THE REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL CENTER for Central and Eastern Europe

          Results from the Opinion Poll on: Nature Concepts, Environmental Consciousness and Behaviour in Estonia   by Stefanie Lang, University Köln, Germany       Research assistants: Elina Kivinukk, Larissa Kus, Dina Gontcharova     A project financed by: Baltic Environmental Forum (BEF) Ministry of Environment of Estonia Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland Regional Environmental Centre (REC)     August 1999  

Table of Contents

1) Introduction

1. History of the project
2. Aims and goals
3. The project in an Estonian context

 2) The research

1. The questionnaire
2. Research locations
3. Sampling procedure
4. Conduction of interviews

 3) The informants

1. Description of the sample
2. The informants in an Estonian context

 4) Results

1. Environmental problems and problem awareness
2. Personal behaviour and the behaviour index
3. Attitudes towards the European Union
4. Concepts of nature and environment
5. Ethnicity and love for nature
6. Green policies and political activism
7. Environmental knowledge
8. Waste problems
9. Nature protection versus economic growth

 5) Summary

 6) Policy recommendations

 7) Bibliography

 8) Annex

 

Tables:
A) The three sample locations and ethnicity (in %)

B) The three sample locations and gender (in %)

C) The three sample locations and age (in %)

D) The three sample locations and education (in %)

E) The three sample locations and family status (in %)

F) The three sample locations and household income (in %)

G) The three sample locations and property (in %)

H) The three sample locations and current type of accommod. (in %)

I) The three sample locations and accommodation as a child (in %)

K) Comparison of sample with total Estonian population

L) Problems mentioned in opened questions

M) Problem awareness according to sampling areas

N) Problem awareness according to sampling areas and gender

O) Problem awareness according to age groups

P) Behaviour according to age group

Q) ‘Love for nature’-answers according to different variables

R) Trees and biodiversity according to area and ethnicity

S) Investment in industries according to age

 

Charts:

a) Job groups of informants

b) Problem ranking of informants

c) Food and problem awareness

d) Oil shale depletion and problem awareness

e) Actions taken to save the environment

f) Reasons for inactivity to save the environment

g) Paper waste recycling

h) Attitude towards EU

i) EU- influences on Estonian environment

k) Associations with nature

l) Associations with environment

m) Touch with nature

n) Relation between man and nature

o) Love for nature and ethnicity

p) Environmental policy in Estonia

q) Green party in Estonia

r) Number of organisations mentioned

s) Kind of organisations mentioned

t) Success of environmental organisations

u) Peoples’ activities

v) Peoples’ concerns and governmental action

w) Environmental knowledge

x) Trees and biodiversity

y) Sustainable use of resources

z) Sustainable use of resources according to age groups

ai) Reaction on dumping garbage in nature

bi) Aerosols and batteries in household waste

ci) Waste payments

di) Effects of technology

ei) Investment in industries

fi) Less materialistic life-style

gi) Jobs lost

hi) Raising awareness
 

1) Introduction

1. History of the project

The envisaged integration of Estonia in the European Union is pointing the way ahead: Policy and legislation development are ongoing under the sign of EU Approximation. The National Environmental Strategy and Action Program of Estonia taking into account the actual environmental situation and the future planning for integration into the EU is emphasising the raise of public awareness, participation and education in the environmental sector as one of the main priorities for action. But what is the actual level of peoples’ consciousness and environmental behaviour in current Estonia? How much are they aware of environmental problems and do they actively protect the environment?

Such questions have been asked by the Baltic Environmental Forum (bef) and the Regional Environmental Centre (rec) and they therefore asked for the Ministry of the Environment of Estonia’ s support to finance an opinion poll project to find answers to these questions. As such an opinion poll on the environmental consciousness had been recently carried out in Latvia with a sample of 180 people (mostly ethnic Latvians) from Riga and one rural area, the questions and the experience could be applied in a modified version to Estonia as well. The questionnaire has been designed by Stefanie Lang (consultant and Ph.D. candidate in social anthropology of Cologne University, Germany) on the basis of intensive pre-studies in Latvia and on research that has been carried out in Western European countries and in the USA. Stefanie Lang was asked to conduct the opinion poll project and its analysis in Estonia during spring and summer 1999.

 

 

2. Aims and goals

This opinion poll project wants to serve as an information source of the actual environmental consciousness today and therefore build the bases for further actions and policy planning as indicated in the National Environmental Action Plan goal 1.1. Results from the opinion poll and its analysis present a clearer picture about peoples shared ideas concerning:

~ environmental problem awareness

~ environmental protection

~ personal responsibility and fears

~ environmental policy

~ behaviour concerning waste, food, environmental organisations

~ links between cultural identity and nature

~ Estonia and the European Union

 

With this report, the situation in Estonia can be presented in a understandable manner and therefore serve as a base-line study for all political actors, decision-makers or organisations. As the analysis of all the data is policy oriented and operationalised for policy recommendations, the above mentioned institutions and actors should be able to make use of the report to shape their specific actions and strategies. Raising awareness needs a ‘starting point’, and it was the goal of this project to give this base and to make it available to all groups, institutions and actors working in the environmental sector in Estonia.

In a mid-term perspective, a comparison between all three Baltic states is planned. This will mean to add some research in Latvia and to start the same opinion poll in Lithuania to have a common ground for comparison. A long-term goal could also be to repeat the research presented here in a 5 or 10 year interval in Estonia to compare the changes in awareness, behaviour and attitudes for Estonia in a historical perspective.

 

 

3. The project in an Estonian context

This research wants to be understood and read as a comprehensive project. Several other researches are currently under way in Estonia or have been completed shortly before the project presented here. Before this project started, areas for co-operation with other institutions or projects have been checked and discussed. As there seemed to be no possibilities for co-operation or were not found at the time of the research start, this report can only cite results of similar researches for a comparison with the reported results. In general, the research presented here gives a ‘snapshot’ picture of the situation in spring 1999, can therefore also differ from earlier or later researches. Every research has its own special focus and differs therefore in the questions to be asked and in the way of analysis and presentation. The data will be presented here in a comprehensive way as a project in itself and will be only illustrated with results of other reports. A comparison with other reports is not a goal of this project.

 

 

2) The research

1. The questionnaire

The questionnaire instrument consisted of four parts which could be handled in free order. The first part were questions to be answered by the informants in a written form. Although the structure of questioning differed in this part, is was handed to the informants and filled by the informants alone. This part consisted of ‘ranking’ questions, ‘ticking’ questions and ‘normal’ questions to be answered.

Short examples of all question techniques are given here. For a complete picture, see also the full questionnaire in the annex.

 

‘Ranking’ questions:

Answering these questions, the informants had to give their personal opinion and rank the different answer possibilities by their importance. Informants sometimes needed assistance in understanding this answering task, as it seemed unusual to them. Two questions altogether were asked in this way:

Please rank the environmental problems by their importance. (give a 9 to the most important)

1) air pollution ___

2) bad drinking water quality ___

3) soviet times remaining pollution ___

4) pollution of the Baltic Sea ___

5) cutting of forest ___

6) waste dumps ___

7) chemical industry ___

8) oil shale depletion ___

9) energy problems ___

 

‘Ticking’ questions:

Answering these questions, the informants had to mark all the answers which suited their opinion or their behaviour. In general, people did not have problems to answer these kind of questions. Three questions altogether were asked in this way:

What do you personally do to save the environment? (mark all you did in the last two weeks)

1) I work in an environm. organisation r

2) I do not buy plastic bottled drinks r

3) I do not use mineral fertiliser r

4) I go shopping with a basket/bag r

5) I help to clean forests or plains r

6) I deliberately use public transport r

7) I do not use pesticides or herbicides r

8) I try to sort waste r

 

‘Normal’ questions:

These questions are well known as giving several answer possibilities of which the informant has to chose one according to personal opinion or most common behaviour. 13 questions altogether were asked in this way:

Do you think that Estonia has a good environmental policy?

1) yes r 2) too weak r

3) too strong r 4) I do not know r

 

What do you normally do with your paper waste?

1) This is normal waste and I put it to the household garbage. r

2) I keep old paper and use it in fireplaces or just burn it. r

3) I keep old paper and bring it to the recycling facilities. r

4) Other possibilities._________________________________ r

 

 

The second part of the questionnaire consisted of four opened questions which were asked by the research assistants and answered orally. The assistants noted the answers in key-words or transcribed the answers if the informant was not talking too fast. The assistants sometimes rephrased the questions to make them easier but tried not to lead the informants into a certain direction in answering. The four questions produced answers of different length and complexity, a fact that was consciously intended in formulating the questions:

With what do you associate nature?

With what do you associate the environment?

Do you personally fear environmental degradation? Why and which kind of degradation?

Which environmental organisations do you know in Estonia?

The third part of the questionnaire consisted of 46 statements to be evaluated by the informants in a written form. This technique raised the informants’ need for assistance as it again seemed an unusual technique for them. But after further explanation and help, the informants had no problem filling the sheets by themselves. Informants had to evaluate the statements as 5 = I strongly agree, 4 = I partly agree, 3 = I do not know, 2 = I partly disagree, 1 = I strongly disagree and make a cross in the square they preferred:

 

N.	Statement	5	4	3	2	1
2	I would appreciate the construction of bicycle roads in Estonia.
3	People have a right to clean air and clean water.
4	If you do not appreciate the beauty of nature, you can not be environmentally concerned.
7	Because of global climate changes, we could become extinct like dinosaurs.
8	In nature I can rest and get new energy.
31	Raising peoples awareness of environmental problems is more important than asking regulations from the government.
44	The Green Movement in Estonia was important during the awakening period, today it has no more meaning.
46	Environmental problems in Estonia are not so critical as in Western countries.

 

The fourth part consisted of purely statistical background information as age, gender, education, profession, living area, childhood area, kind of housing, income, household size, religion, size of land property, property of animals and cars and so on. This part could be filled by the informants themselves or be answered orally and filled by the research assistants. The complete questionnaire is presented in the annex.

 

 

2. Research locations

Three areas were chosen to show different pictures and to represent different population groups in Estonia:

Tallinn as the capital with roughly one third of the whole population of Estonia. The population of Tallinn (415.299 inhabitants in total) is expected to have more and easier access to environmental information as the Ministry and most of the environmental NGOs are located in Tallinn. On the other hand, people in Tallinn were expected to live a more nature-alienated life because of the high degree of urbanisation in the capital. Population density there is highest in all Estonia.

The second area, Kohtla Järve (52.611 inhabitants in total), represents a population living in one of the ‘hot spots’ in Estonia, urbanised and polluted. The county of Ida-Virumaa with Kohtla Järve as the second-biggest city shows highest degrees of air pollution nation-wide and a high lack of water treatment or desinfection facilities. The population of Kohtla Järve was expected to have a certain problem awareness and still live in a urban, but less central area. Ida-Virumaa also suffers from high unemployment due to the closure of industries, especially these industries responsible for the pollution in the area. Population density is also high.

As a third area, the county of Raplamaa (15.489 inhabitants in total) was chosen. This county is rural, with a mostly agricultural background and tradition and representing a population living supposedly closer to nature. The area is still relatively close to the capital, with more access to information and lower rate of unemployment than in Kohtla Järve. The closer distance to Tallinn made interviewing also easier and cheaper, a fact which had importance given the small budget of the project. Population density is 12-15 people per square kilometre, one of the lowest in Estonia. In the county of Raplamaa, the following villages or small towns were visited in the course of the research: Keava, Lelle, Hagudi, Valta, Sipa and Märjamaa.

The rural population in Estonia also tends to be more ethnically homogeneous as mostly Estonians live in the rural areas. In Tallinn as well as in Kohtla Järve, the Non-Estonian population groups are close to equal or even higher in number compared to Estonians. This ethnic composition has also been considered in choosing the sampling areas as Russians should make up roughly one third of the total sample in correspondence with the ethnic composition of Estonia (total 1.453.844, Estonians 946.646 and Russians 409.111).

 

 

3. Sampling procedure

As the interview duration was very long and the projects budget did not allow to interview a very high number of informants which would make a strictly representative sample, some other sampling method had to be found. The budget allowed to interview roughly 300 persons, divided by three areas. The ethnic distribution had also to be taken into account which again made conventional sampling methods difficult to apply.

This problem was solved by taking couples which were informed via contact persons and then later follow their family lines and interview members of their families. Teachers or school directors often were chosen as contact persons and they later informed parents of school children about the interview. This enabled to interview several persons in one meeting and to get a wider population range with two or three generations at the time. At the same time, the variety among family members tends to be higher than among friends or colleagues, which also helped to make the sample more representative. As people tend to be suspicious and not always open to be interviewed, this procedure also helped to make appointments with informants through contact persons and therefore lower the degree of their suspicion. But this did not always work out and the families sometimes still did not agree to talk to the research assistants. Sometimes, some instant snowball sampling had to be applied by just asking already contacted people whom they could suggest to interview, too. This led again to other families who called in some relatives to meet the assistants altogether. But a considerable number of informants had to be interviewed without their families because they were not at home, unavailable or not ready to give an interview. In general, the Estonians of the sample tended to be more suspicious about the interview procedure than the Russians. They sometimes did not like to allow strangers to come to their houses and to call the relatives to visit for the interview. Some informants also mentioned, that they have not so close contacts to their extended family, which further reduced the circle of interview partners.

 

 

4. Conduction of interviews

All interviews were conducted in the preferred language of informants, either Estonian or Russian. The questionnaires were translated into Estonian and Russian and for the opened questions, research assistants were able to communicate in both languages, too. Two research assistants, Elina Kivinukk and Larissa Kus, did the interviewing in Tallinn and Raplamaa; Dina Gontscharova supported them mainly with the Russian informants in Kohtla Järve. All three research assistants are students of psychology and had a basic understanding of interviewing. They were further trained by the consultant and the first interviews were done in co-operation and under the supervision of Stefanie Lang.

Interviews took 40-60 minutes and were conducted with each informant individually. In the case of only one room to conduct the interviews, the four parts of the interview were split up and the oral parts were conducted with one informant after the other in the presence of the other family members filling the written form. Therefore, mutual influencing cannot be excluded for these cases, but in general, informants often emphasised, that they express their individual opinion, even if they have listened to the answers given before. Interviews were conducted between March and April in Tallinn, between the 20. and 22. March in Kohtla Järve and in June in Raplamaa.

 

 

3) The informants

3.1. Description of the sample

In total, 304 persons were interviewed. To get a first impression of the data, a closer look at the characteristics of these informants will be taken. The three sample areas – ranging from industrialised Kohtla Järve over Raplamaa to Tallinn as the capital of Estonia – will be the main units for this characterisation. An almost equal amount of people was interviewed in the three sample locations (111 in Tallinn, 102 in Kohtla Järve and 91 in a Raplamaa). As will be shown later in the analysis, location is also the main variable for differences in peoples’ attitudes. All other statistical and socio-demographic variables are therefore divided along the three areas.

 

A) The three sample locations and ethnicity (in %)

 

	Estonians	Russians	Mixed Origin	Other
Tallinn	76%	20%	3%	1%
Kohtla Järve	47%	43%	5%	5%
Raplamaa	88%	2%	4%	6%
Total	70%	22%	4%	4%

The three areas show marked differences concerning their ethnicity. Especially Kohtla Järve, the highly industrialised city, has an almost equal distribution of Estonians and Russian speaking informants whereas the informants of the rural area are almost (90%) all Estonians. Tallinn lies somewhere in-between. This ethnic distribution corresponds to demographic realities in Estonia and to the choice of the sample.

 

B) The three sample locations and gender (in %)

 

	Male	Female
Tallinn	40%	60%
Kohtla Järve	36%	64%
Raplamaa	40%	60%
Total	39%	61%

 

More females than males were interviewed but the higher percentage of females is the same for all three sampling areas. This is a result that can be found in other polling projects too. Women tend to be more willing and ready to give interviews than men and are therefore better represented in the data.

 

C) The three sample locations and age (in %)

 

	Tallinn	Kohtla Järve	Raplamaa	Total
Age 11-20	20%	35%	22%	26%
Age 21-30	16%	7%	16%	13%
Age 31-40	20%	14%	23%	18%
Age 41-50	15%	29%	14%	20%
Age 51-60	14%	8%	19%	13%
Age 61-70	5%	4%	4%	5%
> 70	10%	3%	2%	5%

 

The distribution of age is relatively similar for all three sampling areas. Except for the last two age groups (informants 61 years or older), all other age groups are equally well captured and give a good representation of the population. Older people were more often not able to come to the interview meeting and are therefore weaker represented.

 

D) The three sample locations and education (in %)

 

	Higher education	Medium education	Lower education
Tallinn	32%	53%	15%
Kohtla Järve	34%	38%	28%
Raplamaa	14%	56%	30%
Total	27%	49%	24%

 

There are clear differences in the level of education. Informants form Tallinn are the best educated. Kohtla Järve occupies a middle position and informants from Raplamaa are the least educated of the whole sample. The same holds true when comparing the three sample locations regarding the number of years informants have spend for their education. On average, informants from the rural area have spend two years less on their education (Median 11 years) than informants from Tallinn (Median 13 years). Again, Kohtla Järve occupies the middle position (Median 12 years).

 

E) The three sample locations and family status (in %)

 

	Single	Partnership	Married	Divorced	Widowed
Tallinn	30%	8%	56%	2%	4%
Kohtla Järve	43%	7%	36%	5%	9%
Raplamaa	26%	11%	52%	7%	4%
Total	33%	9%	48%	4%	6%

 

Mainly single and married informants were interviewed in all three sampling areas. A marked difference can be found in the Kohtla Järve sub-sample. Opposite to the other two sample locations, more informants from this location are single than married. This can be explained by the higher number of teenagers as interview partners in Kohtla Järve. A fact that is also reflected in the higher percentage of informants under the age of 20 in table C).

Household size is almost the same for all sub-samples. On average, three to four persons are living in a household (median for all three sample locations is 4). Corresponding to this, the median number of children for the complete sample is 1, although the average is a little higher. Informants from Tallinn and Kohtla Järve have one child (Median 1). The number of children for the rural sample is a little higher which is also expressed in a median number of 2 children.

 

F) The three sample locations and household income (in %)

 

	Tallinn	Kohtla Järve	Raplamaa	Total
Up to 2.000 EEK	5%	11%	21%	12%
Up to 4.000 EEK	18%	30%	43%	30%
Up to 6.000 EEK	10%	30%	18%	20%
Up to 8.000 EEK	18%	14%	9%	14%
Up to 10.000 EEK	20%	11%	4%	12%
Up to 12.000 EEK	12%	3%	1%	6%
Up to 14.000 EEK	6%	1%	1%	3%
Up to 16.000 EEK	3%	-	2%	2%
More than 16.000 EEK	8%	-	1%	3%

 

Parallel to education, more informants in Tallinn have a higher income than informants from the other two locations. This is especially obvious when looking at income categories over 8.000 EEK. Not surprisingly, there is a significant correlation between income and education (Spearmans rho: r_s=0,247; sig. at ?=0,01). The more educated an informant is, the higher is his or her income.

Interestingly, the connection between education and income does not hold true for all three sub-samples. Informants from Tallinn with a better education also have a higher income (r_s=0,217; sig. at ?=0,05). The same is the case for the rural sub-sample (r_s=0,233; sig. at ?=0,05). Although in general the rural sub-sample has a lower level of income than the two other areas, people with a better education in the rural area also have a higher income. But education and income are not linked to each other (r_s=0,152; not significant) for Kohtla Järve. For this former highly industrialised area, a better education does not mean a higher income and vice versa.

So far, the household income was considered. But the number of children and the household size differs between the rural sub-sample and the other two locations. For this reasons, the analysis is repeated for the income per person (defined as the income of the household divided by the number of household members). The results are almost the same. Again, income and education are connected (r_s=0,225; sig. at ?=0,01). But there is a marked difference. When looking at the income per person, only the Tallinn sub-sample shows a significant correlation between education and income (even higher then before: r_s=0,272; sig. at ?=0,01). For the other two sub-samples there is no connection between education and income. This might be explained by the different economic activities prevalent in the other two areas. Neither agricultural nor industrial jobs are so much dependent on ones’ education, but are dependent on land property size or duration of position. Tallinn has more jobs in the public sector, in services and in education. In these jobs, education often does make the difference in income.

 

G) The three sample locations and property (in %)

 

	Tallinn	Kohtla Järve	Raplamaa	Total
Owning a car	69%	61%	78%	69%
Owning land	54%	54%	70%	59%
Owning forest	17%	7%	37%	20%

 

The differences between Raplamaa and the two other sample locations are obvious. Informants from the rural area more often own at least one car, own land and own forest. Regarding property, Tallinn and Kohtla Järve are relatively similar.

 

H) The three sample locations and current type of accommodation (in %)

 

	Tallinn	Kohtla Järve	Raplamaa	Total
‘Chruschtschowka’ type	51%	57%	13%	42%
Apartment block	33%	34%	20%	30%
Several-families house	4%	1%	1%	2%
One-family house	11%	8%	40%	18%
Farmhouse	1%	-	26%	8%

 

Due to the sampling strategy, the results are not surprising. Informants from the two cities tend to live in different types of apartment blocks whereas they are living in separate family houses in Raplamaa.

 

I) The three sample locations and type of accommodation as a child (in %)

 

	Tallinn	Kohtla Järve	Raplamaa	Total
‘Chruschtschowka’ type	22%	26%	4%	18%
Apartment block	39%	38%	15%	32%
Several-families house	6%	4%	9%	6%
One-family house	19%	23%	39%	26%
Farmhouse	14%	9%	33%	18%

 

Like the current type of accommodation, the type of accommodation during childhood also differs between informants living in one of the cities and informants from the rural area.

 

1. Job groups of informants in total

 

 

 

Students/pupils are the main group among informants which is easy to explain by the fact that a lot of teenagers were interviewed. The other jobs are distributed relatively normal. Teachers also make up a larger group as they were used a contact persons and therefore more often also served as interview partners. Retired persons also make up a relatively larger group as most of the older people are in fact retired and do not hold jobs any more. Only 1,3 % of all informants call themselves farmers which is remarkable looking at land property especially in Raplamaa. This might be explained by the very low amount of full-time farmers in the sample and the fact that people own land, live partly of agricultural production but have another job alongside.

 

 

Summary of the characterisation of informants:

More Estonians were interviewed in Tallinn and Raplamaa, but there were a significant number of interviews conducted with Russians in Kohtla Järve. In all three locations, slightly more females than males were interviewed. The age distribution is almost the same for all three sub-samples and gives a good representation of the population’s age structure in general. Civil status, household size and number of children are also relatively equal among the three sampling areas. Differences exist in regard to education, income, property and type of accommodation of the informants. In general, Tallinn and Kohtla Järve have more in common. Looking at property, current type of accommodation and accommodations as a child, both exhibit the same patterns whereas Raplamaa (also due to its ‘ruralness’) differs markedly. Education and income seem to represent not so much a dichotomy between rural and urban areas, but a continuum with Tallinn at the highest end, Kohtla Järve somewhere in-between and Raplamaa at the lowest end.

 

 

3.2. The informants in an Estonian context

To give an overview of the representativeness of the sample, the socio-demographic characteristics of the 304 informants are compared to the overall situation in Estonia. A sample of 304 people can of course not be strictly representative for a total population of 1.453.844. The goal of the project never was to give a complete picture of the total population, but to get a deeper understanding of awareness, behaviour, nature concepts, general environmental knowledge and how all this is linked and connected. The sample of three areas wanted to enlarge the variety of population groups and it was also expected to find considerable differences between the three areas. By no means does this research speak for all Estonia, but only for the informants in the three areas. How much these analysis can be transferred to the total Estonian situation, is depending how strong the sample represents the total population. The following table compares the socio-economic characteristics systematically.

 

K) Comparison of sample with the total Estonian population

 

	project sample	Estonia total
Percentage of males	39 %	47 %
Percentage of females	61 %	53 %
Percentage of Estonians	70 %	65 %
Percentage age 11-20	26 %	17 %
Percentage age 21-40	31 %	32 %
Percentage age 40-60	33 %	28 %
Percentage age 60-74	10 %	10 %
Percentage of marriages	48 %	38,3 %
Percentage of urban population	70%	69,4 %
Percentage of farming employment	1,3 %	10 %

 

The table can unfortunately not be completed for all the socio-economic variables as they are not available (like for example percentage of secondary education) for all Estonia in a reliable format. But from the data compared here, we can already see, that the sample is not too bad in representing general trends in Estonia. The age groups are pretty well distributed, the share of urban and rural population is realistic and the gender distribution shows a slight trend towards more women. This can be explained with the fact that women were more opened to give an interview. The sample also contains slightly more Estonians than the demographic realities. More teenagers are in the sample as the sampling method intended to include always this young generation. The farming population is very low and not really well represented in the sample. Income diversity in favour to higher incomes in Tallinn also corresponds to the Estonian realities.

Although the sample presented in this report can not serve as a strictly representative sample, it nevertheless gives a relatively realistic picture of the Estonian situation.

 

 

4) Results

1. Environmental problems and problem awareness

4.1.1. Environmental problems

A lot of questions can give an idea about the problem awareness of the sample informants of this project. What are considered problems and what role do problems play in the daily life of people? How are they touched by problems, how much they reason about environmental problems? In this first step, single questions will be analysed for the total sample and along socio-economic variables. A more complex form of analysis will follow with an index construction in chapter 4.1.2.

 

These are the answers produced for the ranking technique in the first question of the questionnaire: “Please rank the mentioned problems by their importance and give a 9 to the most important.” Each of the problems mentioned had a mean rank which is presented above in the chart and the means all had a standard deviation between 2,0 and 2,5 which makes them viable for interpretation. One can see that air pollution leads in importance, followed by water pollution (drinking water and Baltic Sea pollution) and later waste and chemicals. Oil shale depletion is not given a high rank in importance, it therefore seems not to be linked with air pollution in the peoples’ understanding.

 

 

 

 

 

b) Problem ranking of informants

 

 

Corresponding to this, the following table presents the problems mentioned in the opened oral interviews. Answers have been grouped and these are the problems, informants mentioned when talking about their fears of environmental degradation and problems:

 

L) Problems mentioned in opened questions

 

	mentioned by
water and air pollution	59%
chemicals and waste	34%
forest degradation and logging	25%
diseases and threats for human survival	25%
global problems like ozone holes, greenhouse effect	14%
no fear at all	11%
nuclear energy or nuclear weapons	3%

 

Comparing the table and the chart, it is obvious that informants are consistent in their answers and that air pollution, water pollution and chemicals plus waste are considered dangerous and frightening. To illustrate this, some citations of the answers are given:

“I am concerned when I see waste in nature, when I can’t breathe in the city and when the drinking water smells bad.”(Estonian, male, 31-40 years old, Raplamaa)

“I am worried because the forests are cut down too much and logging takes place at the wrong time. You can’t cut the trees when birds make nests, isn’t it?” (Estonian, female, 51-60, Raplamaa)

“Road edges are awful, especially in spring when the snow melted. You can find refrigerators in the forests. Closed waste dumps also are a problem in Estonia.” (Estonian, female, 51-60, Raplamaa)

“I do definitely fear degradation, because my profession demands an interest in this. What is related to our country is air pollution, chemical industries, water pollution because of mining. The garbage is also a problem, where to put the leftovers?” (Estonian, male, 41-50 years old, Kohtla Järve)

 

Some informants answered that they have no fear at all. This was an answer given when people felt that the environment has improved and that there is no reason to worry:

“I am personally not concerned. The environment where we live has get better during the past years. In some rivers, there are fishes now and they have not been there 20 years ago. The amount of waste water has been reduced, or at least I feel it to be that way.” (Estonian, male, 51-60, Kohtla Järve)

 

Do informants answer very much different according to ethnicity, gender or location? Only the ranking question is further analysed along socio-economic variables. Gender does not play an important role in the differences in answering the ranking question. Males and females answer more or less the same, males only give a little more importance to oil shale depletion (male mean 3,5 versus female mean 3,0) and energy problems (male mean 3,8 versus female mean 3,0). Differences along age groups area also not significant. But Russians and Estonians differ considerably in the ranking of two problems, namely forest logging (Russian mean 6,1, Estonian mean 4,1) and in the problem of chemical industry (Russian mean 5,6 versus an Estonian mean of 4,8). This can be partly explained by the fact that most Russians interviewed for this project lived in Kohtla Järve, an area that is particularly stricken by the consequences of chemical industry. When looking at the difference along sampling areas, this fact again plays a role. A mean rank of 5,5 is given to chemical industry problems in Kohtla Järve compared to only 4,8 in Tallinn and 4,7 in Raplamaa. The pollution remains from Soviet times were also ranked differently: A mean rank of 3,7 was given in Kohtla Järve compared to 4,5 in Tallinn and 4,6 in Raplamaa. Maybe the fact that Russians made up half of the sample in Kohtla Järve did have an influence on this ranking. It seems that Estonians are a little bit more critical towards Soviet times pollution. When comparing the three sampling areas, one trend can be observed: People rank the immediate and geographically close problems higher than the problems further away.

 

Another daily-life consequence of environmental degradation is chemical residues in food. Do people of the project sample think of chemicals when they buy food? The following chart shows that informants still feel relatively secure that the food produced in Estonia has less chemicals. But the majority of people would like to buy chemical-free food, but they do not know where to buy and get it. Another group produces food at home or buys from well-known people and places and is therefore less worried.

 

 

c) Food and problem awareness

 

 

A lot of pollution in Estonia is linked to the oil shale depletion. So, how does the sample think of oil shale depletion and are they aware of the problem? In the problem ranking, it became clear already, that importance of this problem is not perceived as very high. In the chart, this answer is a again confirmed to a certain extent: Less than a third of the sample thinks that oil shale depletion is a severe problem. The majority thinks that it might be a problem, but that there are no other alternatives. With this relatively fatalistic approach, it is understandable that ranked importance is not very high. An alarming 26% does not know about the consequences of oil shale depletion at all.

 

d) Oil shale depletion and problem awareness

 

 4.1.2. Environmental problem awareness

Environmental problem awareness can not be measured directly because it is - unlike e.g. education – a complex and multi-dimensional construction. It is therefore necessary to create an index that captures the different dimensions of this construct. It is an additive index that adds 10 statements of the questionnaire (6, 7, 12, 16, 19, 23, 31, 35, 45 and 46). It is assumed that the higher one informant scores on this index, the more aware he or she is concerning environmental problems. Negatively formulated statements have been re-coded before entering the index to follow the same logic. All three distributions can be considered as normally distributed, therefore the ANOVA (analysis of variance) can be applied.⁸

Do informants from the three sample locations exhibit different environmental problem awareness?

To answer this question, the medians as well as the distributions for each of the three sub-samples are looked at respectively. The median for the rural area is 40 compared to a median of 37 for Kohtla Järve and 38 for Tallinn. How significant are the differences between the three groups concerning their problem awareness?

 

M) Problem awareness according to sampling areas

 

	Tallinn (N=107)	Kohtla Järve (N=94)	Raplamaa (N=89)
Average of index ‘problem awareness’	37,6	36,9	39,5**
Standard deviation	3,91	4,35	4,52

 

The difference between the rural sub-sample and the other two sample regions is confirmed by an analysis of variance. At the 1% level the rural groups differs significantly from the Tallinn sample as well as from the Kohtla Järve region. The Kohtla Järve sample and the Tallinn sample do not differ significantly. Informants from Raplamaa have more environmental problem awareness than informants from the other two regions.

Is there a difference between men and women concerning their problem awareness? Again, the median problem awareness of women (median = 39) is higher than the median of men (median = 37). Both groups display a normal distribution. The average for women is 38,7 (std. 4,3; N=180), the average for men is 36,9 (std. 4,2; N=110). The one way ANOVA confirms the difference statistically. At the 1% level women differ significantly from men in their problem awareness. Female informants have more problem awareness than male informants. Do these differences hold true when comparing women and men for each of the three sample locations respectively? All six groups display a normal distribution.

 

 

 

N) Problem awareness according to sampling area and gender

 

	Tallinn		Kohtla Järve		Rural
	Male (N=43)	Female (N=64)	Male (N=33)	Female (N=61)	Male (N=34)	Female (N=55)
Average of index ‘problem awareness’	36,9	38,0	35,6*	37,7*	38,0**	40,5**
Standard deviation	3,81	3,94	4,59	4,07	4,10	4,55

 

Corresponding to former results, rural men as well as rural women have a higher environmental problem awareness than men and women from the other two sample locations. Interestingly, the differences between men and women form the Tallinn sample are not significant. At the 5% level women from Kohtla Järve differ significantly from men from Kohtla Järve. At the 1% level the same is the case for the rural sample. Women from the rural area and women from Kohtla Järve have significantly more environmental problem awareness then men coming from the same regions. There is no difference between men and women for the Tallinn sub-sample.

 

Looking at ethnicity, only Estonians and Russians can be considered, because the number of cases in the categories ‘others’ and ‘mixed’ is too small. Both groups show a normal distribution regarding the index. The average for Estonians is 37,89 (std. 4,6; N=203) and for Russians 38,32 (std. 3,99; N=63). There is no significant difference. Ethnicity does not explain different levels of problem awareness.

What effect has the age on the index? Looking at six age groups – the first five groups consist of 10 year intervals starting with the age group 11-20 and ending with the age group 51-60. The last age group sums up all informants older than 60 years. Otherwise the number of cases would be too small. The distribution of the index for each of the six age groups can be considered normal.

 

O) Problem awareness according to age groups

 

	N	Average of index  ‘problem awareness’	Std.
Age 11-20	75	36,71*	4,96
Age 21-30	38	38,00	3,26
Age 31-40	53	38,21	3,95
Age 41-50	56	38,71	3,83
Age 51-60	39	39,62*	4,15
> 60	29	37,17	5,12

 

Two age groups differ significantly at the 5% level. The youngest age group has the lowest problem awareness. Informants between the ages 51 to 60 have significantly the highest problem awareness. In general, there is a tendency that the older an informant the more problem awareness he or she has. Only the highest age group does not fit into this order. But it is more than probable that this result is due to sampling problems. The age group 60 years or older has by far the smallest number of cases and the highest standard deviation. There seems to be some heterogeneity in this groups which makes the interpretation of the average problem awareness for this group somehow difficult. It is not possible to look at age and sample location together because the number of cases would get to small to give us reliable results. Young informants are less aware of environmental problems than older informants.

 

There are three different levels of education. All of them are normally distributed regarding the index. But none of them differs significantly. The highest educated group has almost the same average of problem awareness than the least educated group (highest educational group: Æ 37,37; std. 4,1; N=81; lowest educational group: Æ 37,28; std. 4,6; N=69). The medium group has a somewhat higher, but not significant higher average (Æ 38,67; std. 4,3; N=140). Education does not explain different levels of problem awareness.

 

To compare different income levels, income per person and not per household will be taken because it is the more accurate measure. One can only look at two different income groups (group 1: up to 2.000 EEK; group 2: up to 4.000 EEK) because for all other groups the number of cases is too small to run an ANOVA. Both groups are normally distributed regarding the index. There is no significant difference between the two groups (group 1: Æ 38,25; std. 5,6; N=189; group 2: Æ 37,21; std. 3,9; N=92). Income does not explain different levels of environmental problem awareness.

Looking at property, no significant differences can be found for land property or car property. What is interesting again, the type of housing does explain some variation. Informants living in private family houses and farm houses have more problem awareness than people living in apartment blocks. This also holds true for the type of housing in childhood. But as private family houses and farm houses indicate a rural area, this results only confirms the already presented result of rural people being more aware than city people.

There seems to be a clear order to explain different levels of problem awareness. Several characteristics of the informants do not influence their environmental problem awareness. Education and income do not have an effect. Neither does ethnicity or property explain different levels of problem awareness. The sample location explains some of the different levels of problem awareness. Informants from Raplamaa have a significantly higher problem awareness than informants from one of the cities. The same holds true for men and women with women having a significant higher level of problem awareness than men. Age is also a significant factor. Older informants have more problem awareness than younger informants.

 

 

2. Personal behaviour and the behaviour index
1. Personal behaviour

After looking at how informants perceive problems and their degree of awareness, it is interesting to conduct a deeper analysis of how the sample people act in daily life. Again, an index is constructed and analysed in 4.2.2., but in a first step, some results of ranking and ticking questions are presented and analysed.

 

e) Actions taken to save the environment

 



The above chart presents the answers of a ticking question, where informants could mark all the actions they took to save the environment in the last two weeks. Keeping in mind that 59% of the sample households own land, the fact the people do not use mineral fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides has a considerable impact. And as 69% of all households own at least one car, it also makes a difference when informants use public transport deliberately.

How does behaviour change when it is analysed along socio-economic variables? The table with all the percentages will not be presented here, it is much too big and trends are not easy to see. Some numbers and facts are sticking out as remarkable: 10 % of informants in Tallinn are active in an environmental organisation compared to only 1% in Kohtla Järve. The younger people are, the more likely are they a member of an organisation. Concerning plastic bottles, no big difference can be deducted along variables. Only the group between 21-30 years is using more plastic bottles compared to all other age groups. Russians use less fertiliser and pesticides, a fact which is not so surprising as Russians in Estonia tend not to own big land properties on which one could be agriculturally active. Males also seem to use more pesticides and fertilisers compared to females, but this might be due to the fact that they often are the ones to decide about chemical inputs in agriculture. Shopping behaviour does not vary much along gender, ethnicity or area, only older people tend to use a basket more often so not to be forced to take a plastic bag in the shop. Informants in the countryside take part in cleaning actions more often (28%) than in urban areas (14% in Tallinn and 12% in Kohtla Järve). The age group 21-30 is also participating in cleaning actions more often (26%) than other age groups. Public transport is used by older people, by the inhabitants of Tallinn and by Russians above average. Concerning the sorting of waste, rural people (66%) and old people (60 and older = 51%) are masters, whereas inhabitants of Kohtla Järve score far under average (28%).

In general, one can say that women are little bit more active than men and that older people are more active than middle-aged people. Teenagers are again relatively active, but not as active as old people. Concerning ethnicity and area, one cannot identify general trends, behaviour is dependent on the concrete action as indicated above.

 

And what do informants themselves answer when asked why they are not more active? This question does very much reflect the self-perception of personal excuses for inactivity. Again, a ticking question is analysed. Less than 10% of all people think that it is not necessary to be more active. The main reasons why informants are not more active is that they feel alone and too weak acting alone. They are afraid that they alone have no impact and that their action is therefore useless. An interesting result is the high percentage of informants answering ‘lack of knowledge’ in what to do. This could be an interesting entry point for policy, public relations and public education development.

 

f) Reasons for inactivity to save the environment

 



The next chart (this time a ranking question) analyses what informants themselves see as influencing environmental-friendly behaviour. Again, the answer present self-perception and can only be read as the informant’s truth. The result does not present objective realities, but peoples reasoning and perception of human behaviour. One can see that knowledge about what to do again plays an important role. But what is more significant is the extremely high importance given to all factors linked to value systems. Be it family education (where children learn what is good and what is bad), be it the love for nature or the pure value system, when adding these three factors, they make up the utmost important factor. In answering this question, the ranks given do not differ significantly when analysed along gender, area, ethnicity and education. The means are all more or less identical to the total sample mean. Only when differentiating along age groups, two trends are remarkable: The older informants get, the lower they rank love for nature. And the older informants get, the higher they rank family education (over 60 mean rank = 7,8; 51-60 mean rank = 7; 11-30 mean rank = 6).

 

Here are some results of concrete examples of daily-life behaviour. What do people do with paper waste and how do people try to save energy. One can see that the more complicated and uncomfortable environmental protective behaviour gets, the less people are ready to proceed in this action. Only a mere 5% takes the effort to bring the paper waste to the recycling facilities. But it has to be said that recycling facilities also are rare and this percentage might rise when recycling would be made easier and more accessible.

 

g) Paper-waste recycling

 



 

Concerning energy saving measures, 2% of all informants marked the answer that energy saving is not necessary at all. In contrast, 89% turn off the light when they leave a room, 17% installed energy-saving bulbs and 13% installed a heating system which allows them to control heat and energy consumption individually. As this question was a ticking question, several answers could be given simultaneously. This answer shows that people tend to be ready to do simple and easy things to save energy, but as soon as they have to pay more in the beginning (energy-saving bulbs) or to make some considerable investments (change heating system), readiness for action declines.

 

 

2. The behaviour index
Again, an additive index is constructed consisting of 10 statements ( 8, 15, 21, 27, 30, 31, 34, 36, 37, 39). It is assumed that the higher one scores on this index the more active he or she is in saving the environment and negative statements have been re-coded. A comparison of the three sample locations leads the analysis.⁹

Each of the three sub-samples is normally distributed concerning the second index. Tallinn has a slightly higher average (Æ 36,6; std. 5,0; N=104) than the other two sample locations (Kothla Järve: 36,01; std. 4,98; N=94; Raplamaa: 35,58; std. 4,37; N=86). But there is no significant difference between the environmental activities of informants for the three sample locations.

The same is the case for male and female informants. There is a normal distribution, but the difference in personal activity is not significant (women: Æ 36,5; std. 5,0; N=169; men: Æ 35,6; std. 4,6; N=115). The same holds true for the ethnic comparison. Average for Russians: 35,93 (std. 5,23; N=58); Average for Estonians: 36,38 (std. 5,23; N=203). There is no significant difference between the two groups. The same six age groups as for the first index are compared. Each of the six groups is normally distributed regarding the index.

 

P) Behaviour according to age groups

 

	N	Average of index  ‘personal behavior’	Std.
Age 11-20	76	34,97*	4,98
Age 21-30	37	34,24*	4,77
Age 31-40	52	34,56*	4,72
Age 41-50	55	38,31*	4,18
Age 51-60	34	37,91*	4,20
> 60	30	37,77	3,80

 

Only the last age group does not differ significantly. All other age groups differ significantly at a 5% level. The tendency is quite clear and corresponds to former results. The older an informant is, the more environmentally he or she behaves. Not only do older informants have more problem awareness, they also behave according to their perception.

Three educational levels are compared as for the first index. All of them are normally distributed but none of them differs significantly. Averages are almost the same for all three groups (highest educational group: Æ 35,9; std. 5,1; N=75; middle group: Æ 36,3; std. 4,4; N=140; lowest educational group: Æ 35,9; std. 5,4; N=69). There is no significant difference between the average score for the index ‘personal behaviour’ for the three educational levels.

 

 

As earlier, income per person and not income per household is the base for analysis. Again, one can only look at two different income groups (group 1: up to 2000 EEK; group 2: up to 4000 EEK) because for all other groups the number of cases is too small to run an ANOVA. Both groups are normally distributed regarding the index. There is no significant difference between the two groups (group 1: Æ 36,0; std. 4,7; N=186; group 2: Æ 36,4; std. 5,0; N=89). Income does not explain different levels of environmental personal behaviour.

Neither land property nor type of housing today and in childhood have an influence on environmental behaviour. Car property makes a difference, but the statements often contain some links with car ownership and therefore, this result is not astonishing.

Only one factor explains differences in personal environmental behaviour. Only the age of an informant shows significant differences. The older a person is, the more he or she behaves in an environmental way. This result corresponds to former results. Not only are older informants more aware of environmental problems, they also behave more environmentally friendly. The correlation between the two indices is high and significant on a 1 % level (+ 0,353** Spearman and + 0,330 ** Pearson, N= 271) and further proves the relation between awareness and behaviour for the sample.

 

 

3. Attitudes towards the European Union

What do informants think about entering the EU? And what are their expectations concerning the changes in environmental conditions in Estonia? Looking at two questions dealing with this fact, the attitudes are presenting itself as follows:

 

h) Attitudes towards EU

 



 

Answers are almost equally distributed in quarters. But most people do not know what to think about EU accession. And only the smallest quarter says yes to a quick entry. The informants who answered with “don’t know” are either lacking information to come to a decision or they think that the advantages and disadvantages are equally distributed and therefore, a definite answer is not possible. This is a considerable contrast to the results in the Eurobarometer in 1997, when 29 % were positive, 35 % undecided and only 17 % against the EU membership of Estonia. But this research only asked people with the right to vote. The project sample presented here shows scepticism concerning the membership and the speed of entering the EU.

 

Are there any differences in the answering structure which differ along the socio-economic variables or the three sampling areas? Informants in Tallinn are more positive towards the EU (38 % yes) and people with higher education also tend to be more positive (28% yes, 29% after 10 years). Informants in Raplamaa are more negative with 41% no and in Kohtla Järve, informants would like to enter in 10 years time (32%). Gender does not play an important role in answering this question. Ethnicity again makes a difference: Russians mostly feel that they do not know (44%) compared to only 21% of Estonians, who have not made up their minds yet. Estonians in the sample tend to be more EU-critical (31% no to 25% yes) than Russians (10% no to 18% yes).

 

i) EU-influences on Estonian environment

 



Concerning the environmental consequences of EU membership, informants seem to be either optimistic or they lack information. Informants with higher education are more optimistic (with 29% better) than people with medium education (27% better) and a lot of people with basic education lack information and answered that they do not know (39%). Ethnicity and gender do not play an important role in the answers, but the areas do again differ in some respects: The Tallinn informants are more optimistic (37% better, 9% worse), informants in Kohtla Järve made up their mind in this question with only 26% answering that they do not know, 37% better and 17% worse. People in Rapla are the most pessimistic and uninformed of the total sample with only 18% better and 44% don’t know.

 

 

4. Concepts of nature and the environment

To find out more about the concepts of nature and the concepts about the environment, the opened questions can give some answers and some normal questions and statements will be analysed as well. Why is it interesting to find out more about the concepts of informants? Knowing what people associate with the term ‘nature’ and the term ‘environment’ can be crucial in shaping campaigns for protection, can influence the writing of brochures and educational material and so on.

Asked what people associate with nature, the answers were coded and grouped in ten different answer blocks:

 

k) Associations with nature

 



It is remarkable that most informants did not associate negative things with the term ‘nature’, only 3% mentioned problems. The majority of associations circled around tangible things like forest, landscapes, water bodies, plants or animals. Things which are green and alive come to the informants’ minds most often. Later come feelings and impressions or actions that are felt being or done in nature like: feeling the sun on the skin, going fishing, picking berries, seeing a sunset. All these associations are very positive and often poetic – nature seems to be a term which still does not contain association of degradation and problems. To illustrate the table, some further citations of answer examples are given:

“Everything that lives.” (male Estonian, 21-30 years old, Raplamaa)

“Fields and what grows on them. I am an agronomist myself and I am interested how things grow and if they need something: Water or nutrition. Also forests, forest that is well cared for. It is sad to see how the forest is turned into money. Only the sick trees remain there.” (female Estonian, 51-60 years old, Raplamaa)

“Air, water, summer, a sun-burned back.” (female Estonian, 31-40, Raplamaa)

“Trees, animals, the ocean, air, leaves.” (male Russian, 51-60, Kohtla Järve)

“Clean water, healthy, clean forest, fresh air, clean beaches, healthy people.” (female Estonian, 41-50, Kohtla Järve)

“A big, beautiful butterfly flying around me.” (male Russian, 31-40, Tallinn)

 

When looking to the associations connected to the term ‘environment’, a different picture emerges. Much more negative things are associated. And the majority of people associate with the term only their geographical vicinity, their surroundings. A nation-wide or even global perspective can not be detected in these answers. The environment, that is local environment, that is air and water and how the human being uses, and - unfortunately - mostly spoils these resources:

 

l) Associations with environment



 

 

Positive associations are much rarer than with the term ‘nature’. As the human being is linked to the environment, the problems and negative effects are also emerging and the relation between the two does play an important role in the associations. Again, some citations for illustration:

“The environment is everything that is surrounding me. Everything that I breathe and see.” (male Estonian, 31-40, Kohtla Järve)

“Environment, I haven’t thought of it very thoroughly. First, it is the living environment. Things that I eat. Pure water is important and luckily I have it. I can’t live in town, there is much more garbage and especially, much more garbage in the forest near Tallinn.” (female Estonian, 51-60, Raplamaa)

“Everything surrounding us.” (male Estonian, 21-30, Raplamaa)

“Waste dumps, salted snow, smog and industrial smokes polluting the air.” (male Russian, 51-60, Kohtla Järve)

“Environment means urbanised areas, and air.” (male Estonian, 51-60, Tallinn)

“Garbage piles, waste in forests, bad drinking water, hills of ashes, the air of Ida-Virumaa that you can not breathe, exhaustion of cars, gases.” (female Estonian, 41-50, Kohtla Järve)

“Drinking water, which is very spoiled and yellow. But it still must be paid. Fresh air and the gas exhaustion of cars. But I am also guilty of this as I drive a car.” (female Estonian, 31-40, Tallinn)

“Factory chimneys where smoke comes out.” (male Russian, 31-40, Tallinn)

 

Reading these answers, the difference between ‘nature’ and ‘environment’ becomes even more dramatic and definite. But as already remarkable in the problem awareness analysis, informants tend to see the problems nearby more dramatic than global or national problems. It seems that the further away, the more abstract problems get and they therefore are not perceived as bad as problems in the close vicinity. The trend to see nature as healthy and positive is further strengthened by the fact, that 99% of all informants did agree (partly 12%, full agree 87%) with the statement: “In nature, I can rest and recover”. This still ‘utilitarian’ approach towards nature can also be detected in the answers for the next question:

 

m) Touch with nature

 

 

 

 

Only less than one third of the sample gets in touch with nature on a daily bases. More than half of the people spend their free time to either work in their gardens on weekends (17%) or they spend their leisure-time with activities in nature. This means that the beauty and healthiness of nature are also an important consumption good for informants of the sample. But they are also worried about what happens to nature, as they see themselves as part of nature. When asked about the relation between man and nature, the majority of informants answered that they are a part of nature and that all what happens in nature, will also happen to mankind. This shows a close relation, although this answer is too general to show the degree of relation. But the trend is clear: Informants see that they are a part of nature, that they need nature to be healthy and clean because they take a lot of energy, strength and relaxation from nature. It also shows that Estonian nature in general is still relatively healthy, clean and that people tend to take this for granted. The beauty of nature is of much importance for the sample informants. They see the realisation of nature’s beauty as a prerequisite for environmental-friendly behaviour. 77% of all informants agreed (60% fully and 27% partly agreed) with the statement: “If you do not appreciate the beauty of nature, you can not be environmentally friendly.” Only 6% did not agree with this statement.

 

n) Relation between man and nature

 



Here, one can see the kind of relation which for the informants seems to be the link between nature and environment. As man is part of nature and will suffer the same consequences that nature suffers, one has to appreciate the health and beauty of nature to act in an environmentally friendly way. Problems in the environment will sooner or later also effect nature and mankind. Estonian nature seems to be intact in the informants’ eyes, although they perceive a lot of problems in their surrounding environment. When linking all this, man is responsible for the environment, environment affects nature, and nature again is the final entity where man is a part of. This circle seems to evolve from the analysis. But as nature is relatively healthy in Estonia, peoples’ responsibility remains still abstract and vague. One female informant (female Estonian, 21-30, Tallinn) expressed this in a comment: “Nature loving and the connection to nature protection are different concepts. Estonians are used to nature – they take nature for granted.”

 

 

 

 

5. Ethnicity and love for nature

When talking about love for nature, does this love depend on the ethnicity of the sample informants? Do people think that they - as Russians or as Estonians - are especially strong nature lovers? Do people think that this is depending on ethnicity? The questions concerning this topic asked always for the emic view of the informants, Russians were asked about their ethnicity and Estonians about the Estonian ethnicity. There were no external judgements asked of Estonians giving a comment about Russians and vice versa.

One statement was to be commented: “Estonians (or Russians in case the informant was Russian) have a special connection to nature. This is because of the old myths and traditions.” In this case, 42% of all informants totally agreed, 35% partly agreed, 16% were neutral, 5% partly disagreed and 1% totally disagreed. So when asked about the perception of the own ethnicity and its love for nature, informants strongly agreed and less than a quarter was sceptical or critical about this statement. A similar question was asked, but with a politically more critical tone: “Is love for nature depending on Russian (Estonian in case the informant was Estonian) ethnicity?” The following chart presents the results of this question.

 

o) Love for nature and ethnicity



 

 

The answers here are more critical about the connection between ethnicity and nature love. The wording of this question does much more imply a judgement about the ‘other’ than the wording of the statement. Informants were less ready to make this judgement about the other than about themselves as in the statement. Most people who answered that it depends on other things mentioned family education or personal value system as important factors – these are factors, that are already known from the ranking question in chapter 4.1. The above chart shows the answers of the total sample, but how will these answers change when divided along sampling area and other socio-economic variables? The following table shows the percentages of answers given according to education, sampling area, gender and ethnicity:

Q) ‘Love for nature’-answers according to variables (in percent)

 

	yes	no	it depends on ...
Tallinn	44	45	11
Kohtla Järve	43	45	13
Raplamaa	47	44	8
highest education	40	46	13
medium education	49	43	7
basic education	40	44	14
male	39	52	8
female	48	39	12
Estonians	51	41	8
Russians	27	55	18
Total	44	44	11

 

The comparison shows some interesting differences between the groups: Education is not such a critical variable, the answers are all not too far away from the total sample. Interesting is that informants with medium education level are more convinced of ethnicity playing a role in love for nature than informants with higher and with basic education. Looking at the sampling area, it seems that people of all the three areas answer this question more or less the same, only the rural area tends to give ethnicity more importance for nature love. When differentiating along gender, more differences appear: Men are more convinced that love for nature is not depending on ethnicity than women. And women are more convinced that love for nature depends on ethnicity than men. Interesting is also the picture when looking along ethnicity in the answering behaviour. Here, the trends are much clearer than with the other variables: Considerably more Estonians link love for nature to ethnicity than Russians. And more Russians than Estonians link love for nature to independent things like value system or personality and answered therefore with ‘it depends...’.

 

 

6. Green policies and political activism

What do people think about the environmental policy in Estonia? Do they accept political influences on environmental protection? How informants actively take part in politics? Are they a member of an environmental civil society and what is their level of involvement? These questions will be answered when looking at the questionnaire questions, on some statements and on the opened questions on environmental organisations. As before, the analysis will be presented for the total sample and for some socio-economic variables separately, but only in some cases.

 

The first table shows a strong impatience with Estonian environmental policy. Almost two thirds of the sample think that environmental policies are too weak. When commenting this answer, informants often mentioned the fact that forests are logged intensively, the fact that there is more and more waste in nature and that people are less careful in their relationship with the environment. Informants seemed to interpret these facts as examples for a weak environmental policy in Estonia.

 

p) Environmental policy in Estonia

 

 

When looking at answer differences along socio-economic characteristics, it is remarkable that women even judge policies harder than men (women: 68,3% too weak). Estonians and Russians also differ considerably in their judgement: 16,5% of Estonians say good, whereas only 1,5% Russians answer with yes and 85,3% of all Russians think that policy is too weak. Education does not play a significant role. When the analysis is divided along age groups, it is surprising, that only the group from 41-50 years chose the answer too strong. All other age groups do not at all use this answer. Teenagers from 11-20 often do not have an opinion about policies (29,5%).

 

The statement on a need for a green party also found a majority of approvals among the informants. With this statement, the area and educational level does not play an important role. Females agree more than males, when adding the full and the partly agreement, women agree in 77% and men only in 67%. Interesting is the ethnic distribution: When adding agreement and disagreement, Russians agree in 91% of all cases and disagree in only 3%; whereas Estonians disagree in 5% and agree in only 68% of all cases.

 

 

q) Green party in Estonia

 

 

But how active are the sample informants in participating in the political sphere concerning environmental decisions? Are they active in environmental organisations, and how many organisations do they know? How did informants answer the various statements connected with this political participation? As there are many answers, not all of them will be analysed in total and according to socio-economic variables.

 

r) Number of organisations mentioned

 

 

Only 3,3% of all informants are personally active in an environmental organisation. And these are mostly the Tallinn informants, as we have seen before in chapter 4.2. When asked in the opened

questions, which environmental organisations people know, five types of organisations were mentioned: The ministry, national organisations like the Estonian fund for nature or the nature board; then international organisations like Greenpeace, rec or bef; then academic institutions like institutes or academic clubs for environmental protection and at last the green movement.

 

s) Kind of organisations mentioned

 

One can see that almost half of all informants (43%) does not know any environmental organisations at all. Less than 10% of the sample can mention more than two organisations. This should be an alarming sign for organisations and their public relation departments. People at least still mention the ministry and various national organisations or the green movement – but international organisations are only mentioned by 9% of all the informants. Interestingly, Greenpeace was mentioned mostly by Russians, it seems not to be known among Estonians so much. But even an Estonian environmental ministry with a lot of publications available for the general public was only mentioned by less than a third of the sample here.

 

Are informants maybe not interested in environmental policies or organisations? Some statement answers show, that this can not be the case. People are happy, when they see an environmental organisation successful is its’ actions, people want to be informed about the situation in Estonia (partly agree = 37%; fully agree = 39%) and people also like to watch TV programs about environmental things or about nature¹⁰ (partly agree = 43%; fully agree = 30%).

t) Success of environmental organisations

 

 

Informants appreciate the work of environmental organisations and they at least morally support them at a considerable level. Actions for nature protection and the environment are largely evaluated positive, at least the organisations dealing with this activities are seen positive. This is also confirmed by the answers given to the statement: “The green movement was important during the awakening period, today it has no more meaning.” There was a lot of disagreement for this sentence: 45% totally disagree; 14% partly disagree; 26% are neutral and 15% agree partly or totally with this statement. People themselves also seem to be frustrated that they are so inactive.

 

u) Peoples’ activities

 

For the informants, it is also clear that governmental activity is depending on civil society and their activities. Only when the population requests action, a government will react. But here, the statement was judged more moderate, although a majority still agrees.

 

v) Peoples’ concerns and governmental action

 

 

And informants want the government to take action. This already became clear in the judgement of environmental policies in Estonia and it is also confirmed by the fact how people evaluated the statement on environmental regulations: “There are already too many environmental regulations right now.” Totally or partly disagreeing were 41% of all informants, neutral towards this statement were 43% and only 16% did agree partly or totally.

Regulations and restrictions are appreciated, although they sometimes cut down personal freedom. When looking at the corresponding statement, it becomes clear, that restriction in a more general sense, not only meant in the field of environmental protection, is sometimes also unwanted: “I wish a society, where peoples’ free will is not restricted at all.” Totally disagree did 18%; partly disagree did 19%; 12% were neutral; 32% partly agreed and only 19% totally agreed. The majority could only partly agree to this statement and therefore, the answer to this statement does not present a sharp contrast to the statement on regulations.

 

In general, informants want to participate in political decisions. Although they are not very active in reality and also regret this inactivity sometimes, they are happy to have the theoretical possibility for participation.¹¹ The following statement proves this: “I wish a society, where people can participate in political decisions.” 84% of informants agreed, 11% were neutral and only 4% disagreed with the statement.

7. Environmental knowledge

To find out the level of environmental knowledge of the sample informants, on can analyse one of the questions and again some statements and their evaluation. The answer to the first question to be analysed here represents the perception, informants have of their own environmental knowledge.

 

w) Environmental knowledge

 

 

Most informants group themselves in the middle, they neither think that they have a good nor that they have a bad environmental knowledge. This grading does not change when analysed according to the different sampling areas. Estonians tend to give themselves a little more good knowledge, whereas Russians think, that they have less knowledge. (Estonians: good = 18%, medium = 72%, bad = 11%; compared to Russians with good = 15%, medium = 66% and bad = 19%). Interesting is the fact, that this self-evaluation does not depend on whether informants live in rural or in urban areas. Although rural people live much closer to nature, they do not give themselves a better ranking in the respect of environmental knowledge. Maybe this is due to the fact, that informants of the sample presented here are not so much engaged in agriculture, even when living in rural areas. And as they do not work with and in nature as farmers, they might also not know so much more than their counterparts in urban areas, who also often possess a garden plot or other land to work on.

 

Two statements can also shed some light on the level of knowledge people have. But his time, it not the knowledge level, informants give themselves, but the level of knowledge, they objectively have. The first statement is concerned about old trees in forests. Nowadays, old and dead trees are left in the forests to enrich biodiversity as a lot of insects make use of these dead trees. Insects again are nutrition for birds and other animals and therefore, in modern, sustainable forest management systems, old and dead trees are specially left in the forests. Do the informants of the Estonian sample know about this fact?

 

x) Trees and biodiversity

 

The chart shows that although informants give themselves a medium level of knowledge, they actually have a rather bad knowledge in the field of sustainable forestry. But this, of course is a specific task and is also a very modern forest management method, so it only shows the level of knowledge in this particular field. Here, rural people actually possess more knowledge than urban people. Estonians also have a better knowledge than Russians, but this can be explained by the fact, that Russians in Estonia are mostly living in urbanised areas. The following table presents the percentages according to areas and ethnicity:

 

R) Trees and biodiversity according to area and ethnicity

 

	totally agree	partly agree	neutral	partly disagree	totally disagree
Estonians	59	24	9	7	2
Russians	65	25	9	2	0
Tallinn	62	19	13	5	1
Kohtla Järve	62	27	7	4	1
Raplamaa	56	24	8	9	3
Total	60	23	9	6	2

 

 

 

Sustainability is also a term often used and written. But to understand the concept of sustainability, people first have to understand that resources are limited and that the usage of resources now is laying the bases for the future. Do informants have an idea about the limitedness of resources? The following chart presents the evaluation given to a statement dealing with this limit.

 

y) Sustainable use of resources

 

It seems that the concept of limited resources is clear to most informants and that therefore, a discussion about sustainability would not meet ignorance, as more than three quarters of the sample agree (totally or partially) with the statement. In the evaluation of this statement, no considerable differences between sampling area or ethnicity can be detected. Even when differentiating along age groups, only minor variation can be found:

 

z) Sustainable use of resources according to age groups

 

4.8. Waste problems

How much do informants realise the waste problematic? They try to sort waste, this was one result of the analysis in chapter 4.2.; but are they aware and conscious of the problems (which in this degree emerged only after the collapse of the Soviet Union)? Several statements will be analysed, but only for the total sample.

 

ai) Reaction on dumping garbage in nature

 

 

A vast majority agrees with this statement, as garbage and waste in nature or in the forests was also seen as a big problem mentioned in the opened questions. Informants who responded neutral or with disagreement towards this statement often had other reasons: They mentioned fear to correct people as they never know, how these people would react. But even those informants, who do not dare to say something, disagree with the behaviour of dumping things in nature. People also dislike garbage in the streets. A majority of 95% agreed with the statement “I get angry if I see garbage in the street”. Waste and garbage should go in the places, where it belongs: In garbage bins on the streets and on specific waste dumps in general. But there are two dimensions to this fact, one is the waste problematic and the other is a more aesthetic aspect. It might as well be, that the sample simply does not like the ugliness of waste in streets or in the forest. But even if there is this aesthetic aspect to it, the results of these two statements are pretty clear.

 

But on what level do informants worry about their personal dealings with waste? They for example are not very active in bringing paper to the recycling facilities. Even if recycling facilities are not always available, are informants aware of the fact that even things of daily usage can turn to potential threats for the environment, when just thrown in the household waste? Paper waste is still harmless in this respect, but what about old batteries and old aerosols?

 

 

 

bi) Aerosols and batteries in household waste

 

 

One can see here, that the evaluation to this statement is distributed relatively equal compared to other statements, where agreement outweighed disagreement much more. Of course, the argument that there are not enough or no recycling facilities at all available for the sample informants is again influencing the answering behaviour here. And still, there are more people agreeing than disagreeing with the statement - which proves that they at least have an understanding of these articles being potentially dangerous. So when informants, at least some of them have the understanding for this problems, would they be ready to support solutions taken by the state? Would they be ready to pay more for waste storage in order to store it less harmful?

 

ci) Waste payments

 

The above chart shows a clear support for more waste payments in order to establish safer waste dumps and in order to establish more recycling facilities. Although informants in the sample do not make up an especially rich population group, a majority of them would actually pay more to ensure environmental safety. Of course, the statement did not specify how much more they are ready to pay. But the trend here still gives a reason for optimism.

 

 

4.9. Environmental protection versus economic growth

The above chapter already touched the difficult relation between economy and ecology. Where are the priorities and how are these two spheres of life linked and put into an order? Are informants in Estonia rather uncritical towards new technologies and economic growth or have they realised that growth might happen on the expense of environmental protection? The following analysis of six statements can give an idea about the opinion concerning economic growth and environmental protection.

 

di) Effects of technology

 

 

Looking at technologies, most informants are partly optimistic concerning the good effects of new technologies. But the judgement of this statement can not be described as uncritically optimistic, because a considerable percentage of people also responded neutral or even partly disagreed. The still more positive attitude can be understood realising the technical advantages coming into Estonia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Especially in terms of water treatment, air filters and heating techniques, in most cases have the novelties meant a step into the direction of environmental protection.

 

Do informants therefore trust industrial development and new techniques blindly? Are people convinced that human invention, new techniques and industrial growth should be sought and concerns for the environment come later?

 

ei) Investment in industries

 

 

One third of all informants disagree with this statement. The majority is partly agreeing, but only 12% agree totally. These judgements show a critical and thoughtful attitude towards industrial growth on the expense of environmental degradation. A lot of informants are unhappy to leave problems to the next generation. This fact is confirmed by the answers to the next statement: “We have to keep the environment for our children, even if this means that we have to reduce the living standard today.” An overwhelming majority of 89% agrees to this (55% totally agree, 34% partly agree).

Back to the chart ei), is there any difference in the answering behaviour according to age, sampling area, gender and ethnicity?

 

S) Investment in industries according to age groups

 

	totally agree	partly agree	neutral	partly disagree	totally disagree
11 to 20	13	26	40	15	6
21 to 30	3	33	15	31	18
31 to 40	5	38	16	29	13
41 to 50	18	43	8	10	20
51 to 60	13	48	10	18	13
over 60	21	43	14	14	7
Total	12	37	20	19	13

 

A division along age groups shows interesting trends: Informants between 20 and 40 are more critical to the statement. They are the ones who have children now and who have probably understood the dangers of industrial growth for themselves and their children. Teenager are mostly neutral, although they could have the biggest interest in a healthy environment for their generation. But the statement might have been too abstract for them to give a clear judgement. Older informants tend to be less critical towards investment in industrial growth – they maybe do not see an alternative for welfare and development in Estonia. The group between 21 and 30 is by far the most critical group of informants.

 

When analysing along gender, no considerable differences appear. The difference between Russians and Estonians is interesting though. 37% of Estonians disagree with the statement compared to only 16% of Russians whereas 46% of Estonians agree compared to 59% of Russians. Russians seem to trust industrial growth as a guarantee for development more than Estonians, who are critical about the possible negative outcome of industries for the next generation. Comparing the three sampling areas,

informants in Tallinn are more critical (41% disagree) than in Kohtla Järve (22% disagree) and in Raplamaa (30% disagree). This also might be explained by the fact that informants in Tallinn have experienced economic growth in other sectors than in industries, whereas in Kohtla Järve, there never was much other activity than industrial production.

 

In general, informants put a lot of emphasis on the environment also for the development of economy. Apart from industrial growth, they think that a healthy economy needs a healthy environment to develop. A majority of 93% agreed with the statement: “A healthy economy needs a healthy environment.” But how far would informants go to preserve nature and a healthy environment? How much are they aware, that all this depends also on their personal life-style?

 

fi) Less materialistic life-style

 

 

 

 

Again, almost three quarters of the sample agree with this statement. But one has to keep in mind, that this is a statement, where agreement is easy as there are no concrete consequences indicated. How is agreement distributed, when real and painful consequences are involved?

 

gi) Jobs lost

 

Here, almost one quarter disagrees (23%) and agreement has declined to 49% of all informants. It is clear that less people would go as far in their environmental concerns.¹¹ Analysed along socio-economic variables, there are almost no differences among the three sampling areas. Also when differentiating according to ethnicity, the answers are more or less the same. 62% of Estonians agree and 67% of Russians agree, but the percentage of total agreement is higher among Russians (40% totally agree compared to 26% totally agree among Estonians). Gender also does not play an important role in the judgement of this statement. But education does actually make a difference: The more educated informants are the more they agree with the statement. Informants with higher education agree in 68% compared to 63% of informants with medium education level and 55% of the informants with basic education level. With disagreement, the percentages change accordingly: 18% of the group with highest education disagree, compared to 22% disagreement in the group with medium education and 27% in the group with basic education.

 

 

5) Summary

To sum up all the results, each chapters’ outcomes are shortly presented once again. There is no definite general trend visible, informants react different in the various topics presented. The most important outcomes for a general picture are for sure the results of chapter 4.1. and 4.2., as they are deducted from newly created indices which combined several statements concerning problem awareness and behaviour. But all the other chapters are equally interesting when trying to understand attitudes, behaviour and opinions in more depth and detail.

 

• Air and water pollution (drinking water as well as Baltic Sea pollution) are considered the most important environmental problems in Estonia, followed by chemicals and waste.
• People rank the immediate and geographically close environmental problems more important than problems, which are further away.
• Informants would like to buy chemical-free food, but they do not know, where to find it.
• The majority of informants thinks, that oil shale depletion is a problem, but that there are no alternatives to this energy source.
• Environmental problem awareness is not depending on education or income, but it depends to some degree on gender, sampling area and on age: Women are slightly more aware than men, rural informants have higher awareness than urban informants and the older informants are, the more problem awareness they have.
• People avoid using chemical inputs on their land plots to save the environment, followed by srting waste and using public transport as other environmental-friendly actions.
• Informants are not more active in their environmental behaviour because they feel weak doing it alone and they lack knowledge on what to do.
• On a daily base, people try to save energy in turning off the light when leaving a room and in burning their household paper waste instead of putting it in the garbage.
• The older an informant gets, the more environmental-friendly he or she behaves. All the other variables like age, gender or sampling area do not play a significant role.
• Regarding EU accession, roughly on third of people do not know what to think about it and only roughly one fifth say yes to a quick entering.
• Concerning the environmental consequences for EU accession, informants either lack knowledge or they are optimistic about it. People in Tallinn are more optimistic than in Kohtla Järve or in Raplamaa.
• Informants associate mostly positive, tangible things with the term ‘nature’, most often mentioned was forest, water bodies, flora, fauna or something, that lives.
• When asked about their associations to the term ‘environment’, people mentioned their surroundings, air, water and the relation between the human being and the environment. More problems were mentioned than with the term ‘nature’.
• There seems to be a relatively ‘utilitaristic’ approach towards nature and therefore the beauty and health of nature is almost seen as a consumption good.
• Love for nature is not necessarily depending on ethnicity in the informants’ eyes. But considerably more Estonians link ethnicity to nature love than Russians.
• Almost two thirds of the total sample think that Estonian environmental policy is too weak. Russians are even more critical towards the policy compared to Estonians.
• Only a quarter of all informants can mention two or more environmental organisations. Mostly mentioned were various national organisations, followed by the Ministry of Environment and the green movement.
• People want to be informed about the environmental situation in Estonia and like to watch TV programs on this topic.
• Environmental organisations are morally supported by the sample and informants in general feel sad that there are not more people actively fighting for protection.
• Environmental restrictions and regulations are accepted and appreciated and the government is seen as responsible to establish these regulations.
• In general, informants want to participate in political decisions. Although they personally are not very active, they are happy to have this theoretical possibility for participation and activity.
• People think that they have mostly a medium level of environmental knowledge, but Russians are giving themselves lower grades of knowledge than Estonians. Although rural people live much closer to nature, they do not give themselves better ranks than people living in the cities.
• In the field of sustainable forest management, informants have a rather bad level of knowledge, but in contrast to that, the concept of resources being limited is clear to most informants and a discussion on sustainability would not meet ignorance.
• Informants do not like waste in forests and on the streets and also understand, that some household items like aerosols or batteries can be potentially dangerous when put in the household waste.
• Although people in the sample do not make up an especially rich population group in Estonian, a majority of them would actually pay more money to store waste more environmental-friendly.
• Informants show a critical and thoughtful attitude towards industrial growth on the expense of environmental degradation. A lot of informants are unhappy to leave problems to the next generation. The group between 21 and 30 is by far the most critical group of informants concerning industrial growth.
• People see the need to return to more modest life-style to preserve a healthy environment for the next generation. The majority of informants would even sacrifice some jobs for the sake of protection. More Russians than Estonians agree to this and the more educated informants are, the readier are they to sacrifice these jobs.

 

 

6) Policy recommendations

Several consequences and recommendations can be driven from the project results. These policy recommendations are applicable for the governmental as well as for the non-governmental sector.

 

To raise awareness and consequently to raise the level of environmental-friendly behaviour, it is necessary to raise the information given to the general public. Informants lack in information about problems in Estonia and problems concerning their daily life. They have not enough information and knowledge about what to do to save the environment. Much more material, TV programs or training is needed to show those people who are ready to reason about their behaviour how to change it for the better. A lot of things are not so very difficult, but might change the situation: Use less plastic bags and take a bag or basket to go shopping, buy energy-saving bulbs and so on. The government and environmental organisations could put some effort in identifying activities and to promote these with a lot of positive incentives. There was a lot of frustration felt among informants about the lack of knowledge and lack of awareness that they actually can change the state of the environment in Estonia. A lot of informants seem not to be aware of the possibilities and of the power, they have. This is also obvious in the case of chemical-free foodstuff. A majority would like to buy chemical-free foodstuff, but they do not know where to get it. Estonian informants of the sample presented here are not aware of the fact, that they as consumers have a considerable power and influence on what is available at the market. Some organisations could take the examples of consumer-right campaigns in Western Europe (for example in the case of recycled paper or biologically produced food) and launch a similar activity in Estonia. Information and training is needed to give people an understanding on how they can start to be active and on how they make a difference. Although informants accept regulations from the government, they need to understand, how they are part of the problems and how they themselves can change things. This need is interestingly clear to them already (see the following chart), so training, information campaigns and the distribution of material only need to start.

 

hi) Raising awareness

 

One crucial thing in all this training for environmental-friendly behaviour is the fact, that solidarity in these actions is needed. Informants are afraid to do things alone or they feel ridiculous when they make an effort, but nobody else does. Common actions and a solidarity in all activities could help to minimise these fears. Regional cleaning actions could serve as an example for such a solidarity, but this could also be stretched out to other fields of activities.

 

A healthy environment and nature are still relatively important for informants and they are ready to also pay for this or to cut down their living standards. But they need an incentive to do so: They are ready to pay more for waste storage, so why not establish a recycling system with high accessibility for the whole population and explain the need to raise waste-payments for this purpose. With clear explanation, most people seem to be ready to pay more, if it helps the environment. A healthy environment is still high on the agenda, but explanation and information needs to be given. The conviction, that these payments actually go to support nature and the environment are crucial in this respect.

The report shows that women, rural people and older people are more aware of environmental problems. It also shows that older people are more active saving the environment than younger people. So it remains to be asked, why these groups are more active: Because older persons use more public transport, have different consumption patterns and produce less waste than young people etc. Informants in the countryside take part in cleaning actions more often and so on. So all this behaviour should be publicly promoted and people behaving alike should feel rewarded and positively supported. They might feel deprived, poor or old-fashioned right now, but with certain education, society could take them as good examples in some respects. Best-practices could be identified, rewarded and promoted to serve as general examples.

 

In general, three recommendation can be given:

1. Increase the amount of environmental information channelled to the people via various media.
2. Increase awareness for the level of responsibility, influence and action possibilities for the individual and create units of common activity and solidarity in the shifting of behaviour.
3. Identify best-practices, promote and award them to serve as general examples.

7) Bibliography

• Baltic Environmental Forum: Baltic State of the Environment Report based on Environmental Indicators. Riga, 1998.
• Economic Commission for Europe and United Nations: Environmental Performance Reviews. Estonia. 1996.
• Estonian Fund for Nature: Man and Nature. Tallinn, 1999.
• European Commission: Central and Eastern Eurobarometer. Public Opinion and the European Union. 1997.
• Ministry of the Environment of Estonia: National Environmental Action Plan. Tallinn, 1998.
• Ministry of the Environment of Estonia: Estonian Environment 1996. Tallinn, 1997.
• Statistical Office of Estonia: Statistical Yearbook of Estonia 1998. Tallinn, 1998.
• Stockholm Environment Institute: Man and the Environment. Tallinn, 1996.
• The Regional Environmental Center: Doors to Democracy. Current Trends and Practices in Public Participation in Environmental Decision-making in Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest, 1998.
• UNDP: Estonian Human Development Report 1998. Tallinn, 1998.

• UNDP: Estonian Human Development Report 1997. Tallinn, 1997.

 

8) Annex: Questionnaire on Behaviour, Environment and Nature Concepts in Estonia

I Questions:

 

A) Please rank the environmental problems by their importance. (give a 9 to the most important)

1) air pollution ___

2) bad drinking water quality ___

3) soviet times remaining pollution ___

4) pollution of the Baltic Sea ___

5) cutting of forest ___

6) waste dumps ___

7) chemical industry ___

8) oil shale depletion ___

9) energy problems ___

 

B) What do you personally do to save the environment? (mark all you did in the last two weeks)

1) I work in an environ. organisation r

2) I do not buy plastic bottled drinks r

3) I do not use mineral fertilizer r

4) I go shopping with a basket/bag r

5) I help to clean forests or plains r

6) I deliberately use public transport r

7) I do not use pesticides or herbicides r

8) I try to produce less waste r

 

 

C)Why do you do no do more to save the environment? (mark all that seem to reflect your thinking)

1) It does not seem necessary r

2) If only I do so, it will have no impact r

3) That asks too much time r

4) That asks too much money r

5) That will not be so comfortable r

6) I lack knowledge about what to do r

7) I have other problems r

 

 

D) Rank on what it depends if people care for the environment (the higher the more important)

1) family education ___

2) childhood on the countryside ___

3) economic situation ___

4) environmental knowledge ___

5) inner culture/personal value system ___

6) Estonian mentality ___

7) love for nature ___

8) other ___

 

E) How do you describe the relationship between people and nature? (Mark one only)

1) People have to serve nature. r

2) Nature has to serve people. r

3) Nature and people have the same rights and have to serve each other. r

4) People are a part of nature and everything happening in nature will happen to them. r

 

F) Do you speak about environmental problems in your family or with friends? (Mark one only)

1) often r 2) seldom r

3) sometimes r 4) never r

G) How and where do you personally get in touch with nature?

1) I live/work every day in nature r

2) I live/work in nature on weekends r

3) I take my rest in nature r

 

 

H) How do you describe your knowledge about the circles in nature and in the environment?

1) good r 2) average r

3) bad r

 

 

I) Do you feel personally influenced by environmental problems? In what way ?

1) That does not touch me. r

2) I fell ill with an illness that is caused by environmental problems. r

3) In my family are cases of illnesses that are caused by environmental problems. r

4) I see that the environment around me is getting worse. r

5) other ___________________________________________________________________ r

 

 

J) What do you think of the oil shale depletion in Estonia?

1) I do not know. r

2) There is no problem. r

3) This is a very severe problem. r

4) It is a problem, but we have no other energy sources. r

5) other _______________________________________ r

 

 

K) Do you fear that a catastrophe like Chernobyl could repeat itself?

1) I have no fear. r

2) I think that nuclear power is getting safer, but I still fear accidents. r

3) I think that all nuclear power stations should be closed down, accidents can always happen. r

4) I fear accidents, but nuclear power has no alternatives. r

5) other ideas ______________________________________________________________ r

 

 

L) Do you think that Estonia should enter the European Union as soon as possible?

1) yes r 2) no r

3) better in 10 years r 4) I do not know r

 

 

M) When Estonia is in the EU, will this be better or worse for the environment?

1) better r 2) worse r

3) the same r 4) I do not know r

 

 

N) Do you think that Estonia has a good environmental policy?

1) yes r 2) too weak r

3) too strong r 4) I do not know r

 

 

O) When you get your food, do you think about the chemicals in the foodstuff? (Mark one only)

1) No, because I think that the foodstuff produced in Estonia has no chemicals in it. r

2) I would like to buy chemical-free foodstuff, but I do not know, where to get it. r

3) I always buy/get chemical-free foodstuff, or produce food myself. r

4) Buying foodstuff, I do not think about the chemicals in it, but about the price. r

P) What do you normally do with your paper waste? (Mark one only)

1) This is normal waste and I put it to the household garbage. r

2) I keep old paper and use it in fireplaces or just burn it. r

3) I keep old paper and bring it to the recycling facilities. r

4) Other possibilities. __________________________________________________ r

 

 

Q) Do you think that love for nature is connected to Estonian/Russian identity?

1) Yes, I think that Estonians are specially connected to nature. r

2) No, I do not think that Estonians are more connected to nature than other people. r

3) That is dependent on ______________________________________________________ r

 

 

R) How do you try to save energy? (mark all that fit you)

1) It is not so important. Therefore, I do not try to save energy. r

2) I use energy-saving electric bulbs. r

3) I turn off the light whenever I leave the room. r

4) I changed the heating system so that I can regulate it myself. r

5) other _____________________________________ r

 

 

 

II Opened questions:

 

1) With what do you associate nature?

2) With what do you associate the environment?

3) Do you personally fear environmental degradation? Why and what kind of degradation?

4) Which environmental organisations do you know in Estonia?

 

 

 

III Fixed-form Statements

 

Please evaluate the following statements

5) I strongly agree, 4) I partly agree, 3) I do not know, 2) I partly disagree, 1) I strongly disagree

 

No.	Statement	5	4	3	2	1
1	I wish a society where people can participate in political decisions.
2	I would appreciate the construction of bicycle roads in Estonia.
3	People have a right to clean air and clean water.
4	If you do not appreciate the beauty of nature, you can not be environmentally concerned.
5	I wish a society where peoples’ free will is not restricted at all.
6	The environment itself has a lot of strength to recover, it does not need our help.
7	Because of global climate changes, we could become extinct like dinosaurs.
8	In nature I can rest and get new energy.
9	We have to invest in industries to develop the economy. Then our children will have the money to solve the environmental problems that we have today.
10	Most companies only care for the environment if laws and regulations force them to do so.
11	I would accept if some people lose their job if this helps the environment.
12	If they cut all the forests down, we would soon run out of oxygen to breathe.
13	We have to keep the environment for our children, even if this means that we have to reduce the standard of living today.
14	There are already too many environment regulations right now.
15	My first duty is my family. The environment and anything else has to come after that.
16	Nature has complex interdependencies. Any human interference will cause a chain reaction with unanticipated effects.
17	The government cares for environmental problems only then, when people are concerned and make a lot of noise about it.
18	First you have to deal with poverty and famine, then you can start to think about the environment.
19	Even here in Estonia, you can feel that the climate changes.
20	I feel that I could do more for the environment if I put more attention to it.
21	Humans always create waste. We should therefore find some place in the woods where it does not disturb anybody and dump it.
22	A healthy economy needs a healthy environment.
23	The earth is like a spaceship with limited room and limited resources.
24	We should return to more traditional values and a less materialistic way of living to help the environment.
25	I get angry when I see garbage on the streets.
26	The good effects of new technologies outweigh its disadvantages and dangers.
27	I often use the car in my free time to visit people or drive visiting places.
28	I would correct people if I saw them dumping garbage in nature.
29	I am happy if I see that an environmental organisation is successful in its actions.
30	In my flat, I repair the water system at once if it licks.
31	Raising peoples awareness of environmental problems is more important than asking regulations from the government.
32	It is a pity that so few people actively care for the environment although there are so many catastrophes.
33	I get angry when people drive their cars only for the comfort of it, although they could use public transportation.
34	If I saw somebody harming the environment, I informed the official institutions.
35	I always want to be informed about the environmental situation in Estonia.
36	Worrying about water quality, we should use less aggressive chemical cleaning products.
37	I regularly watch nature programs in TV.
38	I get angry, when I see old aerosols and batteries in the household garbage.
39	I would pay more waste payments/taxes if I knew, that this helped to store it more environmentally friendly.
40	It is important, that people pull old, dead trees out of the forest.
41	I think that the Green Party is important for Estonia.
42	The Soviet times have harmed our environment a lot.
43	Estonians/Russians have a strong connection to nature. This is a result from the old traditions and myths.
44	The Green Movement in Estonia was important during the awakening period, today it has no more meaning.
45	It seems that a lot of diseases in Estonia result from bad water quality in cities.
46	Environmental problems in Estonia are not so critical as in Western countries.

 

 

 

IV Statistical information

 

Gender:

Age group: 1) 11-20 2) 21-30 3) 31-40 4) 41-50

5) 51-60 6) 61-70 7) > 70

Education: 1) highest 2) medium 3) basic

 

How many years of schooling/education did you have:

 

Profession:

 

Family status:

1) bachelor 2) civil partnership 3) widowed

4) married 5) divorced

 

How many children do you have:

 

Income of the household altogether:

1) up to 2.000 EEK 2) up to 4.000 EEK 3) up to 6.000 EEK

4) up to 8.000 EEK 5) up to 10.000 EEK 6) up to 12.000 EEK

7) up to 14.000 EEK 8) up to 16.000 EEK 9) more than 16.000 EEK

 

How many people belong to your household:

 

Do you describe yourself as believing:

What is your confession:

 

Where do you live now (area):

 

In which type of house do you live now:

1) ‘Chruschtschovka’ apartment block 2) apartment block

3) several-families house 4) one-family house 5) farm house

 

Where did you live during your childhood (area):

 

In which type of house did you live during your childhood:

1) ‘Chruschtschovka’ apartment block 2) apartment block

3) several-families house 4) one-family house 5) farm house

 

Do you actively work in an environmental organisation:

 

How many cars do you have in the household:

Do you have land in the household, how much:

Do you have forest in the household, how much:

 

Do you have animals, which:

1) no 2) only pets 3) only animals 4) pets and animals