and past participation in environmental groups. Yet some components of social capital exhibited mixed associations with each type of stewardship behaviour. For example, collective agency was associated with greater willingness to engage in social, on-ground, and citizenship behaviours, whereas institutional trust was negatively associated with willingness to engage in lifestyle, on-ground and citizenship behaviours. These findings show that social context provides an important foundation for building stewardship engagement. •Social capital appears to be an important foundation for building stewardship engagement•Shared values and environmental group participation supported all stewardship behaviours•Collective agency supported all stewardship behaviours except lifestyle behaviours•Institutional trust was negatively associated with most stewardship behaviours