• Corpus ID: 54175431

CAN RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION INTERFER WITH PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS WILDLIFE ? THE CASE OF CANTANHEZ FOREST NATIONAL PARK , GUINEA-BISSAU REPUBLIC

@inproceedings{Casanova2013CANRA,
  title={CAN RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION INTERFER WITH PERCEPTIONS AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS WILDLIFE ? THE CASE OF CANTANHEZ FOREST NATIONAL PARK , GUINEA-BISSAU REPUBLIC},
  author={Catarina Casanova and Cl{\'a}udia Sousa and Erli Schneider Costa},
  year={2013}
}

• C. Casanova, C. Sousa, E. Costa
• Published 2013
• Environmental Science

As human population grows and globalization disrupts local and traditional communities everywhere in the planet, there are stronger and wider threats to wildlife and biodiversity. In spite of all the humanity’s achievements, difficulties in providing well-being to many human communities are increasing. The world’s natural forests, whose rich ecosystems support wildlife and human populations, are declining and facing unprecedented changes. Perceptions and attitudes towards wildlife and biodiversity are also culturally constructed and it is important to known these so that environmental national action plans may be feasible and reliable. An attitude can be seen as a relatively enduring organization of beliefs about an object or a situation predisposing one to respond favourably or unfavourably to a commodity, person, institution or event. Hence, attitude is an antecedent or determinant of behaviour. And, ultimately, it will be people’s behaviour who will determine the survival of wildlife and the forests. Positive attitudes towards nature may work as a good indicator for wildlife and biodiversity conservation. Perceptions and attitudes are partly culturally constructed and are influenced by several variables that include age, gender, religious affiliation or ethnic group, among other variables. In this study we explored how religious affiliation may interfere with the perceptions of wildlife. We assessed how individuals living inside the Cantanhez Forest National Park (CFNP) in Guinea-Bissau Republic (GB) perceived their environment, i.e., its animals. CFNP’s territory is included in an important international biodiversity hotspot (Guinean Forest) and is composed by a mosaic of different ecosystems ranging from mangroves to forest fragments, savannas and crops. Around 25.000 people live in CFNP. The population includes a complex mix of many ethnic groups, i.e. Fulbe, Nalu, Susu, Balanta, Tanda, among others. We present results for Balanta and Nalu, the main ethnic groups present at our field site (Madina), inside the CFNP. During data collection we used a survey questionnaire and interviews were conducted. We found that aesthetical values overlap food preferences with the most beautiful animals (e.g. gazelle) being simultaneously the most edible. Although chimpanzees are considered ugly (and also non-edible), they are also perceived as the most similar being to humans. Although significative statistical differences were found when considering religious affiliation (e.g. animists, Muslims and Catholics), the same was not found when considering