The Density of Beaver, Castor canadensis, Activities along Camrose Creek, Alberta, within Differing Habitats and Management Intensity Levels

Beaver (Castor canadensis) occupy a variety of habitats in North America, but prefer Aspen (Populus tremuloides) and willow (Salix spp.) for food and construction materials. Beaver landforms, such as dams, can cause many problems for landowners, resulting in varied management efforts, such as dam dismantling and Beaver removal. The goal of this study was to compare the density of Beaver activity along Camrose Creek, Alberta, among a variety of habitats and management intensities. Along this 35 km creek there were an average of 0.46 food caches/km, 0.57 lodges/km, and 3.06 dams/km (of which 1.66/km were altered by people and 1.40/km were unaltered). There were more caches, lodges, and unaltered dams in Trembling Aspen forests compared to other habitats. Areas with some management had more food caches and either altered or unaltered dams than areas with no management

Healthy Outside-Healthy Inside: The Human Health & Well-being Benefits of Alberta\u27s Protected Areas - towards a benefits-based management agenda

This report details the results of an empirical study that examined perceived health and well-being motives and benefits among visitors to a sample of Alberta’s parks and protected areas. The study revealed several major findings with important policy and management implications. First, the human health and well-being benefits that the visitors expected to receive from visits were perceived to be a major personal motivation in the choice to visit Alberta protected areas. The most important motivation factors identified by respondents were psychological and emotional well-being (89.1% of visitors ranked this important), social well-being (88.3%), physical well-being (80.3%), and environmental well-being (79.4%). Second, the perceived benefits that visitors received from their protected areas experiences were substantial. The most frequently reported improvements were related to psychological and emotional (90.5%), social (85%), and physical well-being (77.6%). Interestingly, women perceived greater benefits than men associated with their visit, especially with respect to spiritual, social, and psychological and emotional well-being. Research findings substantiate the need for park agencies to better understand the motivations of visitors representing different social and population subgroups (e.g., youth, elderly, couples, etc.) in order to inform and develop policies and visitor experience programs in support of health and well-being related pursuits. Important policy and management implications for both park managers and health care professionals are highlighted

International Aviculturists Society

French version available in IDRC Digital Library: Écotourisme dans le nord de la Thailand

International Aviculturists Society

Version anglaise disponible dans la Bibliothèque numérique du CRDI : Ecotourism in Northern Thailan

Protected Areas and Sustainable Forest Management: What Are We Talking About?

Recent research investigating the relationship between protected areas and sustainable forest management has revealed the need for clarity of language if cooperation is to move forward. Here, we develop a parallel framework to compare the concepts of protected areas and sustainable forest management. We address the challenge inherent in the concept of protected areas as places and sustainable forest management as a process or paradigm. Our framework outlines dominant values, management paradigms, and terms for the places managed under each paradigm

Fostering Evidence-Informed Decision-Making for Protected Areas through the Alberta Parks Social Science Working Group

Since 2012, the Alberta Parks division in the Province of Alberta, Canada has been engaged in a process of building scientific, research, and evidence-informed capacity and practices across the parks system. Following a series of priority-setting workshops and agreements with the research, Parks management, and local communities, Alberta Parks has adopted a working group approach and subsequent framework, to support the research and decision-making goals of parks and protected areas management, and the research communities. This Social Science Framework is an innovative way to support evidence-informed decision-making in the public sphere by explicitly linking data-specific needs (benchmark data in social, natural, and applied sciences) with both established and emerging policy and research priorities. It is also a way to situate those needs within a broader goal of inter-organizational collaboration. This paper presents the background and developmental context to the framework, and its structure and desired functionality. The paper concludes with an assessment of the anticipated benefits and potential liabilities of this direction for linking academic and policy agents and organizations in a more formalized structure for environmental policy

The influence of bird information, attitudes, and demographics on public preferences toward urban green spaces: The case of Montpellier, France

International audienceUrban sprawl is a major driving force of land use change. To develop strategies for sustainable urban development,planners need suitable indicators, one of which is the quality and quantity of green spaces in a city. To implementconservation strategies for urban areas, an assessment of how people perceive green spaces is required. The aim of thispaper is to analyze: (1) willingness to contribute financially to two types of urban green spaces, (2) how people’sattitudinal and socio-economic characteristics affect this willingness, and (3) to what extent this willingness is affectedby the information that green spaces are important for avifauna conservation. We found that 72% of the respondentsin Montpellier, France preferred natural (versus ornamental) green spaces and wanted them to be increased in the city.To achieve this, 52% of the respondents were willing to pay a percentage of their monthly household income. Givinginformation about birds to residents increased their preferences (especially for those having a ‘‘favourable’’ attitude forurban fauna) for ‘‘natural’’ green spaces and increased willingness to pay for green spaces among people using greenspaces at least monthly. For people less concerned about nature, there was no such effect of providing bird informationon preferences for green spaces

Towards Mobilizing Knowledge for Effective Decision-Making in Parks and Protected Areas

In November 2017, over 15,000 scientists issued a second letter to humanity that outlines how we are “jeopardizing our future” by failing to protect key ecological systems [...

Towards Mobilizing Knowledge for Effective Decision-Making in Parks and Protected Areas

In November 2017, over 15,000 scientists issued a second letter to humanity that outlines how we are “jeopardizing our future” by failing to protect key ecological systems [...