Moroccan Human Ecological Behavior: Grounded Theory Approach

Today, environmental sustainability is everyone’s concern as it contributes in many aspects to a country's development. Morocco is also aware of the increasing threats to its natural resources. Accordingly, many projects and researches have been discussed pointing mainly to water security, pollution, desertification, and land degradation, but few studies bothered to dig into the human demeanor to disclose its ecological behavior. Human behavior is accountable for environment deterioration in the first place, but we keep fighting the symptoms instead of limiting the root causes. In the conceptual framework highlighted in the present article, 22 interviews have been conducted using a grounded theory approach. Initially this study will serve as a pilot study and a cornerstone to approve a bigger project now in progress. Beyond the existing general ecological measures (GEM), this study has chosen the grounded theory approach to bring out firsthand insights, and probe to which extent an ecological dimension exists in Morocco as a developing country. The discourse of the ecological behavior within the Moroccan context is seen in more realist, social, and community philosophy. Insights from interviews have revealed the existence of the following external factors: institutional, economic, social, and cultural; and the following internal factors: knowledge, locus of control, and values. Two new variables have emerged about half way over the coding process; Islamic environmental ethics and place attachment.