Page 95 - A bird’s-eye view of recreation - Rogier Pouwels

Effectiveness of scientific tools in decision making processes
In the project ambiguity was the most difficult type of uncertainty. One stakeholder just didn't accept the fact that dogs affect breeding bird densities. In his opinion there were no conflicts. Although the tools were used to visualize relationships between recreation and biodiversity in stakeholder meetings and helped other stakeholders to engage further in the participatory process and clarify goals and values, this one stakeholder slowed down the process. In the end a survey among dog owners in the area showed that most dog owners didn't sympathize with this particular stakeholder's vision and arguments. This helped the managers and other stakeholders to neglect some of the arguments of this one stakeholder.
We suggest that incomplete knowledge on the biodiversity–recreation relationship
in a spatially explicit landscape context may be key to whether a tool is accepted in
conflict resolution because it is at the heart of the conflict. We therefore believe it is
important to enlarge the body of knowledge on how recreation and biodiversity
values and underlying processes are related (Cole 2006, Haider 2006, Sutherland
2007). Of particular importance are the impact of recreation on species populations,
how management measures reduce this impact, and how recreation and biodiversity
functions can be spatially combined in landscape planning (Warnken and Buckley
1998, Blanc et al. 2006, Sutherland et al. 2006). Such investigations should be based
on better empirical data on recreation behavior (Van Marwijk 2009), for example, on
the motives of visitors, their perception of the landscape, and the choices they make 5 during their visit. The results might endorse management measures for achieving a
more compatible recreation pattern.
As a topic of future research, we suggest investigating how the three types of uncertainties can be managed in adaptive management or boundary management. As a hypothesis, we propose that boundary management deals better with uncertainties related to ambiguity whereas adaptive management deals better with uncertainties related to incomplete knowledge (Fig. 5). Therefore we recommend that managing the recreation–biodiversity conflict should alternate between a pacification strategy and a facilitation strategy (Fig. 1). This option can be considered as a stepwise learning strategy of adaptive management, focused on dealing with uncertainties related to incomplete knowledge (Williams et al. 2007), and boundary management, focused on dealing with opposing views on the conflict and preferable solutions (Cash et al. 2003). The research should explore the possibility of discovering if the way uncertainties are clarified in the tools affects the learning process.
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