Page 91 - A bird’s-eye view of recreation - Rogier Pouwels

Effectiveness of scientific tools in decision making processes
5.3.4 The tool is based on spatially explicit relationships and its output is a map In boundary management it is crucial to be specific about where recreation activities are incompatible with biodiversity conservation. Conflicts are often discussed in general terms (Margerum 2002), neglecting that the intensity of the recreation–biodiversity interaction may vary because of spatial heterogeneity in habitat types, distribution of species, and visitor patterns. Solving the conflict becomes easier when the critical locations are known. We expect that presenting the output as a map showing the nature and intensity of the recreation–biodiversity interactions will enable stakeholders to identify where the problem is located; this may reduce the tension between opposing views.
In our projects, to help managers and stakeholders identify obstacles to maintaining
recreation and biodiversity values we visualized ecological disturbance zones (Fig.
4). In the New Forest, managers used the resulting map to discuss management
alternatives with stakeholders. It became obvious that the easternmost parking lot had
a much greater impact on the habitat quality of wader species than the other parking
lots. On the basis of this spatial information, stakeholders agreed on decommissioning
the parking lot. Based on the same map, the park managers also found opportunities
to increase the capacity of two nearby parking lots without affecting the habitat
quality elsewhere. Depicting recreation pressure to stakeholders visually in this way
improved their acceptance of the decisions made (Colas et al. 2008). Our findings 5 are in accordance with Skov-Petersen (2008) and Jochem et al. (2008) who combined
scientific tools with a GIS and Google Maps to increase the usability of the scientific tools in a participatory process.
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