Enduring cultural legacies affect Euro-American wildlife values

Michael J. Manfredo; Tara L. Teel; Benjamin Ghasemi; Thao Tran; Ugo Arbieu; Richard Eugene Waggaman Berl; Duan Biggs; Luigi Boitani; Paolo Ciucci; Miguel Delibes-Mateos; Enrico Di Minin; Sabrina Dressel; Christian Gamborg; Jenny Anne Glikman; Catherine Hill; Maarten Jacobs; Frank Søndergaard Jensen; Irena Kavčič; Rose Keller; Silvio Marchini; Sofia Nanni; Agnieszka Olszańska; Jonathan Salerno; Camilla Sandström; Kenneth Shockley; Dean Smith; Eick von Ruschkowski

doi:10.1038/s41893-026-01825-8

Enduring cultural legacies affect Euro-American wildlife values

Nature Sustainability

By: Michael J. Manfredo, Tara L. Teel, Benjamin Ghasemi, Thao Tran, Ugo Arbieu, Richard Eugene Waggaman Berl, Duan Biggs, Luigi Boitani, Paolo Ciucci, Miguel Delibes-Mateos, Enrico Di Minin, Sabrina Dressel, Christian Gamborg, Jenny Anne Glikman, Catherine Hill, Maarten Jacobs, Frank Søndergaard Jensen, Irena Kavčič, Rose Keller, Silvio Marchini, Sofia Nanni, Agnieszka Olszańska, Jonathan Salerno, Camilla Sandström, Kenneth Shockley, Dean Smith, and Eick von Ruschkowski

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-026-01825-8

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Abstract

Social values shape biodiversity conservation success. Yet information is lacking on how values form, change and adapt people to their environment. Our 33-nation survey in 2021–2023 (n = 18,477) explored the effect of the institutions of European colonization on present-day values towards wildlife in the Americas. Here we found mutualism values (seeing wildlife as part of one’s social community) prevail in Iberian-origin Latin American countries, whereas domination values (seeing wildlife as a resource for human use) are more prevalent in British-origin North American countries. Multilevel analysis showed significant country-level effects of colonial institution (for example, colonial origin, Protestant versus Catholic religious cultures) and endowment (for example, pre-colonial population density, Indigenous ancestry, settler mortality) factors on wildlife values in the Americas. The strong mutualism emphasis in Latin America appears to be consistent with acculturation between the compatible ideologies of Indigenous peoples and the Iberian colonizers. The effectiveness of wildlife institutions and policies will depend on their congruence with the social values of publics being served.

Suggested Citation

Manfredo, M.J., Teel, T., Ghasemi, B., Tran, T., Arbieu, U., Berl, R.E., Biggs, D., Boitani, L., Ciucci, P., Delibes-Mateos, M., Di Minin, E., Dressel, S., Gamborg, C., Glikman, J.A., Hill, C., Jacobs, M., Jensen, F.S., Kavčič, I., Keller, R., Marchini, S., Nanni, S., Olszańska, A., Salerno, J., Sandström, C., Shockley, K., Smith, D., and von Ruschkowski, E., 2026, Enduring cultural legacies affect Euro-American wildlife values: Nature Sustainability, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-026-01825-8.

Additional publication details
Publication type	Article
Publication Subtype	Journal Article
Title	Enduring cultural legacies affect Euro-American wildlife values
Series title	Nature Sustainability
DOI	10.1038/s41893-026-01825-8
Edition	Online First
Publication Date	May 15, 2026
Year Published	2026
Language	English
Publisher	Nature
Contributing office(s)	Eastern Ecological Science Center