Understanding relational values in cultural landscapes in Romania and Germany

Relational values recently emerged as a concept to comprehensively understand and communicate the many values of nature. Relational values can be defined as preferences and principles about human-nature relationships and focus both on human-nature connections, as well as human-human connections.

Here, drawing on 819 face-to-face questionnaires, we analysed relational, intrinsic and instrumental values across a total of six agricultural landscapes in Transylvania (Romania) and Lower Saxony (Germany). The landscapes described a gradient of land use intensity, within and across the countries.

Our results suggest a bundling of values into four groups: those concerned with individual cognition (including intrinsic values), those that focus on nature as a place for social interaction and relaxation, those that capture cultural identity and spiritual values and one bundle that only includes instrumental values.

These different values, in turn, were strongly related to (i) respondents’...

近年来，关系价值（relational values）作为一种可全面认知并阐释自然多元价值的概念应运而生。关系价值可定义为围绕人与自然关系的偏好与原则，既聚焦人与自然的联结，也关注人与人之间的联系。

本研究依托819份面对面调查问卷，对罗马尼亚特兰西瓦尼亚与德国下萨克森州共计6处农业景观中的关系价值、内在价值（intrinsic values）与工具价值（instrumental values）展开分析。上述景观覆盖了两国境内及跨国的土地利用强度梯度。

研究结果显示，各类价值可聚类为四类：第一类与个体认知相关（涵盖内在价值），第二类将自然视作社会互动与休闲放松的场所，第三类体现文化认同与精神价值，第四类仅包含工具价值。

进一步分析表明，上述不同价值类型均与（一）受访者的……密切相关。