How do we use systems thinking in the turbulent world of outdoor recreation and tourism?

And why would we want to learn systems thinking to improve our actions in dealing with outdoor recreation and tourism? These questions are the basis for a newly published article in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism written by myself, and based on years of experience working with wildland managers, planners and scientists. After all, learning systems thinking is not the easiest thing to do, and applying it is probably more difficult too.

Well, as I noted many times before, the world is turbulent and changing. I should note here that the world has always been changing, but the pace and type of change is itself always changing. So change is not new, but COVID has been a dramatic showcase of change, and academically, a good demonstration of the presence of change. Using systems thinking is key to understanding this change, and then what to do about it. Systems thinking avoids the immediate reaction of many managers and tourism destination administrators to find simplistic approaches, which are often called “solutions” to the results of underlying change. In a period of dramatic change, we don’t solve problems (arrive at solutions), but we resolve them (come to agreement as to how we can resolve the problem for the time being, because we know the context is constantly changing (note: there is a reference to this, but I cant find this).

So the manuscript is worth a quick read, and then reflection on what it says. The article is available for free until February 25, 2022 at https://nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fauthors.elsevier.com%2Fa%2F1eNBT7tCXXJK-n&data=04%7C01%7Cstephen.mccool%40umontana.edu%7Cf2a35892988b42594e2508d9d117a763%7C68407ce503da49ffaf0a724be0d37c9d%7C0%7C0%7C637770722882145280%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=xAMAmYmkON%2FokCdVvtmUyVf5Cf1P2fLkPJAmlxSydQo%3D&reserved=0.