caa a22 4500 605527792 CHVBK 20210128100810.0 cr unu---uuuuu 210128e20150801xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10531-015-0924-6 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10531-015-0924-6 The benefits from and barriers to participation in civic environmental organisations in South Africa [Elektronische Daten] [Olivia Higgins, Charlie Shackleton] With growing global public awareness of a wide range of conservation and environmental issues, environmental volunteerism is increasing. In order to attract and retain volunteers, it is useful to understand what benefits they hope for as well as the barriers that hinder their participation. Here we examine the benefits from and barriers to participation in 26 conservation and environmental civic organisationsin South Africa, categorised by their primary mission as botanical, wildlife or green. Questionnaires were sent to volunteers on the mailing list of each civic organisation (and 66 responses received), supplemented with direct interviews with key staff and five focus group discussions. There were differences in the perception of benefits obtained and barriers experienced by volunteers between the three groups. Respondents from botanical and green civic organisations rated enjoyment of the task as the primary benefit, whereas the most common response amongst wildlife organisation volunteers was a higher level of life satisfaction. Lack of time was a major barrier across all groups, whilst lack of communication between organisers and volunteers was mentioned frequently by volunteers in wildlife and green organisations. The mean number of hours offered per volunteer was significantly higher amongst wildlife organisations than either botanical or green ones, but for all three, the value of volunteer contributions was, at several millions of rand annually, substantial. There was no relationship between the number of perceived benefits and the number of hours volunteered. This study indicates that motivations and barriers differ amongst volunteers, which is important to acknowledge in attracting and optimising the contributions of conservation and environmental volunteers. Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht, 2015 Non-profit nationallicence Perceptions nationallicence Time nationallicence Value nationallicence Volunteering nationallicence Higgins Olivia Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University, 6140, Grahamstown, South Africa aut Shackleton Charlie Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University, 6140, Grahamstown, South Africa aut Biodiversity and Conservation Springer Netherlands 24/8(2015-08-01), 2031-2046 0960-3115 24:8<2031 2015 24 10531 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-015-0924-6 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-015-0924-6 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Higgins Olivia Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University, 6140, Grahamstown, South Africa aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Shackleton Charlie Department of Environmental Science, Rhodes University, 6140, Grahamstown, South Africa aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Biodiversity and Conservation Springer Netherlands 24/8(2015-08-01), 2031-2046 0960-3115 24:8<2031 2015 24 10531