NatureBureau - IUCN Parks

ALL PARK MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES should make provision for managing visitor/ tourism activity. Success rests upon the integration of this component with the planning and management of the environmental and cultural resources of a park. All this is underpinned by effective financial, staff, legal and political management. Park tourism is on the increase and often makes a vital contribution to the economy. Many argue that parks cannot exist without a mobilised constituency that actively supports government action in the field. The best way to create and motivate such a constituency is through ensuring parks provide enriching and satisfying personal experiences as well as by demonstrating the socio-economic benefits of these areas. The environmental and cultural sites found in the world’s national parks and other forms of protected area are important locally, nationally and internationally. There is an emerging consensus that the viewing and appreciation of such areas is a fundamental aspect of citizenship. People have a right to expect such sites to be available for use and have a responsibility to contribute towards their maintenance. However, there are many accounts that portray tourism as damaging to the environment, frequently through intense or inappropriate use. Sometimes this is indeed the case. Nevertheless, debate on this issue is often skewed and the counter argument of how tourism benefits parks rarely made. There are plenty of examples of parks with little or no use, struggling to justify their existence and others where tourism has resulted in wide public appreciation of and respect for protected areas. Given its critical cultural, economic and ecological roles, too little emphasis is placed upon the role of tourism in sustaining protected areas. This edition of PARKS attempts to address this deficiency. The papers in this volume cover key topic areas important for park managers and for other interested in the parks’ endeavour. This special issue of PARKS provides six papers on important aspects of park tourism. The editor chose each paper to represent a key field. All papers are written especially for PARKS by experts in various aspects of visitor management. All discussion of park visitation and tourism is underpinned by statistics on volume and distribution. Likewise, secondary calculations of impact (such as economic impact or cultural influence) are based upon basic visitation statistics. The paper by Paul F.J. Eagles outlines principles for the measurement, recording and reporting of park tourism. The substance of the paper is based upon a more extensive document prepared for the WCPA in 1999. The design of infrastructure, buildings and facilities is clearly integral to the ability of a site to attract and provide for visitors. Proper design enhances utility, improves effectiveness and permits development with minimal impact on the environment. Héctor Ceballos-Lascuráin provides a basic primer to environmentally-friendly park facility design. Appropriate design is equally vital to the management structure of the park and park agency, if tourism benefits are to be maximised and an economically viable protected area network created. Robert Moos describes the elements involved in the transition of Ontario Parks from a typical government agency to a parastatal form with a more efficient, business-management structure. In its endeavour to manage increasing numbers of ecotourists, New Zealand's Department of Conservation (DOC) also recognises the value of the business model. Gordon Cessford and Andy Thompson provide a review of DOC's approach to tourism management on public lands in New Zealand. They emphasise the key role of third-party involvement through licenses and concessions and particularly the way in which the private sector provides recreation services without compromising the parks' conservation objectives. Already well-used and much appreciated by the Finnish people, the popularity of Finland's national parks seems set to increase yet further. Anneli Leivo outlines the innovative new customer-service approach adopted by Metsähallitus, the agency responsible for the management of most of the state-owned protected areas in Finland. The author examines how decisions on future development are assisted by categorising parks according to recreation services provision and describes the Finnish customer service concept and related network and methods of customer monitoring. The final article turns to Africa where parks and game reserves are prodigious users of land and central to the functioning of the economy in many countries. Giles Mulholland and Paul F.J. Eagles highlight the need for a new model of financial and ecological sustainability to secure a long-term future for Africa’s protected area network. This model more strongly emphasises the importance of the contribution of tourism income to park financial management and, perhaps more significantly, to sustaining local communities, without whose support reserves cannot exist. In an African context, the authors counter arguments that tourism degrades the environment by pointing out that alternative land-uses are far more detrimental. Africa is not in a position to conserve wildlife simply for the common good. The preparation of this special issue of PARKS coincides with the publication of a new book by the WCPA on park tourism Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas: Guidelines for Planning and Management authored by Paul F.J. Eagles, Stephen F. McCool and Christopher D. Haynes. It is published by the WCPA as Best Practice Guideline Number 8. Special contributions to the book were made by the World Tourism Organisation, by the United Nations Environment Programme and by Environment Australia. The book is available through the normal IUCN publication distribution channels.

Paul F.J. Eagles, Professor, Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada and Chair, Task Force on Tourism and Protected Areas, World Commission on Protected Areas, World Conservation Union.