Page 74 - A bird’s-eye view of recreation - Rogier Pouwels

A bird's-eye view of recreation
scientific knowledge can help to build trust between different parties and thereby improves the quality of the process (Reed, 2008). To be effective over a longer period it is recommended that the management evolves into an adaptive co-management approach where social learning and joint problem solving can result in new knowledge to deal with problems at increasingly larger scales (Berkes, 2009).
Figure 3. The impact of visitor density on the density of the Woodlark (breeding pairs per square km) (left Figure). On the right ownership of different parts of the Veluwe is given.
4.6 Conclusions
The impact of outdoor recreation on bird densities in local plots can be determined by using existing monitoring programs together with recreation simulation models. For the three analysed protected species of heathland, we found that in areas with high visitor densities the density of breeding pairs were 50 percent reduced in comparison to areas without visitors. The statistical models predicted bird densities under the influence of visitor density for all potential habitat patches in the regional Natura 2000 site the Veluwe. For Woodlark we estimated that the presence of hikers reduced the regional population by 28 percent, which leads to a population level below the conservation target. For Stonechat and Nightjar the regional population was reduced by 16 and 11 percent respectively, resulting in population levels above the conservation target.
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