Page 94 - A bird’s-eye view of recreation - Rogier Pouwels
P. 94

 A bird's-eye view of recreation
with changes in the landscape for species that already flourish. We did expect effects of pilot actions on population of Woodlark (Lullula arborea). However, this species is breeding at large parking lots because the vegetation structure is optimal habitat. It would be very difficult to convince stakeholders that Woodlarks are affected by visitors. Therefore managers and stakeholders had to choose other indicator species. The chosen wader species are also expected to be sensitive to recreation disturbance and we found a large overlap in suitable habitats and recreational use. Managers were also interested in these species because large restoration projects had not resulted in increasing numbers yet.
Most scientific research on recreation disturbance focuses on walkers and dog owners. There is little research on disturbance by cyclist and horse riders. In the New Forest the largest user groups are also walkers and dog owners. Therefore the managers were able to demonstrate to the stakeholders that it was legitimate to take pilot actions regarding these user groups. To choose suitable locations for pilot actions the managers had to know how these user groups use the area. A large monitoring program was set up, including counting visitors, tracking visitors with GPS devices, questionnaires, and telephone surveys. The GPS tracks especially helped stakeholders to learn about the biodiversity–recreation relationship in the New Forest and decide which pilot actions should be approved.
Imperfect knowledge about the interaction between recreation and biodiversity sometimes resulted in the tools losing credibility. The level of sensitivity of wader species to recreational disturbance was not known and provided an escape route from the common learning process. In adaptive management this type of uncertainty should be embraced and reduced by pilot actions, but it can be argued that if knowledge is in short supply, there is no proof that a problem exists and no guarantee that a chosen solution will be effective in solving it. To reduce the possibility of the easy way out of doing nothing, boundaries between stakeholders and scientists from different disciplines should be crossed. In the project, we discussed the uncertainty with recreation stakeholders and conservationists and agreed that an effect was plausible; for determining cause-effect relations we used scientific knowledge from studies on comparable species and from expert judgment.
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