Understanding citizens’ action for nature: The profile, motivations and experiences of Dutch nature volunteers

Active citizens are a crucial foundation of nature conservation, with a long history of commitment to natural history, conservation work, education and outreach. There is a strong need for greater understanding of these volunteers and their motivations, both to match volunteer management to the individual, but also more broadly to understand citizens’ action for nature. This study adds to the literature by surveying a broad sample of Dutch nature volunteers (N = 3775), including both formal volunteers and participants in nature-oriented citizen initiatives, providing insight into their profile, motivations, and attitudes regarding their volunteer work now and in the future. In addition to providing a broad overview, we also distinguish four types of nature volunteering (recorders, restorers, educators and administrators) to investigate differences in background and perspective. Our results highlight a generally high age and level of education among nature volunteers, and we find that two motivations are crucial regardless of activity type: contributing to nature conservation, and personal connection to nature. Aside from these, restorers appear to have a somewhat divergent pattern of motivations. While nature volunteers generally experience freedom and appreciation, they share great concerns over the perceived lack of younger volunteers. We argue that, while recognising nuanced differences is important, contemporary developments in the field of volunteering require nature organisations to recognise volunteers’ diverse activities and strengthen collaboration in current and new initiatives. Taking on the joint responsibility to appreciate and voice nature volunteers’ efforts and motivations is a promising route to stimulate current and future action for nature.