With a recent significant increase in visitors to our public lands, land managers are often finding it more difficult to provide the resources, staff and funding to ensure the integrity of our lands for the future. The millennial generation has become of specific interest because not only are they the largest generation to date, this group is shown to have a greater interest in unique, outdoor experiences.
As graduate students in the Masters of the Environment program, our team has partnered with the National Parks Conservation Association to discover ways we can assist land managers and agencies across southwestern public lands on how to message to this demographic and determine a point of intervention.
The survey we have launched is designed to grasp a better understanding of the demographic's ethics, who/what they are most influenced by and how they use social media to inform their decisions.
With these results, we plan to develop a pilot campaign during the summer and create a handbook for land managers by the end of the year. This handbook will provide a creative and innovative tool to influence positive behavior change and effectively message to this demographic.