Assessing environmental awareness towards protection of the Alps: a case study

The paper focuses on environmental awareness towards the protection of Alpine areas, and presents the results of a research aimed at assessing people’s awareness in regards to certain topical environmental issues such as protected areas, ecological connectivity, and wildlife. The study area is the Julian Prealps Natural Park, in the region of Friuli Venezia Giulia (Northeast Italy). In order to obtain a measure of “environmental awareness”, the Rasch model was applied. It allowed us first to identify which items are most suitable for this. The results obtained show that people are quite aware of some issues, e.g. that wellbeing is related to greener areas and that they can change things to solve environmental problems. We also found that it is easier to agree with items relating to the environment in general than with more specific issues, probably due to a lack of knowledge. However, the provision of pertinent information, in our case on ecological connectivity, can increase the level of environmental awareness. The model also showed that the level varies according to certain sociodemographic characteristics, particularly gender and age. These results could serve as a starting point for planning effective information activities aimed at raising environmental awareness and, possibly, bolstering participation in initiatives for protecting Alpine areas.