Trust in Wildland Fire and Fuel Management Decisions

Public land managers are stewards of public lands and of the relationship between the public and these lands. Maintaining one aspect of this relationship, trust in the agency, can be challenging. Lack of trust can influence public response to management decisions, including about wildland fire use. By considering the factors that influence trust, managers can be more effective in accomplishing fire stewardship objectives

Describing Change in Visitors and Visits to the “Bob”

Understanding wilderness use and users is essential to wilderness management. However, there have only been a limited number of studies specifically designed to detect changes in use and user characteristics across time. Recreation use of the U.S. National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) has increased since its creation in 1964, along with many other changes in influences on society’s relationship with wilderness. This article describes a series of visitor trend studies at the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex in Montana, and identifies some of the challenges encountered in estimating long-term use and user trends

Exploring the Usefulness of the Dispositional Flow Scale for Outdoor Recreation Activities

The Dispositional Flow Scale (DFS), developed by Jackson et al. (1998), measures an individual’s dispositional tendency to experience flow, a psychological state of optimal experience originally conceptualized by Csikszentmihalyi in 1975. The DFS, developed in the realm of sports psychology, has primarily been used with participants of urban sports settings, such as: football, running, or tennis. This study explores the validity and reliability of applying the DFS to outdoor recreation activities. A stratified sample of 406 visitors to the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex in Montana was contacted during the summer of 2004. A survey response rate of 74 percent was achieved with on-site contact, mail back questionnaires, follow-up reminder postcards, and replacement mailing. The primary activities reported were hiking, horseback riding, and fishing. Results from confirmatory factor analysis, a special application of structural equation modeling, confirm that the DFS displays a satisfactory level of validity and reliability when applied to these activities

Effective Recreation Visitor Communication Strategies: Rock Climbers in the Bitterroot Valley, Montana

A four-stage model o f decisionmaking was investigated in the context o f low-impact practices among rock climbers in the Bitterroot Valley o f Montana. Previous research has suggested that knowing what to do to minimize environmental and social impacts m ay not be the only factor limiting compliance with recommended visitor behaviors. Results from a sample o f climbers at Kootenai Creek indicate that the way people are introduced to the sport has an important influence on attitudes toward low-impact practices. Significant differences were found between those who learned to rock climb indoors and those who learned to rock climb outdoors, as well as between those who were introduced to the sport o f climbing with fixed anchors versus those introduced with removable climbing equipment. Summary recommendations for effective natural resource com munications focus not just on what visitors are being asked to do, but also when, why, and how it is socially appropriate for them to do so

Approaches to Measuring Quality of the Wilderness Experience

Wilderness is a special place that provides opportunity for unique and profound experiences. An essential task for the maintenance of these recreational opportunities is the definition and monitoring of experience quality. Four approaches to the measurement of the wilderness experience have developed in over 30 years of research: satisfaction approaches (which focus on evaluation of onsite conditions), benefits-based approaches (focusing on psychological outcomes), experience-based approaches (describing cognitive states experienced in wilderness), and meanings-based approaches (documenting socially constructed meanings ascribed to the experience). Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses. Given that the wilderness experience is a multifaceted phenomenon, it is not surprising that no single method adequately serves the needs of managers trying to preserve the quality of the wilderness experience in the context of rising use density levels. However, a linear and direct relationship between use density conditions and experiential quality should not be assumed