Sustainable Management of National Forest Trails
Structural Relationships Among Volunteer Motivation, Satisfaction, Perceived Quality of Life, and Active Participation Intention
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19489172 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Soojin Kim (0000-0003-3141-8621), Soo-Jin Kim (0000-0001-6450-3553, Korea University), Jeonghee Lee (0000-0002-5004-1092, Korea Forest Service), Sugwang Lee (0000-0001-6099-6602, Korea Forest Service) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 317 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-05 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Urban Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2413-8851 • E-ISSN: 2413-8851 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/urbansci10060317 |
| OpenAlex | W7163717552 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 48 |
National Forest Trails (NFTs), a key component of forest welfare infrastructure, increasingly require a shift from government-led management to citizen-participatory governance. This study examined the structural relationships among volunteer motivation, activity satisfaction, perceived quality-of-life (QoL) change, and behavioral intention in the context of NFT volunteering. A survey was conducted with 217 adults who had participated in forest trail volunteering programs in Korea, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results showed that volunteer motivation had significant positive effects on reward importance, activity satisfaction, and perceived QoL change. Activity satisfaction positively influenced both Future Participation Intention and Active Participation Intention, whereas perceived QoL change had a significant positive effect only on Active Participation Intention. In addition, activity satisfaction and perceived QoL change mediated the relationship between volunteer motivation and Active Participation Intention. These findings suggest that forest trail volunteers are not merely supplementary labor for trail management, but active participants in forest governance who both contribute to and benefit from the environments they help sustain. Overall, the study indicates that sustainable NFT volunteering depends not only on motivation itself, but also on the quality and personal meaning of the volunteer experience. The findings highlight the importance of experience-centered program design, appropriate recognition systems, and greater attention to participant-centered well-being outcomes in sustainable forest trail governance
Structural equation modeling · Sustainable development · Sustainable forest management · Sustainable Management · Volunteer · Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering · Recreation, Leisure, Wilderness Management · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development
Effects of Shinrin-Yoku (Forest Bathing) and Nature Therapy on Mental Health
The Behavioral Consequences of Service Quality
Stewardship as a boundary object for sustainability research
Nature Contact and Human Health
Co-creation experiences
Predicting Volunteer Commitment in Environmental Stewardship Programmes
Stress recovery during exposure to natural and urban environments
Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis
Common method biases in behavioral research
Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models
Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error
The connectedness to nature scale
Power analysis and determination of sample size for covariance structure modeling.
The Satisfaction With Life Scale
Identifying the motivations of environmental volunteers
Improving Wellbeing and Environmental Stewardship Through Volunteering in Nature
Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being
Forest Bathing Always Makes Sense
A Systematic Review of Environmental Volunteer Motivations
Volunteer tourism
Structural equation modeling in practice
Collaborative governance for sustainable forestry in the emerging bio-based economy in Europe
Doing Something Positive’
Volunteer Motivation and Organizational Climate
The Volunteer Satisfaction Index
Rational volunteering
Dispositional and Organizational Influences on Sustained Volunteerism
Altruism and Volunteerism
Environmental Volunteering
Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers
Volunteer Work and Well-Being
| Highly cited | No |
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