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Do you think conservation groups should do more
to promote hiking? Photo: J. Barnabee
In a time when people spend hours playing video games and Internet surfing, should conservation groups be doing more to promote strenuous outdoor activities like hiking and backpacking?
A recent study says yes. Scientists Oliver Pergams of the University of Illinois at Chicago, Patricia Zaradic of the Red Rock Institute in Pennsylvania and Peter Kareiva of the Nature Conservancy published a study Oct. 7 in the online journal PLoS ONE that suggests that people who only engage in fishing or outdoor sightseeing are not as likely to financially support conservation efforts as those who do strenuous activities like hiking and backpacking.
The study also found that the more time people had spent hiking or backpacking, the more likely they would be to give financial support to conservation causes later in life.
This study follows one published by Pergams and Zaradic in 2008 that showed an overall downturn in the amount of time people have been engaging in nature-focused outdoor activities since the late 1980s. They attributed this decline to the corresponding increase in the popularity of video games and Internet-related activities.
What do you think? Should conservation groups do more to promote hiking and backpacking? Leave your comments below.
For more info: If you found this article interesting, check out these other articles by the Baltimore Backpacking Examiner:
Training in Baltimore to hike Mount Rainier
The Paw Paw Tunnel hike is a great fall adventure
Baltimore hiking 101: How to pack a backpack
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