Amenity development in the Norwegian mountains: Effects of second home owner environmental attitudes on preferences for alternative development options

Second home development is increasing rapidly in the Norwegian mountains, reflecting global patterns in mountain amenity attractions. Currently around 6000 new second homes are built in Norway annually sustaining an economic sector of several billion euros. Environmental and social impacts resulting from this activity are only partly identified. Second home owners comprise diverse groups of people who in different ways become affected by the growth in infrastructure and usage of the mountain regions. In this paper we explore the role of more basic environmental attitudes or ecocentrism, measured according to the New Environmental Paradigm scale, on perception of impacts, attitudes toward second home development, preferences for facilities and activities, and long term changes in mountain second home areas. There is a distinct relationship between econcentrism and attitudes toward second home development. In general, second home owners who express a strong degree of environmental orientation are consistently less in favor of development of further infrastructure, services and facilities. Ecocentrism is also positively correlated with sensitivity toward impacts and skepticism toward long term future changes.