Could Immigrants Care Less about the Environment? A Comparison of the Environmental Values of Immigrant and Native-Born New Zealanders.

The potential negative environmental impact of immigration has been raised in a number of receiving countries. In New Zealand there has been a debate questioning whether or not immigrants share the same environmental values as native-born residents. This article reports on a study of the environmental values of immigrants and native-born residents of New Zealand (n = 427). The research employed a survey instrument known as the New Environmental Paradigm to examine the environmental worldviews of the subjects. The informing literature for the study is drawn from postmaterialist and social exclusion theory, and the study also considers the role of acculturation in modifying environmental attitudes. The main finding of the study is that there was no significant difference in the environmental worldviews of immigrants and native-born New Zealanders. Both groups held mildly ecocentric views. The level of immigrants’ acculturation was found to be unrelated to their environmental attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]