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Challenges for outdoor recreation and nature based tourism
Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism 1-2 (2013) iii–iv
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jort
Editorial
Challenges for outdoor recreation and nature based tourism
The importance of outdoor recreation and nature based tourism to society has increased tremendously over the past few decades. Both are significantly influenced by societal, ecological and economic trends. Research and professional work in outdoor recreation draws from many academic disciplines such as forestry, geography, landscape planning, biology and conservation, sociology, psychology, sport science, tourism, economics and many others. At the same time, outdoor recreation and nature based tourism both are positioned at the fringe of respective disciplines. Consequently, publications on outdoor recreation topics are scattered over many journals and publications. With this new journal we would like to provide a joint forum and showcase the plurality of outdoor recreation research in a manner that is relevant to planning and management, and that is international in scope. On these opening pages of the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism (JORT), we would like to explain our vision for JORT, and structure the discussion around some major research and management challenges.
1. Environmental challenges A long-standing concern of outdoor recreation management is the avoidance of impacts on the environment. Several research directions, such as recreation ecology, address these concerns. The purpose of management frameworks is to direct the development of recreation and nature based tourism in a sustainable manner. In this issue, the contribution by Harshaw and Sheppard illustrates the use of the recreation opportunity spectrum to forecast possible conflicts between forestry and recreation over an entire forest rotation period in a Canadian landscape. The discussion paper by McCool et al. will hopefully spark further exchanges on the management of protected areas. Many new tasks in outdoor recreation management continue to emerge because of new national and international initiatives to protect biodiversity. In Europe, for example, outdoor recreation and nature based tourism have encountered conflicts with Natura 2000 sites when developing new infrastructure or organizing events. The mandated ‘avoidance of significant deterioration’ from too intensive use or non-use, the consideration of special protected species and the discussion around adequate contractual or other forms of protection constitute typical challenges associated with conservation issues. Similar requirements apply worldwide. Furthermore, discussions about new wilderness and protected areas may influence future land use and recreational opportunities in positive as well as negative manners. Climate change represents new challenges as it might lead to changing landscapes, changing environmental conditions for 2213-0780/$ - see front matter & 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2013.05.001
outdoor recreation and tourism opportunities, changing experiences and satisfaction. Climate change is expected to significantly affect the visual quality of many landscapes and might influence their value for recreation. Both direct and indirect effects of climate change are also expected to influence recreation behavior and destination choice. Lack of snow, a loss of glaciers and permafrost regions and an increase of extreme events will lead to negative consequences for nature based tourism and recreation. Changing recreation and tourism opportunities also affect economic opportunities. Climate change adaptation as well as the effects of adaptation strategies will be one of many subjects discussed in this journal.
2. Societal challenges Outdoor recreation will mirror societal trends, which will inevitably influence outdoor recreation and nature based tourism in the future. Most developed countries are irreversibly facing an aging society, inevitably leading to various changes in demand. Providing open access for elderly and an increasing number of disabled user groups constitutes a future challenge for the management of outdoor recreation facilities and nature based tourism. General participation trends, based on regional or national surveys provide new insights about changing demands. Boman et al. illustrate such an application for the Swedish population. Increasing urbanization requires differentiated management of the surrounding open space, its parks and forests. Recreational infrastructure in these areas needs to be adapted for diverse urban and non-urban user groups. Recent research shows that vandalism on one hand and health or benefits for socially discriminated people on the other hand all must be considered by future management. Continuing international migration will require the investigation of ethnic influences and their detailed consideration in management. Some new insights in this area of investigation are provided by the contribution of Covelli-Metcalf et al., and also Budruk and Stanis-Wilhelm. New research opportunities will emerge in social science research to solve conflicts between user groups and stakeholders, to adapt tourism and recreation infrastructure and to develop successful new nature based tourism and recreation products.
3. Political and economic challenges Political and economic conditions influence outdoor recreation and nature based tourism development. Recently new legislation has opened more private land to access for recreation purposes in
iv
Editorial / Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism 1-2 (2013) iii–iv
Great Britain. Especially the accessibility to land constitutes an important subject and will be addressed in this journal, as currently by Vistad et al. Outdoor recreation and nature based tourism are also perceived as contributing to economic welfare and prospectives for rural areas. Many peripheral areas are facing depopulation and lack social services, public transport and jobs with a higher qualification. Tourism is perceived as one possible concept to revitalize these peripheral areas. Global trends in camping, which is one typical offer in rural and natural areas worldwide, are described by Brooker and Jopper. Finally, a brief scan of political trends shows an increasing demand for an economic justification and evaluation of recreational benefits, needs and demands. In a political context, positive effects of cultural landscapes, parks or forests on outdoor recreation and nature based tourism are only taken into consideration if their effect on regional development and local income can be proven. Job and Praesler discuss the relationship between naturebased tourism in parks and its effects on poverty alleviation in an African context.
4. Methodological challenges In addition to these thematic challenges we perceive an increasing need to strengthen integrated methodological approaches by combining ecological, social and economic aspects. Respective methods, such as coupled social–ecological models, support the decision making processes and provide insights into the required trade-offs. In this context innovative concepts, transdisciplinary planning methods, new theoretical applications and resilient management approaches are highly requested. Amazing new opportunities are driven by recent technological advances. Smart phones, GPS-devices and the use of social media open
the door for new monitoring techniques and management tools. Tracking opportunities will influence research and will provoke the discussion about its potential for simulation and additional modeling but also the ethical use of these sources for data collection.
5. Vision Given these versatile challenges we saw the need for this new journal. We hope to address the requirements of research, planning and management providing three types of submissions. In addition to the traditional research paper, reporting on original research embedded in state-of-the art theory and methods, we would also invite research notes and discussion papers. Research notes also present research findings, but are shorter, more pragmatic and to the point. Discussion papers review one research field, likely from a specific point of view, and may highlight controversial aspects. They may serve as a basis for an exchange of opinion. One important motivation for starting a new journal was the perceived need of outdoor recreation managers to obtain research based information that is relevant to them. As a novel feature, each research paper published in JORT contains a short abstract with ‘Management Implication’. We are very grateful for the continuous support from our international Editorial Board, who supported this endeavor from the beginning and ensures a truly international character of the journal. We invite the entire research community active in outdoor recreation and nature based tourism research to consider a submission to JORT.
Editors-in-Chief Ulrike Pröbstl, Wolfgang Haider
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jort
Editorial
Challenges for outdoor recreation and nature based tourism
The importance of outdoor recreation and nature based tourism to society has increased tremendously over the past few decades. Both are significantly influenced by societal, ecological and economic trends. Research and professional work in outdoor recreation draws from many academic disciplines such as forestry, geography, landscape planning, biology and conservation, sociology, psychology, sport science, tourism, economics and many others. At the same time, outdoor recreation and nature based tourism both are positioned at the fringe of respective disciplines. Consequently, publications on outdoor recreation topics are scattered over many journals and publications. With this new journal we would like to provide a joint forum and showcase the plurality of outdoor recreation research in a manner that is relevant to planning and management, and that is international in scope. On these opening pages of the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism (JORT), we would like to explain our vision for JORT, and structure the discussion around some major research and management challenges.
1. Environmental challenges A long-standing concern of outdoor recreation management is the avoidance of impacts on the environment. Several research directions, such as recreation ecology, address these concerns. The purpose of management frameworks is to direct the development of recreation and nature based tourism in a sustainable manner. In this issue, the contribution by Harshaw and Sheppard illustrates the use of the recreation opportunity spectrum to forecast possible conflicts between forestry and recreation over an entire forest rotation period in a Canadian landscape. The discussion paper by McCool et al. will hopefully spark further exchanges on the management of protected areas. Many new tasks in outdoor recreation management continue to emerge because of new national and international initiatives to protect biodiversity. In Europe, for example, outdoor recreation and nature based tourism have encountered conflicts with Natura 2000 sites when developing new infrastructure or organizing events. The mandated ‘avoidance of significant deterioration’ from too intensive use or non-use, the consideration of special protected species and the discussion around adequate contractual or other forms of protection constitute typical challenges associated with conservation issues. Similar requirements apply worldwide. Furthermore, discussions about new wilderness and protected areas may influence future land use and recreational opportunities in positive as well as negative manners. Climate change represents new challenges as it might lead to changing landscapes, changing environmental conditions for 2213-0780/$ - see front matter & 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2013.05.001
outdoor recreation and tourism opportunities, changing experiences and satisfaction. Climate change is expected to significantly affect the visual quality of many landscapes and might influence their value for recreation. Both direct and indirect effects of climate change are also expected to influence recreation behavior and destination choice. Lack of snow, a loss of glaciers and permafrost regions and an increase of extreme events will lead to negative consequences for nature based tourism and recreation. Changing recreation and tourism opportunities also affect economic opportunities. Climate change adaptation as well as the effects of adaptation strategies will be one of many subjects discussed in this journal.
2. Societal challenges Outdoor recreation will mirror societal trends, which will inevitably influence outdoor recreation and nature based tourism in the future. Most developed countries are irreversibly facing an aging society, inevitably leading to various changes in demand. Providing open access for elderly and an increasing number of disabled user groups constitutes a future challenge for the management of outdoor recreation facilities and nature based tourism. General participation trends, based on regional or national surveys provide new insights about changing demands. Boman et al. illustrate such an application for the Swedish population. Increasing urbanization requires differentiated management of the surrounding open space, its parks and forests. Recreational infrastructure in these areas needs to be adapted for diverse urban and non-urban user groups. Recent research shows that vandalism on one hand and health or benefits for socially discriminated people on the other hand all must be considered by future management. Continuing international migration will require the investigation of ethnic influences and their detailed consideration in management. Some new insights in this area of investigation are provided by the contribution of Covelli-Metcalf et al., and also Budruk and Stanis-Wilhelm. New research opportunities will emerge in social science research to solve conflicts between user groups and stakeholders, to adapt tourism and recreation infrastructure and to develop successful new nature based tourism and recreation products.
3. Political and economic challenges Political and economic conditions influence outdoor recreation and nature based tourism development. Recently new legislation has opened more private land to access for recreation purposes in
iv
Editorial / Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism 1-2 (2013) iii–iv
Great Britain. Especially the accessibility to land constitutes an important subject and will be addressed in this journal, as currently by Vistad et al. Outdoor recreation and nature based tourism are also perceived as contributing to economic welfare and prospectives for rural areas. Many peripheral areas are facing depopulation and lack social services, public transport and jobs with a higher qualification. Tourism is perceived as one possible concept to revitalize these peripheral areas. Global trends in camping, which is one typical offer in rural and natural areas worldwide, are described by Brooker and Jopper. Finally, a brief scan of political trends shows an increasing demand for an economic justification and evaluation of recreational benefits, needs and demands. In a political context, positive effects of cultural landscapes, parks or forests on outdoor recreation and nature based tourism are only taken into consideration if their effect on regional development and local income can be proven. Job and Praesler discuss the relationship between naturebased tourism in parks and its effects on poverty alleviation in an African context.
4. Methodological challenges In addition to these thematic challenges we perceive an increasing need to strengthen integrated methodological approaches by combining ecological, social and economic aspects. Respective methods, such as coupled social–ecological models, support the decision making processes and provide insights into the required trade-offs. In this context innovative concepts, transdisciplinary planning methods, new theoretical applications and resilient management approaches are highly requested. Amazing new opportunities are driven by recent technological advances. Smart phones, GPS-devices and the use of social media open
the door for new monitoring techniques and management tools. Tracking opportunities will influence research and will provoke the discussion about its potential for simulation and additional modeling but also the ethical use of these sources for data collection.
5. Vision Given these versatile challenges we saw the need for this new journal. We hope to address the requirements of research, planning and management providing three types of submissions. In addition to the traditional research paper, reporting on original research embedded in state-of-the art theory and methods, we would also invite research notes and discussion papers. Research notes also present research findings, but are shorter, more pragmatic and to the point. Discussion papers review one research field, likely from a specific point of view, and may highlight controversial aspects. They may serve as a basis for an exchange of opinion. One important motivation for starting a new journal was the perceived need of outdoor recreation managers to obtain research based information that is relevant to them. As a novel feature, each research paper published in JORT contains a short abstract with ‘Management Implication’. We are very grateful for the continuous support from our international Editorial Board, who supported this endeavor from the beginning and ensures a truly international character of the journal. We invite the entire research community active in outdoor recreation and nature based tourism research to consider a submission to JORT.
Editors-in-Chief Ulrike Pröbstl, Wolfgang Haider