Today’s societies are confronted by a daily biodiversity loss, which will increase in the face of climate change and environmental pollution. Biodiversity loss is a particularly severe problem in so-called biodiversity hotspots. Ecuador is an example of a country that hosts two different biodiversity hotspots. Human behavior – in developing as well as in industrial countries such as Germany – must be considered as one of the most important direct and indirect drivers of this global trend and thus plays a crucial role in environmentalism and biodiversity conservation. Nature relatedness and environmental concern have been identified as important environmental psychological factors related to people’s pro-environmental behavior. However, the human–nature relationship depends on a variety of other factors, such as values, gender, nationality, qualities of environmental concern and time spent in nature. This study compared young people from Ecuador and Germany with regard to their nature relatedness and environmental concern. Furthermore, the role of the aforementioned factors was investigated. In total, we surveyed 2,173 high school students from Germany (M_age = 14.56 years, SD = 1.45; female: 55.1%) and 451 high school students from Ecuador (M_age = 14.63 years, SD = 1.77; female: 55.3%). We found that young Ecuadorians were more related to nature than young people from Germany. Additionally, we found country-specific differences in the structure of environmental concern and in the role of gender in the explanation of biospheric environmental concern and nature relatedness. In both samples, the self-transcendence value cluster was a significant positive predictor for biospheric environmental concern and nature relatedness. Time spent in nature was a significant positive predictor for nature relatedness in both samples. The results are an empirical basis for the assumption of culture-specific differences in human–nature relationships.

Many nature conservation projects fail primarily not because of a lack of knowledge about upcoming threats or viable conservation concepts but rather because of the inability to transfer knowledge into the creation of effective measures. Therefore, an increase in information exchange and collaboration between theory- and practice-oriented conservation actors, as well as between conservation actors, land user groups, and authorities may enhance the effectiveness of conservation goals. By considering the interactions between conservation stakeholders as social networks, social network analysis (SNA) can help identify structural optimization potential in these networks. The present study combines SNA and stakeholder analysis (SA) to assess the interactions between 34 conservation stakeholders in the major city and district of Osnabrück in northwestern Germany and offers insights into cost/benefit optimizations of these stakeholder interactions. Data were acquired using a pile sort technique and guideline-based expert interviews. The SA, based on knowledge mapping and SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis, identified individual stakeholder’s complementary properties, indicating which among them would most benefit from mutual information exchange and collaboration. The SNA revealed discrepancies in information exchange and collaboration between theory- and practice-focused stakeholders. Conflicts were found predominantly between conservation associations, authorities and land user groups. Ecological research, funding, land-use conflicts, and distribution of conservation knowledge were identified as fields with high potential for increased information exchange and collaboration. Interviews also showed that the stakeholders themselves see many opportunities for increased networking in the region. The results are discussed in relation to the existing literature on nature conservation networks and used to recommend optimization measures for the studied network. Finally, the conclusion reflects upon the developed approach’s implications and possibilities for conservation stakeholders and planners in general.