This article is part of a monthly series celebrating Brock’s rich history of community engagement and enduring commitment to the mutual exchange of knowledge and resources within the Niagara community and beyond. To read other stories in the series, visit The Brock News.

Niagara is known for its natural beauty and the many parks, hiking trails and conservation areas where visitors can enjoy their surroundings.

Postdoctoral fellow Jennifer Holzer aims to help protect these natural spaces by giving those who manage them insight into the factors that turn visitors into sustainability leaders.

“For staff in parks and conservation areas, it’s a tough balance between stewardship, conservation and being the conduit by which people can experience nature and connection,” says Holzer. “In our research, we were interested in understanding what factors predicted how likely visitors to natural areas were to engage in pro-environmental behaviours, both in natural areas and in their personal lives.”

Holzer and her supervisor Julia Baird, Director of the Environmental Sustainability Research Centre (ESRC), together with the Niagara Parks Commission and the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority (NPCA), received a Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Fellowship last April for a project exploring human connections to nature in Niagara Peninsula watershed protected areas.

“There’s a natural fit between the way the two organizations think about sustainability and stewardship and our expertise and research interests in the ESRC,” says Baird. “We have wonderful relationships with Niagara Parks and the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority individually, and this Mitacs project presented an opportunity to collaborate among the three of us and have greater community impact as a result.”

Holzer conducted staff interviews, surveyed visitors at select sites around the Niagara region and organized a photography exhibit for images captured by newcomers to Canada to help shed light on how one subgroup of visitors views the parks and forests.

These photos are now part of a photovoice exhibition that debuted last week at the NPCA’s Carolinian Hall. The exhibition will now travel to Balls Falls Conservation Area and, later this spring, the Niagara Glen Nature Centre.

Eric Baldin of the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority (left), Corey Burant of Niagara Parks, postdoctoral fellow Jennifer Holzer, and participant photographer and Brock MA student in Applied Linguistics – TESL Rika Amagai presented a panel discussion at the opening event for “‘Tranquility and Connection’: Newcomers to Canada Showcase their Nature Experiences through Photography – A Photovoice Exhibition.”

Most participants were recruited from the Niagara Folk Arts Multicultural Centre, now known as Bridges Niagara, in St. Catharines. Volunteers captured and submitted photos with captions, completed a phone interview with Holzer and attended a workshop where the entire group could look at the collection of images and identify themes.

“There’s something about a compelling photograph and that short caption that sits underneath it that seems to really resonate with people,” says Baird. “The Photovoice method is very well established and has been used across the world because it provides individuals with a way to share a message or a feeling that can be difficult with words alone.”

The rest of the research findings are being compiled into a report that will be shared with the project partners in May.

“Results from our survey show that the biggest predictor of pro-environmental behaviour was connection to nature, with eco-leadership also contributing,” says Holzer. “The survey also replicated my previous work, again showing that highly sensitive people connect more strongly to nature than people of low or average sensitivity.”

Holzer adds that while newcomers to Canada showed roughly the same level of connection to nature as the general population, they may have higher than average pro-environmental behaviour scores.

She also found that awareness of environmental issues is only the first step in the cultivating leadership in sustainability.

“Another noteworthy finding was that environmental knowledge did not influence pro-environmental behaviour — just knowing about environmental problems does not necessarily predispose people to take action,” she says. “One key to whether knowledge becomes action may be the context in which environmental learning takes places, particularly the social aspects of learning, and another may be whether emotions were triggered.”

Corey Burant, Manager, Land and Stewardship at Niagara Parks, says the project is important because he wants visitors “to experience and explore these unique natural areas but also understand how ecologically sensitive they are.”

“This project provides us with alternative tools to engage with our visitors and understand how they want to experience nature, as well as an understanding of how we can leverage these experiences to support our environmental stewardship mandate,” says Burant.

Eric Baldin, Manager of Land Planning at the NPCA, says the research “will be thoughtfully considered as we design conservation areas and programs that foster meaningful connections to nature and meet the diverse needs of those we serve, including newcomers to Canada” in the future.

“This project strongly aligns with NPCA’s strategic goals of fostering inclusive access to nature, supporting community engagement and inspiring environmental stewardship across the watershed,” he says. “It also reflects our commitment to going beyond environmental awareness by creating meaningful connections between people and nature.”