A Comparative Analysis of People New Environmental Paradigm Related to Water Resource Conservation Behavior Based on Gender: A Case in Manggarai, East Indonesia

Abstract

In national development, it is not simply focusing on modernization aspects, but empowering a local wisdom is a must. Environmental issues will determine development orientation based on sustainable development concept. How people perceive their environment (environmental paradigm) while they are conserving water resources is an example that people live harmoniously with nature. To what extend that two things (people paradigm and water resource conservation traditionally) are related to each other based on gender equality is the research question of this study. A survey method used by involving 120 people who live around water resource which conserved traditionally, in Manggarai district of Nusa Tenggara Timur, east Indonesia. Two instruments implemented in this study, New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) with items based of 5 dimensions developed by Dunlap, et.al. (1978 & 2000) and conservation behavior of water resource with 17 items. Research results reveal that 33 items were valid of NEP instrument with reliability .671 and only 11 items were valid with reliability .216. There were no significant difference of those reliability between male and female. There are 9 factors of NEP instrument should be omitted after varimax rotation based on its eigen values which produced 3 components (total sample). However, there is no eigen values difference between male and female which each produced 5 components. Moreover, it is found also that the correlation between people NEP and conservation behavior is .100 (p < .27) and again there is no significant correlation difference found between male and female. Therefore, it could be concluded that people NEP instrument could be validated empirically which affected by gender equality due to there was no difference between male and female, nevertheless, people NEP was not good predictor on conservation behavior of water resource, theoretical and practical implications would be discussed on this paper.