Mail surveys have long been a staple of social science research. Properly conducted, they can gather representative data about a population that provides important generalizations about that population. High response rates are one crucial element of this capacity to make such generalizations. Response rates to mail surveys–especially those targeting general populations–have declined substantially over the years, even when employing standard “best practices” such as carefully crafted and pretested instruments, good explanations of research purpose, and multiple contacts. Our research group has a unique capacity to speak to declining response rates, having implemented mail surveys on natural resource-related topics–using relatively similar methods–for more than 45 years. We present the results of a longitudinal analysis of response rates to 191 surveys we conducted between 1971 and 2017 (response rates and methodological specifics carefully recorded over this time), documenting the changes in response rates over the years, and the factors associated with these changes. Variables assessed include topic saliency, the nature of the sample, timing, length and complexity of the questionnaire, and others. We find that year of implementation is a strong predictor of response rate, net of these other factors. We use these findings as a base from which to engage a larger discussion about strategies that social science researchers might use, both in terms of continued modifications to mail survey approaches and in moving towards other research methods.

Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory identifies five moral axes that can influence human motivation to take action on vital problems like climate change. The theory focuses on five moral foundations, including compassion, fairness, purity, authority, and ingroup loyalty; these have been found to differ between liberals and conservatives as well as Democrats and Republicans. Here we show, based on the Cornell National Social Survey (USA), that valuations of compassion and fairness were strong, positive predictors of willingness to act on climate change, whereas purity had a non-significant tendency in the positive direction (p = 0.07). Ingroup loyalty and authority were not supported as important predictor variables using model selection ( ). Compassion and fairness were more highly valued by liberals, whereas purity, authority, and in-group loyalty were more highly valued by conservatives. As in previous studies, participants who were younger, more liberal, and reported greater belief in climate change, also showed increased willingness to act on climate change. Our research supports the potential importance of moral foundations as drivers of intentions with respect to climate change action, and suggests that compassion, fairness, and to a lesser extent, purity, are potential moral pathways for personal action on climate change in the USA.

It is time to acknowledge and overcome conservation's deep-seated systemic racism, which has historically marginalized Black, Indigenous and people of colour (BIPOC) communities and continues to do so. We describe how the mutually reinforcing ‘twin spheres’ of conservation science and conservation practice perpetuate this systemic racism. We trace how institutional structures in conservation science (e.g. degree programmes, support and advancement opportunities, course syllabuses) can systematically produce conservation graduates with partial and problematic conceptions of conservation's history and contemporary purposes. Many of these graduates go on to work in conservation practice, reproducing conservation's colonial history by contributing to programmes based on outmoded conservation models that disproportionately harm rural BIPOC communities and further restrict access and inclusion for BIPOC conservationists. We provide practical, actionable proposals for breaking vicious cycles of racism in the system of conservation we have with virtuous cycles of inclusion, equality, equity and participation in the system of conservation we want.