Going Beyond the Instrumental View on Nature and the Human–Nature Relationship: Visions of Nature of the Metropolitan Population of Lima,Peru

Abstract

We explore how human–nature connection and well-being in an urban context relate to nature in general, but with special attention to “values” of nature beyond the immediate city settings. We apply the “visions of nature” framework through a quantitative survey (N = 362) held among the citizens of Lima, Peru to better understand their ideas, values, and images of relationships with nature. To achieve this, our research questions are as follows: (1) Which “images of nature” do residents of metropolitan Lima distinguish, and what level of naturalness do they attribute to them?, (2) Which types of “values of nature” do Lima residents acknowledge and adhere to the most?, and (3) Which “images of human–nature relationships” do residents of Lima identify as the most appropriate? Furthermore, we explore whether well-being is reflected in values attributed to nature. We found images of both wild and domesticated nature, which different groups of respondents assigned with divergent levels of naturalness. Differences appear to be linked to respondents' generational contexts and life experiences. The images of relationship that most respondents adhered to (Practical and Ecocentric steward) entail a sense of responsibility toward nature, motivated by the traditional instrumental values but certainly also by intrinsic and relational values of nature. We argue that citizens adhering to those images of relationship experience a form of nature connection with nature beyond the urban context and recommend that well-being research should not only address the significance of nearby urban nature, but also of extra-urban nature.