Page 167 - A bird’s-eye view of recreation - Rogier Pouwels

In 2000 the managers from the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen, the Netherlands, approached me and my colleagues to develop a tool they could use to assess the impact of their management plans on both the visitor distribution in the area and the population size of protected bird species like the Skylark. Their goal was to use this tool for communication purposes, mainly to find support for their planned management actions. A few years later managers of the New Forest (UK) and Fontainebleau (France) wanted to use the same tool in a decision-making process with stakeholders. In the course of this research project (PROGRESS; 2003-2007) my interest in the role of scientific knowledge and tools in processes, where nature conservation conflicts with outdoor recreation, started to develop. At the end of the PROGRESS project Paul Opdam triggered the start of my PhD-thesis by raising the question to assess the role of scientific knowledge and tools not only from an applied perspective, but also from a scientific perspective. I'm very grateful for the guidance he and Ruud Foppen provided during the writing of this thesis. I suppose that the question “Okay, that is why managers want to know this, but what is the scientific question?”, is a sentence that will stay with me for the rest of my career.
Writing this thesis has been a slow roller-coaster with its ups and downs. Since the
start of the thesis I could share my struggles and small victories with some of my fellow
colleagues, Marjolein Sterk, Theo van der Sluis, Irene Bouwma and Peter Verweij.
Irene and Theo, I am / we are ready to open the bottle(s). I realize that many people
contributed in a smaller or larger degree to the research described in this thesis. The
open discussions with the managers of the Amsterdamse Waterleidingduinen and the
New Forest helped me to better understand their perspective. I am specifically grateful
for my colleagues, Michiel van Eupen, Henk Sierdsema and Dennis Walvoort, who were
willing to spend many evenings preparing GIS maps and developing statistical models.
René Jochem, René Henkens Claire Vos, Hans Baveco, Adrienn Aranyosi and Jana
Verboom thanks for your help with the analysis and your contribution to the writing of
some chapters in this thesis. Also thanks to all other colleagues from WENR and PBL
who together provide a great inspiring atmosphere to conduct research and let me feel
at home at work. Arjen, Bart, Rien, Jaap, Joep, Henk, Janien, Wieger, Peter,...... thank you
for all the years of cooperation in many projects. A
I'm also grateful for the support of my family, parents and friends. Mom, dad thanks for the seed of wonder for nature that you planted, by encouraging me as a child to be able to name as many tree species in the garden as possible and of course our holidays
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