Managing Visitor Impacts in Parks: Part II

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Managing Visitor Impacts in ParksPart II A
Survey of Visitor Response to Alternative
Management Practices

• Logan Park
• Graduate Research Assistant
• University of Vermont/Virginia Tech University
• Robert Manning
• Park Studies Laboratory
• University of Vermont
• Jeff Marion
• Steve Lawson
• Department of Forestry
• Virginia Tech University
• Charlie Jacobi
• Resources Specialist/Visitor Use
• Acadia National Park

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Research Questions

• General
• How can the environmental (and associated
  social) impacts of visitor use be managed?
• Specific
• What management practices are most effective at
  encouraging visitors to stay on official,
  maintained trails?
• Why are some management practices more effective
  than others?
• How do management practices influence the
  thinking and behavior of visitors?
• How acceptable do visitors find alternative
  management practices?

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Theories of Visitor Management
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Theories of Visitor Management

• Strategic purpose of management practices

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Theories of Visitor Management

• Strategic purpose of management practices
• Direct versus indirect management practices

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Theories of Visitor Management

• Strategic purpose of management practices
• Direct versus indirect management practices
• Potential effectiveness of information/education

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Application of Information/Education to
Recreation Management Problems
Adapted from Hendee et al. 1990, Roggenbuck 1992,
and Vander Stoep and Roggenbuck 1996.
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Theories of Visitor Management

• Strategic purpose of management practices
• Direct versus indirect management practices
• Potential effectiveness of information/education
• Stages of moral development

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Stages of moral development.
(From Christenson and Dustin 1989.)
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Theories of Visitor Management

• Strategic purpose of management practices
• Direct versus indirect management practices
• Potential effectiveness of information/education
• Levels of moral development
• Communication theory

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Communication Theory

• Applied behavior analysis
• Central route to persuasion
• Peripheral route to persuasion

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Study Methods

• Visitor survey
• Administered during control 1 and treatments 1-4
• Random selection at end of visit
• Response rate of 71.7
• Sample size of 590 completed questionnaires
  (ranging from 100 to 161 for the control and
  treatments)

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Primary Study Variables

• Whether or not visitors reported walking
  off-trail
• Why they did or didnt walk off-trail
• Whether they noticed a) the study treatments and
  b) the environmental impacts caused by walking
  off-trail
• How the treatments affected their
  decision-making/behavior
• The degree to which visitors supported or opposed
  a range of management practices

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The Sample

• Nearly evenly split between males (51.8) and
  females (48.2)
• Highly educated (69.9 had earned a college or
  graduate degree)
• Middle-aged (59.2 between 40 and 60 years old)

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Percentage of visitors walking off-trail as
self-reported by respondents and through
observation.
off-trail total for the fencing treatment /
off-trail within extent of fencing (first 50m of
trail)
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Reasons for walking off-trail
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Reasons for walking off-trail.
Data are percentage of respondents who agreed
with each statement.
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Reasons for not walking off-trail.
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Respondent awareness of management practices.
Data are percentage of respondents who reported
they were aware of these management practices
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Visitor awareness and assessment of damage to
soil and vegetation.
Data are percentage of respondents who were
aware of damage and percentage of respondents
who rated this damage as minor, moderate, or
severe.
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Acceptability of management practices.
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Acceptability of management practices (continued)
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Discussion

• Visitors underreported walking off-trail
• Treatments tended to reduce walking off-trail
  (but probably not enough)
• Important reasons for walking off-trail include
• exploring and photos
• walking around other visitors who are blocking
  the trail
• illegal and unavoidable reasons
• careless, unskilled, uninformed reasons
• insensitivity to environmental issues
• Visitors are operating on a range of moral planes
• Increasing acceptance of management practices
  after their implementation

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Conclusions

• It is unlikely that indirect management practices
  (e.g., information/education) will satisfactorily
  solve the problem of visitors walking off-trail
• We recommend an integrated suite of direct and
  indirect management practices that includes
• Regulation that visitors remain on the official
  trail
• Presence of uniformed rangers (as needed) to
  enforce this regulation
• Symbolic fencing along the trail
• Redesign of summit loop trail
• Extend it
• Widen it in strategic places
• Addition of spurs to photo points

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Conclusions (continued)

• Aggressive information/education
• Inform visitors of regulation and reason for it
• Identification of appropriate areas for
  exploration
• This type of management program should be tested
  for its effectiveness
• A holistic analysis of the carrying capacity of
  the summit should be conducted
• An emerging principle of park and outdoor
  recreation management is that intensive visitor
  use requires intensive management

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Conclusions (continued)

• We believe that the multiple research methods
  used in this study (experimentation, observation,
  visitor surveys) were complementary and
  reinforcing
• More research is needed on the efficacy of park
  and outdoor recreation management practices