Tourism and Protected Areas -- A Symbiotic Link

Nearly every one of the more than 112,000 nationally designated protected areas in the world receives some visits from people seeking to appreciate and enjoy the biophysical attributes of the place. The enormous visitation to the world protected areas is indicative of the value of these places to humanity. Yet, often the level and type of visitation may threaten the natural capital in the protected area, the services this capital provides and benefits--broadly defined--that flow from them.

Tourism is thus frequently viewed as a threat to protected areas. In my opinion, it is a threat because it is not managed appropriately. Agencies often fail to control, guide or influence visitor behavior or the tourism industry.

But tourism can also be viewed as a source of political and social support and as a source of income for management. Tourism activity may provide incentives for those concerned about loss of access to resources within the protected area. Tourism may help build pride in local places and cultures. Tourism can help visitors better understand connections with the natural world and build understanding of how humans impact their environment.

So, instead to responding to tourism in a knee-jerk way that it is a threat, perhaps we need to think and work our way through the interactions among tourism, protected areas and local communities. We need to think of this as a system of interconnecting parts and how we can optimize the functioning of this system.

On another note, some of you may wish to have more background on me. Well, the University of Montana still maintains my web page there, as I am actually Professor Emeritus on the faculty. You can find my web page at http://www.cfc.umt.edu/PersonnelDetail.aspx?id=1144.

If you are interested in considering alternative frameworks for managing tourism and visitors in protected areas, you migh want to download the publication "An Assessment of Frameworks Useful for Public Land Recreation Planning". I was one of the co-authors. It is available here: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr705.pdf.