Our Future Environment

As discussed earlier, psychological ownership can exist in the absence of legal ownership and occurs in an often lengthy and iterative process involving investing the self and making personal sacrifices on behalf of a cave. When an individual’s sense of self is closely linked to the place, a desire to maintain, protect, or enhance that identity will result in an enhanced sense of responsibility. In respect to a specific cave, for cavers, psychological ownership has its roots in a self-identity motive whereas for local land-owners psychological ownership is tied to the motive of having a place to “dwell”. Psychological ownership literature informs us about relationships to caves on the individual person level and the responsibility of ownership given to an individual in their social environment. Psychological ownership may be more appropriate in caving relationships because very few cavers legally own a cave but their caving self-identity and knowledge of caves is directly related to the frequency and involvement one personally has with caves.

Filed under: caves, anthro of property, natural landscape on April 24th, 2008