Page 107 - A bird’s-eye view of recreation - Rogier Pouwels

nature areas (Larson et al. 2018) and managers are able to alter them. Although no clear recreation targets have been set for any of the three study areas, the output of recreation models can be used to determine whether or not visitor densities exceed user density levels set by recreation frameworks such as ROS (McCool et al. 2007). In Chapter 3 I used an alternative recreation target, the total length of paths with low visitor densities in the nature area. The conservation targets I used in Chapters 3 and 4 can be directly linked to conservation targets such as population size and the long- term survival of bird populations. The stakeholders involved in the decision-making process need to decide which result best reflects their values. As no clear conservation targets were set for the wader species considered in Chapter 5, I used an alternative conservation target: 750 ha patches of suitable area without recreational use. This target was agreed upon with stakeholders and site managers during the study.
When site managers attempt to link management actions to acknowledged values they often face the difficulty of ‘crossing scales’ (Cash et al. 2006, Gutzwiller et al. 2017): most management actions relate to local changes in visitor access and habitat improvements, whereas most acknowledged values relate to regional or even national targets, such as population size. The tools I used in Chapters 3, 4 and 5 can all be used to cross scales as they relate the impacts of local management actions to regional impacts on bird conservation.
To link the management actions to acknowledged values in the different chapters I
used statistical methods, individual-based models, simple algorithms and knowledge-
based tools. The statistical methods were used to derive dose–impact relations from
site-specific monitoring data. The models and tools were used to assess the impact of management plans on recreation and bird conservation targets. All these methods and 6 tools are commonly used for these purposes in scientific research and their scientific
credibility can be assessed according to standard modelling principles (see Refsgaard and Henriksen 2004) and peer-reviewed articles.
In my opinion, site managers, stakeholders and scientist will gain confidence in the use of new scientific tools when scientific methods are used to link management actions to acknowledged stakeholder values. The tools will then incorporate the attributes site managers, stakeholders and scientists value most (Fig. 2). A crucial part of this is being able to take into account the different perceptions of managers, stakeholders and scientists on credibility, salience and legitimacy.
Synthesis
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