ABSTRACT
“Explore. Learn. Protect.” From national parks to city centers, it is a common belief – just get people to understand a place, and they will naturally want to take care of it. Tourism bureaus, governmental agencies, and non-profit organizations strive to convince people to visit places and/or learn place-based “facts” with the assumption that once someone learns about a place, they will develop a relationship with it and want to help it remain intact and/or improved. Indeed, if individual preferences align with local socio-ecological attributes, place attachment can be a powerful motivating force for stewardship. But sense of place does not automatically translate into an ethic of caring, nor do people automatically develop a positive sense of place when exposed to new locations or facts. Drawing on research on parks and protected areas, this essay evaluates stewardship through the lens of humanistic geography, discussing how individuals develop senses of place; what the nuances are between place attachment, place identity, and place meaning; why sense of place translates into an ethic of stewardship in some cases and not in others; and how we can learn from existing assumptions and ideals to build stronger senses of place and enhance successful place-based stewardship efforts.
