While McDonald and McAvoy note a hesitancy to provide generalizations regarding Native Americans their review uncovered shared traits examined by multiple sources. There is a pervasive sacredness to life and religious experience is intregal to everday existence. There is a sense that humans are inseparable from nature, with a reciprocal and interdependent relationship with creation. The importance of relationship with the land leads many times to a heightened sense of place, or connection to particular environments. The resource management ideas of parks, wilderness and preservation are constructs outside of Native American beliefs.
All land is sacred and humans are connected to it.
Therefore, the concept of some areas being set aside, or being viewed as a garden or more subject to respect, is contrary to Native American land ethics. In order to maintain the reciprocity and balance between humans and nature, continuing involvement with nature is necessary. These differences as outlined above have implications for approaches to land management, significance of place and significance of ceremonies, ideas of parks and wilderness, and concepts of recreation. Resource managers having a better understanding of these differences should have more successful and productive interactions with Native Americans. Researchers in outdoor recreation are challenged to examine their basic constructs of 'recreation' and 'land ethics' in light of cultural differences identified by McDonald and McAvoy.