Values, Risk Perceptions and Social Adaptation Mechanisms: Environmental Concern in Tigray Community

Edited by Chalachew Wollie Wassie with Biadgilgn Demissie Mullaw, Brhanu Weldie Derbew, Yohannes Fesseha Gebrekidan and Tsegazeab Kahsay Abadi

CODESRIA, Dakar, 2020 , ISBN : 978-2-86978-781-0

This monograph, in which the literature is extended in some important ways, is the first of its kind where environmental values and risk perceptions can play significant roles for contributions of policy interventions. The environmental values system varies from individual to individual and between groups of individuals. In this regard, environmental policy measures could be improved if the widely held environmental values are acknowledged and admitted into the process of policy analysis and refection. The work captures attention to the predictive powers of specific elements of environmental values as a useful supplement to acknowledge risk perceptions (risks to environment and risks to human health) and awareness of environmental consequences. Furthermore; it is also useful to look at the variation of environmental values and indigenous adaptive mechanisms in its constituent elements in terms of gender and residence. Finally, future research should address how environmental protection measures trigger different reactions among different groups of population and the differential roles that rural and urban community seem to play when designing environmental policy interventions for the particular Ethiopian context.

Chalachew Wollie Wassie is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology, Mekelle University, Ethiopia. He holds a Master of Arts in Social Psychology from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. He was the Coordinator of the 2014 National Working Groups (NWG), Ethiopia Team, commissioned by CODESRIA.

Biadgilgn Demissie Mullaw (PhD) is an Associate Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at Mekelle University, Ethiopia. He is currently the Director of the Institute of Geo-Information and Earth Observation Sciences at Mekelle University.

Brhanu Weldie Derbew holds a Master of Arts in Social Psychology from Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia and a Master of Arts in Work and Organizational Psychology from University of Valencia, Spain.

Yohannes Fesseha Gebrekidan is a PhD candidate at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. He holds a Master of Arts in Developmental Psychology from Addis Ababa University.

Tsegazeab Kahsay Abadi is Senior Lecturer at the Department of Psychology, Mekelle University and he is now a PhD candidate at the University of South Africa (UNISA).