Amateur Naturalism and Activities of Nature and Wildlife Organizations: Interviews 2002-2011

The qualitative dataset consists of 33 interview transcripts. The interviewees were authorities and amateur naturalists and other people whose hobbies included activities related to nature or wildlife. The latter were selected from among individuals with strong interest in plants, birds, insects or swamps. The interviewed authorities worked with environmental protection issues or environmental research at local, regional or national level. Data were mostly collected with face-to-face interviews but there were also one telephone and one e-mail interview. Questions asked varied between interviewees. Main themes included the interviewees' nature interest, its origins, history and role in their lives, motivation behind the interest, and future prospects of citizen participation in nature conversation issues. One topic pertained to collaboration between nature activists and authorities, potential conflicts of interests, and the role played by amateur naturalists societies in environmental governance. Background variables included whether it had been an individual or group interview, the participant's gender, estimated age, hobby/specialist field, location and time of the interview, and for interviewed authorities, also job title. The dataset is only available in Finnish.