Social and economic influences on restructuring rural landscapes for biodiversity conservation: Remnant vegetation in the West Australian wheatbelt as a case study

In Australia, biodiversity loss is a national concern, especially in agricultural landscapes such as the West Australian wheatbelt. Landscape restructuring offers a means of ameliorating such losses. If restructuring is to occur, the associated actions must match the ‘triple bottom line’, they must be economically gainful, socially adoptable and ecologically possible. This paper addresses one component of this bottom line, social influences. To further focus this discussion, remnant vegetation conservation, one important element of managing for biodiversity, is explored on private lands in the WA wheatbelt. The social influences on the landscapes of the WA wheatbelt are cultural, political and economic. History and attitudes can be considered key elements of culture. Historically, the WA wheatbelt has experienced a number of ‘waves’ of clearing of remnant vegetation, generally directed toward improving the nation’s agricultural production as well as populating rural areas. In terms of attitudes, the majority of landholders in the wheatbelt talk positively about nature conservation. Unfortunately, however, results from research in Australia and elsewhere indicates that the links between attitudes and behaviour are tenuous. In Australian agricultural areas behaviour is better predicted and influenced by landholders’ perceptions of environmental problems, the financial constraints they face, and the farming subculture to which they belong. Politically in Australia, the character of rural landscapes is predominantly influenced by state governments. In terms of economic influences, if a change is not economically viable, rural landholders will not make it. In Australia as elsewhere, governments seek to restructure rural landscapes through applying policy instruments. These are tools, generally used by government, to change how people behave. Instruments available to conserve remnant vegetation on private lands include motivational ones (eg, education, partnerships), financial (eg, subsidies), market-based (eg, tradeable rights), self-regulatory (eg, codes of practice) and regulatory (eg, regulations). Most are voluntary with current trends favouring such approaches. In particular, policy makers are interested in market-based and self-regulatory instruments, as both are perceived as righting current market failures. A question vexing policy makers and others is selecting the ‘best’ policy instrument(s) to achieve biodiversity conservation. Principles can be derived to help answer this question. Of central importance is selecting more than one instrument and making sure the instrument mix is complementary. Clearly identifying the property rights associated with remnant vegetation on private lands, and therefore who pays for and receives the associated costs and benefits, is also important. Crucial too is matching the policy instrument with the appropriate institution, whether it is Commonwealth, state or local government, industry, a community group or individual. And last, because regions and their landscapes have different legal, social and environmental features, different landscapes will require different policy mixes

What is the place of democracy in recreation ecology?

What should be monitored and who decides has been debated for as long as recreation ecology has been with us. The early work on planning frameworks advocates consulting with visitors to determine what conditions are important to them and then derive resource and social indicators from this information. Any associated standards are then similarly set with visitors’ input. At the same time, recreation ecologists have selected indicators that allow measurement and predictions regarding the relationships between resource and social conditions and levels of visitor use. Where are we now regarding these choices? A democratic perspective would argue that visitors should have significant influence on indicator selection and the standards that might accompany them. But what role does this leave for scientists and institutionally derived scientific knowledge in recreation ecology? In this paper I argue that we are morally and societally bound to embrace a democratic approach to recreation ecology with scientists and managers working with visitors, and others with a vested interest in protected areas, to develop ‘practical wisdom’ that can be evoked as a central tenet of recreation ecology

Importance-satisfaction analysis for marine-park hinterlands: A Western Australian case study

Tourist use of national and marine parks continues to increase worldwide. Effective management depends on being able to evaluate the quality of visitors' experiences, as well as protecting the natural environment. In tourism management, importance-performance analysis (IPA) has been used as part of quality management. It has recently been applied to national park management. This paper reconceptualises this analysis to one of importance satisfaction, enabling a focus on the quality of experience. Two methods, importanceperformance analysis and service quality gap, were modified and applied in the hinterland of Swan Estuary Marine Park in Western Australia. Both provided data useful for evaluating satisfaction, with the choice of method depending on the end user's resources and requirements as well as cognisance of each method's limitations. For most of the Marine Park attributes, satisfaction exceeded importance and hence no management attention is needed. Exceptions were the condition of the Swan River and associated footpaths, and the presence of litter and wildlife. For these, satisfaction was lower than importance, suggesting management attention is needed

Wildlife tourism, science and actor network theory

Wildlife tourism is an important component of tourism worldwide. However, for many species little is known about the possible impacts from tourist-wildlife interactions. Previous research has identified barriers to such science being undertaken but this science-wildlife tourism interface remains poorly understood. Actor-network theory, with its attention to the actors and relationships that make science possible, was used to describe and analyze the development and decline of scientific research into the effects of tourism on wildlife in the Antarctic region. This study concludes that actor-network theory provides a robust description of the complex role and positioning of science in wildlife tourism, while at the same time suggesting that further attention to actors' relative power and scientists' normative beliefs are essential elements of analysis

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

Monitoring wilderness as a social value in WA marine parks

This report reviews global and Australian approaches to defining ‘wilderness’ values and determines their relevance for use by the WA Department of Parks and Wildlife. It also recommends operational protocols for characterising, measuring and monitoring ‘wilderness’ with respect to the condition-pressure-response framework of the current Western Australian Marine Monitoring Program

Camping in WA National Parks: Visitors’ experiences and perceptions.

This report presents the findings of an interview--‐based study undertaken of campers’ experiences in two Western Australian national parks: Warren National Park and Karijini National Park. The overall aim of the study was to describe and analyse the desired and realised experiences of these campers and explore the meanings that campers attributed to these experiences. This report also describes the characteristics of these camping visitors, their perceptions of management and their opinions regarding camping in national parks compared with caravan parks