Protected Area Management Agencies Research Articles

Best practice principles for communicating safety messages in national parks

Effective communication of safety information for visitors to national parks and other protected areas is essential, particularly where the potential consequences of incidents are severe. Signs are often the primary communication tool for safety messages in national parks. Compliance-based approaches to safety signs using standards drawn from occupational safety are common, though empirical research into the effectiveness of safety signs in national parks and protected areas generally remains limited. To encourage a more pro-active approach to visitor safety, this paper offers an alternative by proposing and field-testing best practice principles (BPPs) for safety signs in parks. It first presents a literature review of safety sign research that, together with consideration of the current policy and practice of leading protected area management agencies, underpinned the development of three sets of BPPs for communicating safety messages. The set of BPPs that focused on safety signs in national parks were then field-tested in two Australian states. The results point to the theoretical as well as the practical value of best practice principles. In particular, they help reveal why and how particular signs are effective at communicating safety messages. From a management perspective, the BPPs offer a holistic yet contextually-adaptable approach to benchmarking and evaluation. The three sets of BPPs also draw attention to the importance of both a coordinated interpretation and communication approach and an overarching risk management framework in which the use of safety signage is embedded. Management implications●The paper presents best practice principles for safety signage and communication for managing visitor risk in protected areas. In addition the following aspects should be considered to enhance the effectiveness of warning concepts:●Insights into the target audience including the respective awareness of risks and cultural differences in the various countries of origin.●Familiarity with and perception of possible risks within different visitor segments.●Familiarity with the presented communication means (illustrations, language, colors).●Information prior to the stay to avoid inappropriate expectations and increase the awareness of possible risks.

Constraints of community participation in protected area-based tourism planning: the case of Malawi

ABSTRACTAn approach to tourism development that emphasises the need for community participation in tourism planning is advocated as a pathway to sustainable tourism and poverty alleviation. However, it is argued that the community participation concept originated in the developed world and faces different and context-specific limitations when applied in developing countries. This paper examines the implementation of local community participation in planning associated with ecotourism in protected areas in Malawi. The views of villagers, along with other key stakeholders, including ecotourism operators, protected area management agencies, government departments and non-governmental organisations were investigated through a qualitative study undertaken around the two case-study sites of Liwonde National Park and Majete Wildlife Reserve. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions, and was thematically analysed. The findings reveal significant limiting factors affecting community participation in ecotourism planning in Malawi, including: apathy; inadequate financial resources; inadequate information; low education levels; unfair distribution of benefits; lack of trained human resources; a centralised public administration; lack of coordination; and human–wildlife conflicts. The findings indicate the need for both greater advocacy of community participation, and the need to incorporate specific strategies which can facilitate community participation that are tailored to developing country contexts.

Enhancing community participation in tourism planning associated with protected areas in developing countries: Lessons from Malawi

Most studies on community participation in tourism planning only advocate the importance of the concept and/or identify barriers without articulating the required actions or strategies to actually promote community participation. Based on a study in two protected areas in Malawi, this paper identifies and discusses possible strategies that can enhance community participation in tourism planning associated with protected areas in developing countries. Data were collected through in-depth interviews and focus group discussions. The study participants were from protected area management agencies, government departments, non-governmental organisations, tourism operators and the local population surrounding the two protected areas. The findings suggest the need for a rethink on how local communities around protected areas are involved in tourism planning in developing country contexts. Six strategies emerged as major prerequisites to achieve full and active community participation: public awareness and education; capacity building; creation of linkages; use of appropriate participation methods; involvement of appropriate local community organisations and decentralisation and coordination of relevant management organisations.

Rising temperatures and changing rainfall patterns in South Africa's national parks

ABSTRACTAir temperatures have increased globally over the past decades, while rainfall changes have been more variable, but are taking place. In South Africa, substantial climate‐related impacts are predicted, and protected area management agencies will need to respond actively to impacts. It is critical for management agencies to understand the way in which climate is changing locally to predict impacts and respond appropriately. Here, for the first time, we quantify observable changes in temperature and rainfall in South African national parks over the past five to ten decades. Our results show significant increases in temperatures in most parks, with increases being most rapid in the arid regions of the country. Increases in the frequency of extreme high temperature events were also most pronounced in these regions. These results are consistent with other climate studies conducted in these areas. Similar increases were identified for both minimum and maximum temperatures, though absolute minimum temperatures increased at greater rates than absolute maxima. Overall, rainfall trends were less obvious, but a decrease in rainfall was observed for the southern Cape (in three parks), and an increase was detected in one park. The observed temperature changes over the last 20–50 years have in several instances already reached those predicted for near future scenarios (2035), indicating that change scenarios are conservative. These results provide individual parks with evidence‐based direction for managing impacts under current and projected changes in local climate. They also provide the management agency with sub‐regional information to tailor policy and impact monitoring. Importantly, our results highlight the critical role that individual weather stations play in informing local land management and the concerns for parks that have no local information on changes in climate.

Oblique aerial photography: a novel tool for the monitoring and participatory management of protected areas

Protected areas are our principal conservation strategy, but require surveillance and monitoring for effective management. Many are threatened by shifting cultivation, a practice that is difficult to detect accurately with satellite imagery and is generally carried out clandestinely in isolated areas. Since 2010, oblique aerial photography has been used to detect, understand and rapidly respond to shifting cultivation in national parks and new protected areas in Madagascar. Protected areas are flown over annually at a height of 500 m above the ground along fixed transects spaced 3 km or 6 km apart: comparison of images between years reveals new clearings, which are accurately located and measured using Google Earth and GIS software. Aerial images are used by foot patrols to locate clearings on the ground and enforce rules (in national parks) or improve dialogue between protected area managers and shifting cultivators (in new protected areas). Oblique images are intuitively easy to understand and thus provide a powerful tool for discussions with resource users and other stakeholders to facilitate participatory management. The method used is significantly cheaper than the use of satellite images and requires minimal training, and thus has potential for use by protected area management agencies worldwide.

Are we missing the boat? Current uses of long-term biological monitoring data in the evaluation and management of marine protected areas

Protected area management agencies are increasingly using management effectiveness evaluation (MEE) to better understand, learn from and improve conservation efforts around the globe. Outcome assessment is the final stage of MEE, where conservation outcomes are measured to determine whether management objectives are being achieved. When quantitative monitoring data are available, best-practice examples of outcome assessments demonstrate that data should be assessed against quantitative condition categories. Such assessments enable more transparent and repeatable integration of monitoring data into MEE, which can promote evidence-based management and improve public accountability and reporting. We interviewed key informants from marine protected area (MPA) management agencies to investigate how scientific data sources, especially long-term biological monitoring data, are currently informing conservation management. Our study revealed that even when long-term monitoring results are available, management agencies are not using them for quantitative condition assessment in MEE. Instead, many agencies conduct qualitative condition assessments, where monitoring results are interpreted using expert judgment only. Whilst we found substantial evidence for the use of long-term monitoring data in the evidence-based management of MPAs, MEE is rarely the sole mechanism that facilitates the knowledge transfer of scientific evidence to management action. This suggests that the first goal of MEE (to enable environmental accountability and reporting) is being achieved, but the second and arguably more important goal of facilitating evidence-based management is not. Given that many MEE approaches are in their infancy, recommendations are made to assist management agencies realize the full potential of long-term quantitative monitoring data for protected area evaluation and evidence-based management.

Research to guide management of outdoor recreation and tourism in parks and protected areas

A framework for managing outdoor recreation and tourism in parks and protected areas was presented in this article. This management-by-objectives framework includes, (1) formulating indicators and standards of quality, (2) monitoring indicators of quality and (3) implementing management actions designed to maintain standards of quality. This management framework can be used to help balance the demand for outdoor recreation and tourism and the need to protect park resources and the quality of the visitor experience. A programme of research to help guide application of this management framework was described and illustrated. This research is part of a growing body of scientific and professional literature on outdoor recreation and tourism that can be used to build the capacity of park and protected area management agencies. Conservation implications: The management framework described in this article, and the associated programme of research, can be used by conservation practitioners to balance use and protection of national parks and protected areas.

Reconstructing Grazer Assemblages for Protected Area Restoration

Protected area management agencies often struggle to reliably reconstruct grazer assemblages due to a lack of historical distribution data for their regions. Wrong predictions of grazing assemblages could potentially affect biodiversity negatively. The objective of the study was to determine how well grazing herbivores have become established since introduction to the Mkambati Nature Reserve, South Africa, how this was influenced by facilitation and competition, and how indigenous grazer assemblages can best be predicted for effective ecological restoration. Population trends of several grazing species were investigated in in order to determine how well they have become established since introduction. Five different conceivable grazing assemblages reflecting a range of approaches that are commonly encountered during conservation planning and management decision making were assessed. Species packing was used to predict whether facilitation, competition or co-existence were more likely to occur, and the species packing of the different assemblages were assessed using ANCOVA. Reconstructing a species assemblage using biogeographic and biological information provides the opportunity for a grazer assemblage that allows for facilitatory effects, which in turn leads to an ecosystem that is able to maintain its grazer assemblage structure. The strength of this approach lies in the ability to overcome the problem of depauperate grazer assemblages, resulting from a lack of historical data, by using biogeographical and biological processes, to assist in more effectively reconstructing grazer assemblages. Adaptive management of grazer assemblage restoration through reintroduction, using this approach would further mitigate management risks.

Delivering formal outdoor learning in protected areas: a case study of Scottish Natural Heritage National Nature Reserves

In most countries, protected area management agencies provide formal outdoor learning opportunities for a wide range of educational groups. For high-quality formal outdoor learning programmes that provide a range of experiences to be effectively delivered, specific resources and infrastructure are needed. Using the case study of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), this study sought to explore issues surrounding the planning and delivery of outdoor learning programmes in outdoor settings. Semi-structured qualitative interviews with education officers employed by five Scottish heritage agencies were undertaken. Based on the interview data, a set of criteria were developed that need to be met to effectively deliver outdoor learning in protected areas such as SNH National Nature Reserves (NNRs). The criteria can also be used to strategically identify and prioritise areas or sites for formal outdoor learning purposes. These criteria were then applied to SNH NNRs to identify and prioritise reserves for formal outdoor learning. The study identified a range of factors that need to be addressed in the planning and delivery of formal outdoor learning programmes and a set of criteria that need to be met to effectively deliver formal outdoor learning programmes in outdoor settings such as protected areas.

Shengtai Anquan: Managing Tourism and Environment in China’s Forest Parks

Protected area management agencies worldwide face a continuing dilemma over the role of tourism and recreation (Buckley 2009; Schmitt et al. 2009). Most parks face external threats from invasive species, illegal use, fire, and pollution. Parks agencies need funds to manage these threats, and governments require them to raise part of their revenue from visitors, who also create impacts. Parks agencies, therefore, balance internal threats from increased recreation, against its role in contributing funds and political capital to counter external threats. Recreation can include commercial tourism operations, and in some public lands this may include large-scale fixed-site facilities, such as ski resorts on US Forests Service land (Buckley 2009a, b).

Media in the Previsit Stage of the Tourist Experience: Port Campbell National Park

In the past 50 years there has been an enormous expansion in the number and types of protectedarea users. This has increased physical pressures on protected areas, and created perceptual impacts for visitors. Importantly, the role of the media in promoting and providing expectations can also be used as a tool to manage potential impacts. Within this context, research was undertaken at Port Campbell National Park (PCNP), Victoria, Australia. Implementing this study not only created awareness of the varied information sources visitor decisions were based on, but also provided valuable insights into the role of the media in the management of expectations. Results indicated that users obtain information from four sources, creating a complex user image and management scenario. An analysis of visitor expectations of the facilities and services at PCNP indicated that induced image sources created inflated expectations of functional attributes. Practical implications are provided for protected area management agencies on the importance of using the media as a tool in the previsit experience, to enhance overall satisfaction. Importantly, creating presite images of functional attributes of parks, in induced information sources, may have important positive implications for overall user satisfaction.

The status of protected area management evaluation in Australia and implications for its future

Evaluation of protected area management in Australia has been driven by public sector reporting requirements and concern to improve management performance. This review of the status of management evaluation in large protected area management agencies reveals considerable variability in effort applied to evaluation, with emphasis being given to context and planning for management and outcomes of management as it affects valued resources. Agencies have largely adopted best practice principles in making assessments, but are not comprehensive in assessing all parts of the management cycle. The current emphasis may serve reporting requirements, but does not provide information and links that can assist in identifying the factors that affect achievement (or otherwise) of desired management outcomes. This constrains capacity to adopt an adaptive management approach to park management based on management effectiveness evaluations.

Factors Facilitating and Inhibiting the Use of Research to Inform Interpretation Practice: A Case Study of Australian Protected Area Management Agencies

ABSTRACT Interpretation research can be and is used to inform and improve interpretation policymaking and planning undertaken by practitioners such as those who work for Australian protected area management (PAM) agencies. This study explores perceptions of the extent to which interpretation research is undertaken and used by these agencies, and the facilitators and constraints to doing so. In-depth telephone interviews were conducted with senior interpretation planners and managers in all Australian PAM agencies. The findings indicate that interpretation research is usually prompted by a crisis or a short-term need such as a specific project and that most research is site-specific and content-focused, while respondents see a need for more longitudinal and evaluation-focused research. Two-thirds of the respondents reported that their agency made poor or no use of research findings for improving interpretation practice. Stated barriers to undertaking and using research included lack of funding, lack of time and that research was not considered an agency priority. Underpinning these were perceptions consistent with diffusion of innovation theory (e.g., that doing or using research is perceived as being too complex, not compatible with agency goals or not offering relative advantage). Strategies for removing these perceptual barriers to undertaking and using interpretation research and research findings are presented.

Monitoring for management of conservation and recreation in Australian protected areas

Protected areas are key to conservation of biodiversity, and Australia is one of the world’s megadiverse regions. Monitoring programs provide the information to assess the state of conservation resources, the severity of threats and the success of management responses. Here we compare the management priorities, monitoring priorities and actual monitoring practices of protected area management agencies in Australia, using four sets of data at continental scale and five at a more restricted regional scale. We track changes over a period of several years and focus at successively finer levels of detail. At both continental and regional scales, most management plans emphasise fire, invasive species and visitor management; and most monitoring programmes refer to visitor numbers and impacts as well as species and ecosystems. There is only a weak match, however, between reported management priorities and actual monitoring programmes; and the effectiveness of management responses is rarely monitored. The level of detail in visitor monitor programmes varies considerably: most parks count visitors, but few know what those visitors do. Threats from fire and invasive species receive more attention that those from recreation. At regional scale, the proportion of parks with defined monitoring programmes and priorities increased significantly from 2003/2004 to 2006/2007. Whilst only a proportion of protected areas monitor endangered species populations, for those that do this is the parameter reported in most detail, with many parks reporting single records of single individuals. Some parks also maintain anecdotal records of rare species outside routine monitoring programs.

The status of protected area management evaluation in Australia and implications for its future

Evaluation of protected area management in Australia has been driven by public sector reporting requirements and concern to improve management performance. This review of the status of management evaluation in large protected area management agencies reveals considerable variability in effort applied to evaluation, with emphasis being given to context and planning for management and outcomes of management as it affects valued resources. Agencies have largely adopted best practice principles in making assessments, but are not comprehensive in assessing all parts of the management cycle. The current emphasis may serve reporting requirements, but does not provide information and links that can assist in identifying the factors that affect achievement (or otherwise) of desired management outcomes. This constrains capacity to adopt an adaptive management approach to park management based on management effectiveness evaluations.

Research Note: Optimizing Economic Returns from Protected Area Tourism — Tourism-Related Income and Expenditure Trends of the Department of Conservation, New Zealand

Increasing visitor numbers have been identified as a contributor to the financial stress experienced by many protected area management agencies. This research note reports on a study of the income and expenditure of the Department of Conservation in New Zealand – the country's protected area manager and arguably its largest tourist operator. Income and expenditure data are analysed in relation to visitation to protected areas in New Zealand for the ten-year period 1992–2002. The findings reveal that income from tourism-related sources is very low, despite the increasing volumes of visitors. An argument is presented for enhancing visitor-sourced income, particularly from international visitors.

Partnerships in ecotourism: Australian political frameworks

AbstractConservation interests hope to use tourism as a tool in conservation, whereas tourism interests want to use conservation as a tool in tourism development. Both promote partnerships, but with different political aims. In federated nations such as Australia, this involves industry associations and government agencies in different jurisdictions as well as different portfolios. There are several recent national‐scale initiatives in Australia. The Tourism in Australia's Protected Areas Forum, TAPAF, is an informal information exchange group between state protected area management agencies which also includes state government tourism representatives. TAPAF has promoted a Code of Practice for commercial tour operators in protected areas. Ecotourism Australia is an industry association which has promoted a Cairns Charter on Partnerships for Ecotourism. The National Tourism and Heritage Taskforce is the highest‐level consultative body, representing both industry and government, tourism and environment, federal and state levels. NTHT has produced a national strategy called Going Places, currently under implementation. The federal tourism portfolio has produced a somewhat conflicting document of its own, called Pursuing Common Goals. And the peak tourism industry association, formerly the Tourism Task Force and currently known as TTF Australia, is soon due to launch a report called Making National Parks a National Tourism Priority. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Draft Principles for Tourism in Protected Areas

Ecotourism businesses need accessible natural environments, and many of them are in national parks or other protected areas. But the parks were set up for conservation and public recreation, not tourism. So how should they deal with commercial tour operators? Market to them, keep them out, ignore them, licence them, change them, compete with them, restrict them, form partnerships with them? Or perhaps all of the above, in different times and places and circumstances? In practice the politics are complex, and different in every country, but the same issues arise repeatedly. So, do we need to start from scratch every time, or are there some basic principles which might apply generally? As an analogy, in the real estate rental business we don’t negotiate every lease from scratch – there are standard leases, and negotiations focus on period, rent and special conditions. Could we use a similar approach for tourism in parks? At the Australian Academy of Science Fenner Conference on Nature Tourism and the Environment in September 2001, I tried to formulate such principles as a starting point, so that we could proceed directly to technical discussion on ways and means. With tour operators, tourism agencies, park managers and academics all present, I tried to stick to the simplest, most unequivocal statements. ‘Commercial tour operators are legally different from members of the general public’, for example. That’s just a fact, right? But even these provoked controversy. So in the three months after the conference we compiled comments from all concerned, and reworked the first draft into the version below, where principles are separated from preamble. In Australia at present, this version is being debated within tourism associations and protected area management agencies, under the aegis of the Ecotourism Association of Australia’s Tourism and Protected Areas Forum. But the draft Principles apply worldwide, and where better to debate them than the Journal of Ecotourism? So we welcome your comments, and shall be glad to consider them for publication either in their entirety, in precis, or as part of a modified set of Principles.

Minimal-impact Guidelines For Mountain Ecotours

Many mountains have intensive tourism and recreation concentrated in small areas of high conservation value. Minimal-impact guidelines are one management tool, intended to reduce per capita impacts of commercial tour groups and the general public. Mountain ecotours include activities such as hiking and camping, skiing and snowboarding, climbing and abseiling, and rafting and kayaking. Some mountain tours also involve mountain bikes, pack or riding animals, or motorised vehicles. A range of minimal-impact guidelines are available for specific activities. Their effectiveness in reducing impacts has rarely been tested. Most of those available are aimed at individuals rather than tours. They are used widely by protected area management agencies in mountain areas.