Using complex adaptive systems to investigate Aboriginal-tourism relationships in Purnululu National Park: exploring the role of capital

Resource management systems such as national parks are complex and dynamic with strong interdependencies between their human and ecological components. Their management has become more difficult as scale, impacts and consequences have increased and local communities have become increasingly involved. Increasing pressures from tourism have added to this management complexity. Complex adaptive systems thinking, and especially the metaphor of the adaptive cycle (Holling 2001), can potentially enhance our understanding of these resource systems, including national parks. The concept of the adaptive cycle can help understand changes over time in a system such as a national park

The impacts of tourism on two communities adjacent to the Kruger National Park, South Africa

This paper explores the socioeconomic impacts of tourism associated with the Kruger National Park, South Africa's flagship national park, on the neighbouring villages of Cork and Belfast. Case study research, where the study area was characterised as a social-ecological system, was used to investigate the impacts of Park tourism on these communities. The findings offer a micro-scale, local community perspective of these impacts and indicate that the enclave nature of Park tourism keeps local communities separate from the Park and makes it hard for them to benefit from it. The paper concludes with reflections on this perceived separation, and suggests the need to make the Park boundaries more 'permeable' so as to improve relationships with adjacent communities, while also pragmatically managing community expectation

Using resilience concepts to investigate the impacts of protected area tourism on communities

Protected area tourism is a growing trend worldwide. It has an enormous potential to impact on local communities. Traditional assessment methods tend to focus on current conditions using sustainability indicators that are often poorly chosen resulting in the misidentification and misinterpretation of impacts. Research in systems thinking and resilience suggest that future conditions may be different, more extreme and rapidly changing than previously experienced, requiring very different approaches to assessment. New methods acknowledging uncertainty and change are required. Here we present a novel approach to investigating the impacts of protected area tourism on communities by framing them as a social-ecological system and adopting resilience assessment principles