A STUDY OF VISITOR MANAGEMENT IN THE WORLD'S NATIONAL PARKS AND PROTECTED AREAS Submitted By Francesca Giongo, Jean Bosco-Nizeye Profressional Paper, Department of Recreation Resources, Colorado State University INTRODUCTION In developing countries, and to some degree in developed countries, the main purpose for the establishment of protected areas has been, until recently, to preserve important natural features and unique habitats, which otherwise would have been at risk of disappearing. As protected areas were established, the opportunity to provide for people's recreation and enjoyment was acknowledged as a positive secondary outcome, but the need for visitor management, aimed to protect the resources from excessive human impacts, was not yet recognized. Likewise, little consideration was given to the needs of local people living inside or near the areas "put aside" for protection. Over time, the management focus gradually shifted in the direction of visitor management, because the increasing popularity of protected areas as tourism destinations was creating problems unforeseen in the past. Today, while many developing protected areas are still in need of building a constituency of visitors who know and care about the place, some protected areas are experiencing overuse, habitat degradation, and conflicts with local people over the use of scarce natural resources. The gravity of these problems has prompted professionals to stress the importance of providing protected areas with appropriate management tools which can be used effectively to address a range of issues associated with the environment, visitors, and local people. It is today recognized that to be effective, park management decisions cannot be based only on knowledge of natural ecosystems. Protected area officials need also the infrastructure and management capability to maximize visitor enjoyment while minimizing negative impacts to the natural and cultural resources and to the local people. For those who determine funding and training priorities, the time is ripe to develop a data base that provides basic information on the present state of visitor management and visitor impacts in protected areas of the world. With this in mind, representatives from the IUCN's Committee of National Parks and Protected Areas, The Ecotourism Society, and Colorado State University, meeting at the IV World Congress of National Parks and Protected Areas in Caracas (Venezuela) in February 1992, decided to design a survey instrument to begin gathering such information. The initial idea was to distribute the questionnaire among the Congress participants. It was soon recognized, however, that a more representative sample of protected areas could be obtained by surveying a larger number of on ground managers all over the world. To this end, the questionnaire was further developed at Colorado State University and sent to a sample of 750 protected areas by the present authors. PROBLEM STATEMENT Almost no comparative studies have been conducted, to date, on visitation, impacts, or the state of visitor management in different parks and protected areas of the world. No comparisons have been made between developed and developing countries to see to what extent the "gap" between them is reflected in protected area management. Such information will help to direct future research, training, infrastructure development and the funding priorities for those interested in strengthening protected area management. In this regard, the present paper should be seen as a first attempt to provide baseline data on visitor management in a cross section of the world's protected areas. STUDY OBJECTIVES 1) The study will generate descriptive information for the following: a. Protected areas' establishment, size, staff, budget, and indicators of management directions b. The number and types of visitors, and the infrastructure and visitor impact management techniques being utilized c. The involvement of protected areas with local people d. The level and sources of revenue for protected areas and visitor management 2) The study will compare differences and/or similarities between developed and developing countries and between regions, for the variables described above. BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW Nature tourism Tourism is today one of the largest industries in the world, and current trends show a shift in tourist preferences. Increasing numbers of tourists are moving away from the mass tourism that characterized the last decades toward more specialized forms of tourism. Increased sensibility toward environmental issues and toward the need for protecting the increasingly scarce natural environments has contributed, especially in the industrialized world, to the development of one of these specialized forms of tourism, "based on the enjoyment of natural areas and the observation of nature" (Lucas, 1984). National parks and other protected areas of the world, which are the focus of this study, have always been preferred destinations for those tourists who seek close contact with nature. Since the first national park, Yellowstone, was established in 1872, national parks are, by definition, available for public visitation. In the words of the U.S. National Public Service Act of 1916, which has fundamentally contributed to shaping the conceptual framework for the establishment of protected areas, national parks are not only to "conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wild life therein", but also "to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such a manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations". Over the years, other categories of protected areas have been added, almost all of them, even multiple use areas, allowing for some form of visitation (Table A). Table A. Categories and management objectives of protected areas Modified from McKinnon et al., 1986 [Table not available in text format] Although private reserves in some countries may also be included in the protected areas system, this study focuses on national and state areas with legal and ongoing jurisdiction. Several different labels have been proposed for describing the tourism interested in natural areas: "nature tourism", "alternative tourism", "sustainable tourism" and, of course, "ecotourism" . (Valentine, 1992, 1993; Ceballos-Lascurain, 1988, Kusler, 1991; Kutay, 1989; Butler, 1991). (Table B). Table B. Examples of definitions used to refer to nature tourism Modified from Valentin, 1993. [Table not available in text format] For some authors (De Kadt, 1992; Wallace, 1992; Valentine, 1993), the term "eco-tourism" should be used only to indicate a tourism which, besides being interested in nature, is also respectful of indigenous cultures and needs, has a lower impact on the environment, requires less infrastructure development than traditional forms of tourism, and is committed to providing benefits to local people. This is unfortunately not always the case, even in protected areas, where one would expect managers to try and cultivate this type of constituency (Myers, 1972; Wallace, 1993; Whelan, 1991). Ecotourists are different from traditional tourists in that they seek to establish a deeper understanding, even a communion, with the places and peoples they visit. Consequently, ecotourists are more inclined to commit themselves to the preservation of such places and such cultures. The more they perceive the experience as rewarding and inspiring, the more ecotourists are likely, once they return to their home countries, to contribute in shaping positive attitudes toward the protected areas they visited and to become advocates for their conservation (Grotta, 1991). The present study, however, does not differentiate among different forms of tourism in protected areas and cannot assure that visitors are "ecotourists"; therefore the more general terms of nature tourism and visitors will be utilized. Nature tourism is probably the fastest growing sector of the tourism industry, accounting for 10% of the market in 1989 and increasing at a rate of 30% a year (Kallen, 1990). According to one estimate, nature tourism earnings for developing countries in 1988 was worth 12 billion U.S. dollars (Lindberg, 1991). Revenues from nature tourism are becoming very important for the economy not only of developing countries like Kenya and Costa Rica (Boo, 1990; Lindberg, 1991; CTRC, 1987), but of developed countries as well (Baker, 1990). The economic benefits nature tourism can bring to protected areas are indubitable. Protected area managers are beginning to recognize that additional revenues could be derived from the development of tourism projects, especially when they are designed to cater to ecotourists. In protected areas, carefully planned and managed ecotourism projects can be a powerful tool guaranteeing the actual protection of those areas (Miller, 1980). Visitors Nature tourists are only one part of visitors to protected areas. Protected areas can and should play an important role in contributing to the education of local students. No learning experience is more stimulating and lasting than the first-hand experience obtained by studying natural life and natural processes where they occur. Protected areas offer the natural settings in which phenomena like food chain, ecosystem succession and many others can be more easily and deeply understood by seeing them at work. Increasing numbers of protected areas are developing environmental education programs, but more could be done (Pitt, 1988). The more the children are exposed to the wonders of nature in protected areas, the more they will be likely, as adults, to care for their protection. Protected areas provide excellent study opportunities not only for school children, but for researchers of many disciplines as well. Some endangered species, like the Giant Panda in China and the Mountain Gorilla in Rwanda, can today be found and studied almost exclusively inside protected areas. Accurate studies on animal population dynamics, species interactions and the like often require the large and relatively undisturbed expanses which only protected areas can offer. Protected areas often harbor the wild strains of commonly used cultivars which agronomists need to genetically improve the domesticated varieties. Some protected areas host the best preserved ruins of ancient civilizations, which are object of study for archeologist, ethnologists, historians, anthropologists. A category of visitors who are completely convinced of the importance of protected areas are the volunteers. Volunteers are willing to contribute their time and their enthusiasm in all the sectors of a protected area that can benefit from their experience. Volunteer help is especially needed in those protected areas which, due to economic constraints, are short of regular personnel. Often, volunteers are affiliated with environmental NGOs, such as Sierra Club, Audubon Society, WWF, which give to the protection of nature a prominent place in their agenda. Due to their widespread membership base and to their increasing capability in reaching and influencing a large audience, NGOs can greatly help in gathering both the political and financial support many protected areas, especially in developing countries, so much need (Lees, 1992). Tourists, school children, local people, scientists, volunteers and visitors to protected areas have different needs and expectations that managers are called on to accommodate while at the same time continuing to protect the resource. Building constituencies requires providing visitors with a positive experience. A positive experience is more likely if essential infrastructure is available and if a visitor management plan is implemented, regulating such things as group size, the amount, location, type and duration of the visit and the interactions between different kind of visitors. (Wallace, 1993). Local people Local people represent a special kind of visitor in that their main purpose for entering protected areas is generally to carry on subsistence activities like grazing and wood gathering. Protected area programs often include opportunities for limited harvesting of area resources as a way of winning support from locals as well as agricultural stabilization projects. Additionally, socio-economic benefits derived from nature tourism and the other forms of visitation can sometimes be one justification for the creation of support for protected areas as an alternative to other kinds of land use such as shifting cultivation which may threaten protected area resources. This is especially the case in developing countries, where, as Lhakpa (Lucas, 1988) has aptly stated, "the purpose of conservation programs will always remain obscure to local people as long as the conservation efforts do not appear to contribute to their immediate needs." It is of fundamental importance, then, that local populations be able to share the benefits nature tourism brings to protected areas, so that they do not have total dependence on less sustainable land uses for their livelihood (Boo, 1991; Wallace, 1993). Among these benefits are: increased employment opportunities, diversification of the local economy, increased market for agricultural products, and improved transportation infrastructures (WTO/UNEP, 1992). The acquisition of these benefits however, may not be a sufficient reason for local people to accept and support protected areas. Very often, protected areas have been established on lands local people have (rightly) regarded as their own. Too often, decisions have been made and management objectives formulated without consultation with the local communities. As a result, relationships between park managers and local populations have often been conflicting. It is only since the III World Conference on Protected Areas in Bali (1982) that the role of protected areas in sustaining society has been given due attention. As a result, park manager's attitudes are beginning to change, and the importance of ensuring broad local participation in all the steps of the decision-making process is being recognized. This study, therefore will consider local residents as legitimate visitors/ users of many protected areas and will investigate the level of their partecipation in management related issues. VISITOR IMPACTS Visitors can have both positive and negative impacts on the environment, the economy, and the social structure of a destination area. The positive impacts of visitation to protected areas (income, jobs, tax revenues, personal achievements, cross-culture interaction) have been well promoted, while the social and environmental costs were of less concern. Following the publication of the United Nations report "Planning for Development" in 1976, the environmentally erosive qualities of tourism have become more of a subject of world concern. That report emphasized the damage being done to coastlines, unique scenic spots, aquatic ecosystems, islands, mountain regions, countryside, and historical sites and monuments. Since then, many authors have documented negative impacts of tourism in protected areas and have voiced concerns about the present and future threats an uncontrolled growth of tourism presents for the natural environment (Western and Henry, 1979; Holder, 1988; Becker, Dottavio, and Menning, 1986; Marsh, 1983; WTO/UNEP, 1992; Cater, 1993; Boo, 1990; Mathieson and Wall, 1982). Berle (1990) has expressed this concern very clearly: "Eco- tourism is big business. It can provide foreign exchange and economic reward for the preservation of natural systems and wildlife. But eco-tourism also threatens to destroy the resources on which it depends." If nature tourism is really to represent a source of support and revenue for protected areas and contribute to the well- being of the local populations, it needs to be ecologically sustainable, since degradation of the environment will ultimately mean the loss of its resource base (OECD, 1980). It must be recognized, however, that a certain amount of change is natural in the evolution of the ecosystems, even in undisturbed wildlands (succession). When people are introduced into the scene, the natural direction and the rate of change are often altered (Hammit and Cole 1987). The inevitable impacts resulting to protected areas from visitation are to be considered in this context, as man-induced changes. Recognizing that a certain amount of change is inevitable, protected area managers should seek to limit and halt those impacts which are deemed unacceptable. Although the main concern of the management has often been minimizing bio-physical impacts, visitors create excessive social impacts on culture and traditions of host communities as well as on other visitors (Manning 1986; Valentine, 1992). Local people who daily strive for their subsistence may particularly resent the exhibition of wealth from insensitive tourists. In some cases native people have seen their cultural identity severely altered, and sometimes even disrupted, as a consequence of excessive tourism presence. Crowding, inappropriate behavior, and littering are a few of many social impacts affecting the visitor experience. This study investigates the awareness of protected area managers regarding selected bio-physical and social negative impacts. BIO-PHYSICAL IMPACTS 1. Soil erosion. The most permanent, and therefore the most serious, of all soil impacts is soil erosion. While soil compaction and loss of organic matter will recover to some degree during non use season, erosion often continues. Recreation activities can induce erosion and increase its rate of occurrence. Trails are among the facilities most affected by erosion, due to their heavy use (Hammit and Cole, 1987). Deterioration of trails can take any of the following forms: a) Gully erosion, which increases the trail depth and width; b) Development of muddy stretches leading to problems in trail segments; c) Development of undesired trails, such as parallel trails and networks of informal trails. A common cause of erosion is shortcutting of established trails forming new trails that are too steep. Type and amount of useare the principal causes of trail deterioration, though the problem can be aggravated by the location, design and maintenance of the trail (Bratton, Hicker and Graves, 1979; Cole, 1983). Soil erosion can also take place at campsites, overlooks, launching or boarding areas in form of sheet erosion. Site deterioration, however, can result also from inappropriate use, such as large groups of visitors spreading out on sites. In campsites, erosion leads to bare soil, bare rock, exposure of tree roots and site spreading (campsite enlargement), and proliferation of more campsites. If sites are well chosen, erosion can be effectively controlled through regular maintenance. 2. Impacts on vegetation. Recreation use can have impacts on: vegetation cover, species composition, and condition. Ground cover vegetation is usually impacted by visitor use particularly as a result of trampling, which tremendously reduces the tree seedling. Mature trees at recreation sites are usually mechanically damaged by actions such as removing limbs, driving nails into trunks and peeling off barks. Vegetation impacts mostly occur during the initial development and use of recreation sites (Hammit, Cole, 1987). Good management concentrates and limits these impacts to resistant sites. 3. Impacts on wildlife. Different species of wildlife have different tolerance to humans and human activities. Even within a species, tolerance level will vary with time of the year, breeding season, animal age, habitat type and individual animal experience with recreationists. Generally, recreation activities result into a decrease of species diversity (Hammit and Cole, 1987). Impacts to wildlife include (a) unintentional harassment due to creation of stressful conditions on large animals and birds, as, for example, the disturbances of big cats in Masai Mara National Park (Kenya), where they are stressed by tourist vehicles surrounding them (Gakahu, 1992); (b) habituation and taming as exemplified by feeding of animals, currently a common problem in many parks, as feeding of deer and squirrels in Rocky Mountain National Park (the U.S.), and garbage feeding, as in Masai Mara National Park (Kenya) (Gakahu, 1992); (c) direct transmission of diseases to animals from humans as exemplified by a respiratory outbreak in the mountain gorilla population of Parc National des Volcans (Rwanda); (d) poaching or over harvesting; (e) modification of habitat use such as changes in hours and locations for feeding, and reproduction patterns. Wildlife can also be impacted indirectly by altering the habitat or destroying it, for example by draining wetlands for agricultural purposes or by building dams. 4. Impacts on water quality. The severity and causes of recreation related water pollution problems are not yet well understood (Hermann and Williams, 1987). Water quality is a major concern, but not a prevalent impact. Water is a medium for body contact sports, and a drinking source. With recreation use in warm waters, aquatic plant production can be altered from acceptable rates to excessive growth rates. Sometimes there are increases in pathogens harmful to humans, for instance Giardiasis has become one of the major disease contracted in the wild. Suspended material may be the worst visible water quality factor in the eyes of visitors. Wading, bathing, erosion or land use changes can increase the load of suspended material solids, greatly reducing the clarity of water and the public's desire to use it (Hammit and Cole, 1987). SOCIAL IMPACTS 1. Social impacts on local residents. Social impacts of tourism can be manifested by changes in the quality of life of residents of tourist destination areas. Several authors have stressed the need for a greater emphasis on behavioral norms for both visitor and resident, as well as on the reciprocal effects of interaction between communities and their tourists (Hough, 1991; Milman and Pizam, 1988; Laxson 1991). It is recognized that the social impacts of tourism change through time in response to structural changes in the tourist industry, and the extent and duration of the exposure of the host population to tourist development (Mathieson and Wall, 1982). 2. Social impacts affecting the visitor experience. Literature available on social impacts which affect visitor experience show that experience is strongly affected by other visitors and their actions. Generally social conditions affect experiences more than the natural conditions. The desire for solitude, the possibility of visitor conflicts, and the different perception of other visitors behavior are all factors that can affect visitor experience. (Boo, 1990; Shelby and Heberlein, 1986). The social norms that inform visitor behavior may vary across cultures (Wurz, Wallace and Cardenas Salazar, 1993). Crowding may negatively affect experience. What visitors consider solitude or crowding depends on crowding norms, which are influenced by characteristics of visitors themselves, of those they encounter, and the situation or location in which encounters occur (Manning, 1985, 1986; Shelby, 1981). Conflict can occur between recreation and non- recreation users, especially in multiple use areas, where, for example, grazing can interfere with recreational hunting and logging with scenic viewing. There can be conflict between different types of visitors using different styles of uses, such as groups traveling by different means, for instance motorized versuss non motorized. Usually large parties are a source of conflict when they meet typically smaller groups (Badger 1975; Pfister and Frankel, 1974; Stankey, 1973). Sometimes conflict can occur between visitors who are guided and those who are on their own. Visitor behavior can affect visitor experience directly (Manning, 1985), or indirectly, through environmental impacts such as littering and vandalism. Uses outside protected area can affect visitors through noise, air pollution, or visual distractions (Wallace, Reed and McKean, 1990). Interestingly managers and visitors differ in their perception of social and bio-physical impacts; managers perceive resource impact problems as more important than social problems while visitors take the opposite point of view (Hendee, Stankey and Lucas 1990). Managers need to be sensitive to this issue and reducing or avoiding visitor conflicts should be part of their protected area management responsibility. Protected areas infrastructure and facilities Natural attractions, adequate transportation to and from protected areas, adequate levels of infrastructure, facilities and services are essential to attract visitors to protected areas. While protected area managers have less influence on the second point, it is their responsibility to protect the interest of visitors, the attraction, and to provide adequate infrastructure and facilities, which, by bringing visitors close to the resources, play a crucial role as tools in both resource and visitor management. Carefully planned and managed infrastructure and facilities provide the opportunity to accomplish the two-fold goal of protecting the resource while at the same time ensuring a quality experience to visitors (Boo, 1992; Wallace, 1993). Trails are the major transportation system and the type of facility more commonly found in protected areas around the world. Trail construction has evolved from a simple clear cutting of some natural course which allow relatively easy movement, to major alteration of the natural appearance (eg. use of walk boards, concrete, bridges, etc). Similarly, trail planning seems to have evolved from merely following the original paths of wildlife, fire fighters and local people, to highly scientific methods of trail location and design that includes remote sensing and engineering. Trails location and design is a powerful managemental tool to minimize impacts on resources and ensuring visitor satisfaction. Different types of trails, coupled with various interpretive techniques, allow managers to achieve different goals (MacKinnon, Child and Thorsell, 1986). A trail can: (a) lead visitors to observe and experience curious feature and spectacular localities; (b) point out less obvious characteristics that most of the visitors ordinarily would fail to notice; (c) guide people away from places the management doesn't want them to go, either because such location are dangerous or because visitation would damage a fragile resource (Dawson, 1992); and (d) confine visitors to nodes and corridors in protected areas. Interpretive trails can utilize a guide/interpreter or be self-guided trail. This last type of trail is most useful when a protected area receives many visitors but doesn't have the necessary interpretive staff available. Many techniques can be used to communicate messages along self-guided trails. The information needed can be found on signs or in pre-recorded audio devices located at significant points along the trail, or it can be available on brochures, nature guides, and trail maps. Other protected area facilities include guard posts utilized by patrols, campsites, picnic areas, restrooms which are essential for the well being of visitors, visitor centers used for information and educational programs, signs which offer direction and instruction, boat launches and loading stands for wate-based recreation, etc. Visitor impact management Ian D.Rutherford stated at the opening of the North America Workshop "Towards Serving Visitors and Managing Our Resources" (1990): "As managers of protected areas, we are being asked to respond to many demands for the conservation of our environment, new and more satisfying recreational and educational opportunities and the economic benefits of tourism". He continued to say that, today, protected area managers need to reduce the conflict between the forces that support resource protection and those that support recreation and tourism. Protected areas need visitors and visitor management. The historical development of visitor management in the U.S. offers some insight. The President's Commission on American Outdoors (PCAO) showed that demand for outdoor recreation was growing faster than the supply, and that the nation as a whole was facing an era in which America's citizens were losing what they had come to consider great American values: "Spacious sky, purple mountains, open space, forests and fields, history etc." PCAO then determined that federal land management agencies should improve their efforts to define and provide both recreation and education on public lands. An increased managemental emphasis and scientific inquiry on recreational issues, combined with the desire by managing agencies to do a better job, has resulted into a number of planning and management frameworks in both tne U.S. and Canada. Each of the processes which have been suggested hinges on the following four basic planning steps: (1) determining the current situation (2) deciding what situation is desired (3) establishing how to get from the current to the desired situation using certain management actions (4) monitoring and evaluating progress or success in attaining the desired situation. Following these steps, a number of visitor and visitor impact management planning/decision making approaches have been developed. The best documented and more used of these processes are discussed below. Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) This is a system for promoting recreational diversity which was first developed by USFS and is now being used also by BLM and in part by NPS. When considering opportunities for outdoor recreation, people are confronted with several choices: they have to choose which activities they want to engage, which setting they deem appropriate to carry out those activities, and the kind of recreation experience they wish to obtain. Building on this, ROS defines a recreation opportunity as "the opportunity to participate in a desired recreation activity within a preferred type of setting to realize desired and expected experiences" (Driver, 1990). A recreation opportunity therefore has three components: an activity, a setting and an experience component. A recreation setting is a combination of the bio-physical, social and managerial conditions that characterize a given place. Thus, a recreation setting includes: a. Qualities provided by nature (vegetation, landscape, scenery) - bio-physical setting b. Qualities associated with recreation use (levels and types of use) - social setting c. Conditions provided by management (patrols, facility developments, roads, regulations) - managerial setting (Clark and Stankey, 1990). The spectrum of recreation settings from urban to pristine are the focus of recreation resource planning and management (Table C). Table C. The ROS spectrum of recreation settings Source: ROS. Users Guide. USDA, Forest Service. [Table not available in text format] The basic assumption underlying ROS is that quality in outdoor recreation is best assured through provision of a diverse set of opportunity classes or zones. "Quality seems to be a highly personalized matter." (Wagar, 1966). By providing a range of opportunities that also correspond to resource capabilities and constraints, managers can accommodate the recreational needs of a larger public and simultaneously protect the resource. As noted by Watt (1972), managing opportunities for recreational diversity of experiences is crucial for social equity; this applies to a mix of international, national, and local visitors in developing countries as well (Wurz et al., 1993). Failing to provide diversity of opportunities invites favoritism, elitism, and discrimination. The use of ROS in land management planning helps separate different use intensities and levels of visitor management. In intensive use zones, visitor management practices are more prevalent and visible. Well-structured facilities provide information (visitor centers), easy access to natural features (paved trails, scenic overlooks), and general visitor services (food services, restrooms). The emphasis is on maximizing use while limiting further impacts on areas already impacted. In zones or opportunity classes that are more extensive or have lower visitor density, the management influence is less evident and limited facilities are provided. The emphasis is on maximizing the nature experience minimizing impacts on the resource. LIMITS OF ACCEPTABLE CHANGE (LAC) This is a planning system which incorporates ROS providing a clear process for determining what resource or social conditions are acceptable, and then prescribes a set of managemental actions to achieve those conditions. It was originally developed for wilderness areas but is applicable to other protected area types. The rapid increase in recreation use of U.S. national parks and national forests in 1950's and 1960's was reflected also in wilderness areas. At this time, Wagar (1964) first suggested to apply the concept of Carrying Capacity (CC) to recreation management. The concept of CC was originally used in biological models to determine appropriate levels of animal use of forage resources. Attempts were made to adapt the CC concept to recreation settings. The Recreation Carrying Capacity (RCC) was then defined as "maximum number of people who could use a resource without damaging the social or biological conditions stated in the area's objectives" (McCool, 1990). Practical attempts to establish RCC in wilderness and wild river areas in U.S. during 1970's met with considerable failure, and "it became evident that RCC was simply not generating technically effective and politically viable solutions to visitor management problems" (McCool, 1990). This struggle led to the emergence of LAC (Frissel and Stankey, 1972; Stankey et al., 1985). In the LAC process, the focus is shifted from the number of users involved to the degree of change which is acceptable in each specific zone or ROS class in a given protected area. Below are examples of parameters and some indicators that can be measured and monitored for change: Parameter Indicator Wildlife Species composition Campsite Campsite erosion Vegetation Presence of seedlings Littering Amount of litter present The LAC planning system is comprised of nine steps, as shown in Table D. LAC is increasingly being used in the U.S., Canada, Australia, Venezuela and South Africa but not yet in most developing countries. Table D. The LAC planning system Source: Hendee, Stankey and Lucas, 1990. [Table not available in text format] VISITOR IMPACT MANAGEMENT (VIM) This is another planning framework which incorporates resource and visitor management within a process aimed at reducing or controlling the impacts which threaten the quality of outdoor recreation areas and opportunities. VIM, which has elements of both ROS and LAC, also emerged from the sharp recreation increase in the use of natural areas during the past 20-30 years accompanied by comparable growth in research and writing related to recreation resources management. Specifically, VIM was the result of a study initiated by the National Parks and Conservation Association (NPCA), whose objectives were: 1. To review and synthesize then existing literature dealing with recreational carrying capacity and visitor impacts; 2. To apply the resulting understanding to the development of a plan for the management of visitor impacts that would be applicable across the variety of units within the NPS system (Graefe, 1990). The goals underlying these objectives were: 1. To provide a variety of types of information and tools to assist planners and managers with the difficult task of controlling or reducing undesirable visitor impacts; 2. To study ways and to suggest approaches to management built upon recent scientific understanding of the nature and causes of visitor impacts so as not to repeat the problems of the past management programs; 3. To consider both impacts to the natural environment and impacts to the quality of the visitor experience, and to develop a consistent process for dealing with both of these prevalent types of recreation impacts. VIM defines five sets of considerations which are critical to understanding the nature of recreation impacts: 1. Impact interrelationships: bio-physical and social impacts do not occur in isolation, but they interact; 2. Use-impact relationships: a relationship exists between amount of use and amount of recorded impacts, even if this relationship is not linear. 3. Varying tolerance to impacts: different habitats and different user groups have different responses to the same amount of use; 4. Activity-specific influences: specific types of impacts can be linked to specific activities; 5. Site-specific influences (time and site): the amount and type of impacts vary with the time of the year and the condition of the site. All these issues take into consideration the bio-physical and social elements which can affect recreation. VIM, like all the other frameworks presented here, is built upon the recognition that effective management involves both scientific and subjective considerations (Shelby and Heberlein, 1986; Stankey et al, 1985). The framework deals with three basic issues that are inherent to impact management, operationalized in an eight step sequential process. The three issues are: 1. Identification of problem conditions (unacceptable impacts); 2. Determination of potential causal factors affecting the occurrence and severity of the unacceptable impacts; and finally, 3. Selection of potential management strategies for amelioration of unacceptable impacts (Graefe, 1990). Visitor Activity Management Process (VAMP) This is a proactive, flexible, conceptual framework that contributes to decision building related to the planning, development, and operation of park related services and facilities. It seeks to manage visitor programs by putting into consideration the park objectives, natural resource features and values, and public needs and their expectations. The origins of VAMP are rooted in the planning and development of interpretation services in Canadian national parks during 1960's - 1970's. It was prompted by the following questions: 1. What a meaningful experience is? 2. What visitors really want in recreation areas? 3. How could protected areas justify proposed interpretation services? (Tayler, 1990) By the end of the 1970s, an approved process for park management planning had been formalized, but a decision framework specifically intended for managing visitor opportunities still needed to be developed. To fill that gap, VAMP was developed and first released in 1985. Table E shows an outline of the thought process which forms the basis of VAMP. The basic assumption underlying VAMP is that it is necessary to gain understanding of who comes to the park, why they come, what they do when they are there and what their needs are. The VAMP process includes "an assessment of regional integration of a park or heritage site, systematic identification of visitors, evaluation of visitor market potential, and identification of interpretive and educational opportunities for the public to understand, safely enjoy and appreciate heritage" (Graham, 1990). After the process has identified available opportunities for visitor activities, services, facilities and operations, recommendations and implementation of the proposed plan follows. Table E. The VAMP process Source: Tayler, 1990 [Table not available in text format] Comparison between different management frameworks Both LAC and VIM were developed as alternatives to the carrying capacity concept, and both rely on use of indicators and standards as means to define unacceptable impacts, emphasizing the need to take into due consideration a wide range of management alternatives and the need for subsequent future monitoring. As Graefe (1990) has aptly noted, VIM and LAC differ in the degree of emphasis placed on various considerations. For example, VIM includes an explicit step aimed at identifying probable causes of impacts while LAC, also concerned with impacts, places greater emphasis on defining opportunity classes and developing alternative class allocation. The definition of opportunity classes inside the LAC process generally utilizes the ROS system. Because LAC sets up steps for managing and reducing impacts besides providing for visitor recreation opportunities, it is more comprehensive in content than the others. VAMP adds to the overall concept of visitor management, by considering activities, facilities, and services in the surrounding region as well. Many of these techniques may be employed in part by developing country protected areas without actually naming particular management parameters. Although the use of these systems is limited to developed countries, (known exceptions are Kenya and Ecuador), it will be interesting to compare their usage among developed countries that have shared and discussed them in their literature and among professionals at a variety of conferences and training sessions. VISITOR MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES It is hard, and sometimes unnecessary, to distinguish between visitor management techniques and site or resource management techniques. Site or resource manipulation can be a potential means of managing the amount and distribution of visitors, while manipulation of where visitors go can be an effective means of managing site condition (Hammit and Cole, 1987). Most researchers have agreed that the best management approach available to resource managers will utilize more than one visitor and site management techniques, employing a combination of strategies. A variety of management practices have been suggested by many writers, and they have been or are being organized into classes depending on many concepts or factors. The two well documented classification systems are as follows: (1) A system which classifies management alternatives on the basis of management strategies (Manning, 1979) - a management strategy being a basic conceptual approach to management related to achievement of desired objective. Of the four strategies that may be recognized in this system, two deal with supply and demand - increasing the supply of recreation area in order to accommodate more use or decreasing/restricting the demand for recreation areas. The other two treat supply and demand as constant or fixed and the focus is given to modifying either the character of recreation in order to reduce adverse impacts, or modifying the sites to increase its durability. (2) A system which classifies management alternatives according to tactics used in management - a management tactic being an action or a tool applied by managers to accomplish a management strategy. Tactics are often classified according to directness with which they act on visitor behavior: direct management practices act directly on visitor behavior, leaving little or no freedom of choice on the side of the visitor. On the other hand, indirect management practices attempt to influence the decision factors which lead to visitor behavior (Peterson and Lime, 1979). This tactical classification, being more understood by more protected area managers, is the one adopted in the questionnaire used by the study. When a management plan has been established and adopted, many management techniques can be used to achieve its objectives. Visitor management techniques deal with the amount, type, and behavior of users in order not only to effectively reduce recreational impacts on the resource, but also to maximize visitor satisfaction, which should represent a primary concern for managers (Hammit and Cole, 1987). The following techniques were included and tested for their frequency of use in protected areas: DIRECT MANAGEMENT TACTICS 1. Limitation on the amount of use. "Reducing use can be a convenient way to limit impacts without either having to understand the real cause of problems or getting involved in more direct and active management problems" (Hammit and Cole, 1987). This technique may be the only possible alternative when demand is higher than the supply of available recreation opportunities. However, it should be implemented only after other possible techniques have proven ineffective, because it conflicts with the objectives of maximizing satisfaction through providing opportunities for recreation. Various tactics can be adopted to limit the amount of use: (a) limit entry to an area but allow visitors free choice to move about and change their routes and activities. One way to obtain this is through trail head quotas that keep visitor numbers at the desired level; (b) issue a limited number of permits for specific campsites, zones or itineraries within the area: with this option, spontaneous movement is hindered because visitors are required to stick to destinations they agreed to before entering the area. With this method administrative costs climb because rangers must patrol more widely to make sure that visitors comply; (c) require reservation: this is the most commonly used tactic in protected areas and can be done by mail, telephone, or in person. It has high acceptance and helps those who are able to plan ahead. A reservation system can be combined with a first-come first-served technique (queuing), which benefits those who live nearby and those who can freely dispose of their time; (d) issue limited permits sold through a lottery system which operates by chance, benefitting those who examine probabilities for success at different areas; (e) limit party size: this tactic can be used effectively to avoid social conflicts. Large parties can dominate recreational facilities, and can contribute inordinately to crowding problems (Stankey, 1973). Large groups are likely to create larger disturbed areas simply because they must spread out over larger areas. They can also disturb an area more rapidly than a small group; (f) citations and fines are necessary management technique to deal with parties that deviate from their itineraries; (g) limit length of stay by limiting the amount of time visitors can spend in the area. Length of stay limits have been placed on time spent both in the entire recreation area and at specific sites within the area. This discourages "homesteading" or staying at the site as long as a visitor wants and allows access to more parties, particularly in highly developed recreation areas. Ecologically the most important place to impose limits of stay is in lightly used places, where dispersal is the ongoing management policy. 2. Dispersal of use. High levels of use concentrated in popular places are often blamed for ecological impact problems. Dispersing use at such sites may be the answer, and it can be achieved by (a) spreading people out on the same number of sites but with greater distance between parties; (b) spreading people out on more sites with or without increasing distance between parties; (c) spreading people out in time (increasing off season use) with or without changing spatial distribution. These can be achieved through use of education, fixing the itineraries, controlling access by quota system, and requiring that visitors be accompanied by guides to help visitors (Roggen and Berrier, 1981). 3. Concentration of use. Concentration of use is a technique particularly adopted in campsite and other heavy use area management (Cole 1981; McEwen and Tocher, 1976). It can be achieved by (a) reducing distances between parties without changing the number of sites; (b) concentrating use on few designated sites whereby users are required to camp, stand, sit, swim, boat, etc, on developed sites instead of using some undisturbed area; in camping areas, tent-pads are usually identified for campers to erect their tents; (c) concentrating use in time. Spatial concentration of use is one of the main principles of managing developed recreation areas as a way of limiting impacts on resources. 4. Seasonal limitations on use. Many environments are particularly fragile during certain seasons of the year, for example when wildlife are vulnerable and when soils are water saturated and prone to disturbance. Thus, it is common for recreation to be prohibited or restricted at such periods. 5. Zoning. Another management technique is to separate different types of density of use allowing lower density in areas where more resource protection is desired, or to prohibit particularly destructive users from using parts of the area. Zoning is a common means for accounting for differences in the impact caused by different modes of use and/or travel, for example zones where all use, overnight use or use by parties with stock or motorized parties is prohibited. The important concern with zoning is that opportunities are not uniformly denied to legitimate users. Managers should cater to those users most appropriate in their area, basing appropriateness to some extent on regional opportunities for specific users. In developing countries, zoning is more often confused with having absolutely no activities going on in a particular area instead of lower density and lower impact types of use at the primitive end of an opportunity spectrum. Indirect management tactics 6. Low impact education. Under this headline are grouped most of the indirect management tactics which can be used in protected areas. Without educated and caring users, impact management will remain primarily reactional in nature. Education can alleviate impact problem caused by illegal, careless, unskilled and uninformed actions. For the education program to succeed, the message must be focused, the audience identified, a communication method must be well selected and it must be decided where to contact the audience (Fazio and Gilbert, 1986). Education of the public can be obtained through different ways such as use of signs, written material, and use of resource and cultural interpretation. It is important to note that some direct management techniques, like length of stay limits and party size limits are likely to be more effective if explained by the educational program. 7. Eligibility requirements. Visitors are required to demonstrate possession of a certain amount of skill/knowledge before they can obtain a permit; this benefits those who are willing to invest the time and effort to meet the requirements. This approach was not included in the study as it is still a concept (Hammit and Cole, 1987). INFORMATION AND INTERPRETIVE SERVICES The way in which managers address much of what they wish to communicate about their protected area to the public is through information and interpretation services. Every protected area needs the support and good will of its visitors who must be made to feel welcome. It is therefore important to provide visitors with information packages with the following contents: why the protected area exists, what there is to be seen, how to see what you want, what visitors are looking at, how to behave in protected areas, and what is there to attract the visitors to come back again (MacKinnon et al., 1986). Because of the need to manage visitor-induced impacts on resources, information dissemination has evolved into the most important indirect management technique used to minimize impacts in natural areas. Many parks, especially in developed countries, are already using this alternative through interpretive programs and low-impact use brochures. The objective is not to restrict user behavior but to modify it via understanding. Most visitors to outdoor recreation areas tend to have limited perception of environmental impacts caused by their action except littering (Lucas, 1980; Manning, 1986). Studies also indicate that managers and visitors of outdoor recreation often hold different perceptions (Manning, 1986). Interpretation tends to reveal concepts, meanings and inter- relationships of natural phenomena. In addition to enhancing the visitor's enjoyment, interpretation makes the public aware of the park purposes and policies, and strives to develop concerns for resource protection in the visitor. Interpretation can educate the visitor to appreciate what the protected area means to the region and the host nation (McKinnon et al., 1986). The presence and the level of interpretation services is a good indicator of how far a protected area has come in its visitor management. Protected area management agencies and NGOs are using combinations of the following communication techniques in order to enhance visitor enjoyment, while at the same time indirectly managing/minimizing the resultant use impacts (Fazio and Gilbert, 1986).: 1. Magazines which represent a channel of communication for natural resources managers, as efficient as at least newspapers are to the public 2. Brochures and pamphlets which provide public education, safety information, event and activity information, employee information and wilderness education. They could be in form of interpretive trail guide, statements as on post cards, posters or bumper stickers 3. Maps which make visitors aware of where they are; up to seven messages important to the agency's management objectives can be copied or illustrated on the map's reverse side to provide a wide range of information. 4. Interpretive techniques such as exhibits, audio-visual aids, campfire programs, living history interpretation, and self or guided tours are other methods available to managers METHODS SAMPLING STRATEGY The population of interest was made up of world parks and protected areas that receive visitors. Utilizing the IUCN international categories of protected areas (IUCN 1978, 1984), Strict Reserves (I) and Resource Reserves (VI) would be excluded from the sample because they are not supposed to receive visitors. The other IUCN protected area categories, such as National Parks, National Monuments, and Protected Landscapes, do include recreation and tourism services as part of their management. The population was selected from a list of 1847 addresses of parks and protected areas provided by the World Conservation Monitoring Center (WCMC) data base, which is the most complete listing available, and is based on the 1984 IUCN categorization. The U.S. is one of the few countries in the world which do not utilize IUCN categories per se. Most of its protected areas are therefore under represented on the IUCN list, hence it was decided to draw the sub-sample of U.S. areas from a different list provided by the four federal agencies which manage most of the protected areas in this country (USFS, NPS, BLM, USFWS). A stratified random sample was obtained from the combined population of addresses, the strata being developed and developing countries. This stratification was not based solely on the traditional division between developed and developing as defined by economic indicators, because the interest of the research was centered on nature tourism development. Countries where nature tourism development is not well documented and/or is in its initial stages were put in the same stratum together with developing countries as traditionally defined. For purposes of sorting the data during the analysis, the two groups, developed and developing, were further subdivided into ten regions, as follows (in parenthesis, the corresponding abbreviations used in the tables): Developed (Dev.ed) Developing (Dev.ing) - USA and Canada (USA/Can.) - Eastern Europe (E.Eur.) and former Soviet Union - Australia (Aus.) - Asia - Western Europe (W.Eur.) - Africa - Japan - South Africa (S.Afr.) - Latin America and Caribbean region (Lat.Amer.) - Pacific The sample size was fixed at 750 areas, of which 20% (150) were drawn from developed countries, 80% (600) from developing countries. These proportions were arrived at on the basis of the following assumptions: 1. Less information is available from developing countries and the information from developed countries is well documented 2. Seversl reports indicate that the growth in nature tourism travel is taking place largely in developing countries 3. There is current and world-wide concern about the issue of providing sound protected area management in order to guarantee sustainable development to the local communities around and within protected areas in developing countries. SURVEY INSTRUMENT A survey questionnaire was developed in four languages, English, French, Spanish and Portuguese (Appendix A). The questionnaire consists of 43 questions subdivided into the following sections: 1. General information on the protected area 2. Number and type of visitors 3. Work with local people and/or residents 4. Number and kind of facilities 5. Visitor management techniques (including interpretation services) 6. Impacts monitoring 7. Funding 8. Comments These sections were formulated during discussions with IUCN and The Ecotourism Society staff members, with protected area managers with international experience from Africa, Asia, Australia, Canada, Europe, Latin America and the U.S., and with representatives from the World Conservation Monitoring Center. The first mailing of the questionnaire took place in August 1992. Since by the end of that year several questionnaires had been returned for insufficient (wrong, unknown) address and only about 25% of them had been returned completed, a follow up copy of the questionnaire was sent in January 1993 to all the protected areas which had not answered. Where address correction was required, the questionnaires were sent to the main governmental agency in charge of protected area management of that country. The dead-line for the data entry was May 31, 1993. The questionnaires returned after that date have been reserved and will be sent to the WCMC along with the data file to be included in the data base. DATA ANALYSIS The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS/PC) has been used for data entry and analysis. Descriptive statistics (frequencies, means, percentages) were employed, as well as non-parametric statistics as measures of association (Chi-square, U-Mann Whitney test) at the significant level of p<0.05. A Chi-Square based index of association, "Phi" was used to identify the strength of any significant relationship between variables, and interpreted as: 1.0 = perfect association, >0.70 = strong association, 0.35-0.70 = moderate, <0.35 = weak. All results are sorted by the two groups of "developing" and "developed" countries. Results from the specific regions are discussed when they substantially differ from those of these main groups. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Due to the large amount of information involved, the presentation of the results and their discussion will be done simultaneously. The analysis of the data is based on 319 cases, of which 104 represent developed countries (U.S. and Canada, 55; Australia, 12; Western Europe, 34; Japan, 3) and 215 developing (Eastern Europe, 16; Asia, 32; Africa, 66; South Africa, 38; Latin America, 55; the Pacific, 8). The return rates were 43% (general sample), 69% (developed) and 36% (developing). Such a response rate is satisfactory for a mailed survey, especially considering how far some questionnaires had to travel and the considerable effort which was required in filling them up, often in a language foreign to the respondents. As expected on the basis of these considerations, the response rate from developing countries was lower and the questionnaires returned had more missing information than those returning from developed countries. As an example, no questionnaire was returned from the former Soviet Union out of nine mailed. Only valid percentages, which do not account for missing values, are reported: whenever the missing values exceeded 35% of the cases, the results have not been reported. Due to the small number of cases involved, regional results from Japan and the Pacific are not reported. PART I. GENERAL INFORMATION ON THE PROTECTED AREAS SURVEYED SECTION I. PROTECTED AREAS CHARACTERISTICS This section reports general data on the protected areas surveyed: 1) IUCN management category 2) year of establishment 3) main administrative agency 4) number and kind of staff 5) size 6) Geo-climatic zone and principal types of natural habitats IUCN management category Table 1 shows the different management priorities attached to IUCN protected area categories (IUCN, 1978, 1984). Responses to be checked in the survey were represented by common names such as national park, nature reserve, national forest, with their corresponding management category in parenthesis. According to the way they are managed, state parks have been classified by IUCN as National Parks (category II) or as Protected Landscape (category V), a common category in Europe. As Table 2 and Fig. 1 show, the two most represented IUCN categories of protected areas in the developed countries are category II, with 30% (22% national parks, 8% state parks) and category V, with 24%. These two categories do not differ substantially in their management objectives as far as tourism is concerned, both provide recreation and tourism services as one of their top priorities (IUCN, 1978, 1984; Mac Kinnon et al., 1986). Table 1. Conservation objectives of different categories of protected areas Modified from McKinnon et al (1986). [Table not available in text format] Table 2. Distribution of surveyed protected areas types according to IUCN categories (Percentage of responses)* [Table not available in text format] Fig. 1. Distribution of surveyed protected areas according to IUCN categories [Figure not available in text format] As shown in table 2, among regions in the developed group the most checked category varies; however, the majority of protected areas in U.S. and Canada are managed as Multiple Use Areas (category VIII). These areas provide not only for tourism, but also for the sustained production of natural resources such as timber and pasture and allow for consumptive uses of wildlife such as hunting and fishing. In contrast, Multiple-use Areas are notably absent among developing countries, where there is a marked reliance on national parks (47%). This data is in agreement with the literature, reporting national parks as the most used form of land protection in developing countries. (Torres, 1992; Budowski and MacFarland, 1984). The second most represented category among developing countries is Wildlife Refuge/Sanctuary (category IV), with 34% (90% in South Africa). IUCN describes wildlife refuges as being devoted more to ecosystem and wildlife conservation than to providing tourism services (IUCN, 1978,1984; MacKinnon et al., 1986), but the wildlife refuges in the study sample do not significantly differ, in their answers regarding visitor management, from the other main categories (II and V). Lack of sustainable multiple use areas in the protected area systems of developing countries could be one of the main reasons underlying management difficulties caused by poaching and illegal gathering of wood and other natural resource products, thus generating conflicts with local people. For all the IUCN categories listed, the difference between developed and developing countries is significant at least at the 0.05 level. While it was the original intention of this study to not include in the sample Strict Nature Preserves (category I), and Resources Reserves (category VI) (see Methods), there were two such areas from developed countries and thirteen from developing countries. Since most of these areas report allowing visitors in and do have visitors' facilities it was decided to retain them in the sample. Most of the areas in these categories would probably need to be reconsidered and re-classified by IUCN. YEAR OF ESTABLISHMENT Study results (Table 3) agree with Harrison et al. (1982), showing that in both developed and developing countries the rate at which new protected areas were being added to the system saw its largest increase in the last two decades. This increase was more pronounced in the developing countries, with 58% of the areas surveyed being established after 1970 (largest response rate), versus 38% in developed. The analysis of the regional results shows that data from developing countries confirms this finding, especially in the case of Asia and Latin America. The notable exception is South Africa, where 65% of the protected areas were established before the 1970s. Responses from developed regions show a larger variability. The rate at which new protected areas had been established follows a quasi- continuous distribution in U.S. and Canada, a bi-modal distribution in Australia and a normal distribution in Western Europe. Actual management began after 1970 in 67% of the protected areas responding from developing countries and in 39% of the areas in developed countries. For both these variables (protected area establishment and management), the difference between the two groups is significant at the 0.001 level. Table 3. Year in which protected area establishment and management began (Percentage of response) [Table not available in text format] MAIN ADMINISTRATIVE AGENCY In both developed and developing countries, the principal administrative agency reported was governmental in more than 90% of the cases. It is well known that, in recent years, protected areas managed by NGOs and private owners play a growing role and successfully attract nature-oriented tourists (Boo, 1990; Rovinski, 1991). Many such areas may not have attained a formal recognition as part of a country protected area system, since few of them were reported in the list of addresses provided by IUCN. Two such areas in the sample, however, are the Community Baboon Sanctuary in Belize and the Monteverde Cloud Forest in Costa Rica. NUMBER AND KIND OF STAFF The analysis on the presence and distribution of park staff according to job qualification shows several interesting differences between developed and developing countries (Table 4). For the purposes of the study and because of their increasing numbers, volunteers have been considered a category of agency personnel like all the others. The average number of staff members/unit in developing countries was 34 (28 permanent, 16 seasonal), while developed countries had an average of 98 people/unit, three times as much (42 permanent and 56 seasonal). Developing countries report having more personnel than developed only for the position of permanent ranger. The difference between the two groups is significant at the 0.05 level regarding seasonal employment and the use of volunteers; developed countries rely largely on seasonal employees (87%) and, especially in the U.S. and Canada, on seasonal volunteers (67%). By contrast, 55% of protected areas in developing countries utilize seasonals, but only about 10% use volunteers. Since volunteers and guides are generally assigned to education/interpretation tasks, while rangers are in charge of protection, the results seem to suggest that, in developing countries, management tends to rely more on surveillance and less on education than developed countries do. This has been confirmed by results from other sections of the survey. (Only the most noteworthy results on staff number and distribution have been discussed here. For additional regional breakdowns on administrators, scientists, laborers and technicians, see Appendix B). For both developed and developing countries, no statistically significant correlation between area size and number of employees could be found, suggesting that the number of employees in protected areas does not depend on the size of the areas. A correlation does exist between number of visitors and number of employees, with both permanent and seasonal in developed countries, only with permanent workers in developing. Table 4. Number and type of personnel in the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses) [Table not available in text format] SIZE The average size of protected areas studied does not differ significantly between the developed and the developing countries surveyed. Among developed countries the average is 160,000 ha, among developing countries 140,000. The largest average size is reported by Australia (422,000 ha). Due to the high variability in unit size, however, the average size does not provide a precise picture. A breakdown in size categories shows that in both groups the majority of areas are in the two middle categories but in developed countries the distribution appear to be more balanced along the four size categories (Fig. 2). Regional results show that the distribution along the size categories is more balanced in U.S. and Canada than in any of the other regions. For instance, the large majority of protected areas in Eastern Europe (88%) and South Africa (79%) fall in only one size category (Appendix C). Fig. 2. Size distribution of the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] GEO-CLIMATIC AND HABITAT DISTRIBUTION The subdivision adopted in this paper between more developed and developing countries in terms of degree of tourism development roughly matches the subdivision of the world in biogeographical realms as proposed by Dasmann (1973), and Udvardy (1975) (Fig. 3). Thus, differences between the two groups can be interpreted as differences between paleartic, neartic and australian biomes on one side (developed) and neotropical, afrotropical, indomalayan and oceanian on the other side (developing). There is no significant difference between the two groups in the percentage of areas located in the arid zone, at one end of the geo- climatic spectrum (Fig. 4 and Appendix D). As would be expected, the difference is significant (at the 0.05 level) in the other three main zones, especially when we consider temperate versus tropical zones. The majority of protected areas in developed countries (76%) are temperate; the majority of areas in developing (55%) are tropical, with the exception of Eastern Europe, where all the areas are temperate (paleartic realm), and of South Africa, where most of the areas (46%) are arid (Appendix D). Fig. 3. The eight biogeographical realms of the world Source: Udvardy 1975. [Figure not available in text format] Fig. 4. Geo-climatic distribution of the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] Fig. 5 and Table 5 show the relative distribution of natural habitats in the protected areas surveyed. On the whole, the distribution appears to be well balanced across habitat types for both developed and developing countries. When the habitats are ranked according to their relative frequency, however, interesting differences emerge. In both groups the two "extreme" habitats, desert and tundra, take the last two places. The three most represented habitats in developed countries are wetlands (53%), dry primary forest (41%) and dry secondary forest (35%). Among developing countries those places are occupied by grasslands (39%), humid primary forest (34%), and shrublands (33%) respectively. The difference between the two groups is significant at the 0.05 level for three out of twelve habitats: wetlands, humid primary forest, and dry primary forest. The latter two might be expected and explained by geo-climatic distribution, but wetlands are almost universal and the lack of wetland protection in developing countries is still cause for some concern. The issue was raised in Caracas, Venezuela, at the IV World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas in 1992 (IUCN, 1992) and is confirmed by this study. Nevertheless, wetlands are disappearing at a fast pace all over the world, not just in developing countries. It is thus very important that all countries multiply their effort to protect the last remnants of these ecosystems. Only two of the total number of protected areas surveyed are Marine Reserves. The presence of coral reef is reported in 3% and 9% of developed and developing countries respectively. The protection of marine habitats is as important as the protection of wetlands, and one of the objectives of the Bali Action Plan (Miller, 1984) was "to incorporate marine, coastal and fresh water protected areas into the worldwide network". As a consequence, international conservation agencies are stressing the importance of protecting marine ecosystems in general, and coral reefs in particular, and are actively working for their establishment (IUCN/WCMC, 1990; UNEP/IUCN, 1988; Van't Hof, 1992). Fig. 5. Habitat distribution in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] Table 5. Habitat types found in the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses)* [Table not available in text format] SECTION II.VISITATION TO PROTECTED AREAS AND VISITOR CHARACTERISTICS This section deals with general information about the number and kind of visitors and the methods used by the different protected areas to collect such information. More than 75% of the areas collect some kind of visitor information and the highest percentage (100%) is reported for Australia. The percentage of areas which publish this information is much smaller: 36% in developed countries and 27% in developing countries. Methods employed to collect visitor information The most frequently used method to collect visitor information varies between the two groups (Fig. 6) and among the regions (Appendix E). Fig. 6. Methods of collecting visitor information in the protected areas surveyed Generally, the most used method in developed countries is informal contacts (64%), reflecting the norm of multiple entry points - often uncontrolled - and the use of roving contacts by rangers, especially in the U.S. and Canada. Surprisingly, this is the most used method also in E. Europe, while on average the most used method among developing countries is entrance registration (59%), reflecting a tradition of controlled entry points and concentrated use areas, especially in Africa and Latin America. As data on interviews and questionnaires show, the use of formal survey methods, which can help gathering accurate information, is less common in developing countries. The difference between the two groups is significant at 0.005 level for all the methods but one (permits). The different methods are not mutually exclusive and more than one is generally used. The developing countries surveyed used more methods to collect visitor information than did developed countries. Notable among these combinations is the use of gathering information while administering entrance fees or permits. If we compare these findings with the low budget developing countries generally experience, we are led to conclude that entrance fees and selling of permits may be a necessary source of revenue for protected areas in those countries. Consequently, a planned increment in nature tourism presence could have more beneficial effects on those areas than on areas in developed countries. NUMBERS OF VISITORS The survey asked for information on the number of visitors to protected areas in four different years: 1991, 1990, 1986 and 1982. Only the data relative to 1991 and 1990 are reported in Table 6 due to the high percentage of missing data from the previous years (more than 35%). Between 1990 and 1991, the average number of visitors to protected areas in developed countries grew by 6% and by a striking 28% in developing countries. Even at that, in both years developed countries received on average fifteen times more visitors, although less data was available for 1990 than for 1991. Asia is the region which reported the largest increase, jumping from an average of 41,000 visitors/area in 1990 to 149,000 in 1991 (263%), with the increase especially notable among specific areas in the region which are experiencing a tourism "boom". This finding is in agreement with the trends reporting a general increase of tourism in Asia (UNEP, 1992). In Latin America the average increase was only 2%, but increases were reported in more than 80% of the areas, suggesting that the growth in tourism, however slow, is more evenly distributed across this region. While visitation is increasing rapidly in developing countries, Africa still has 14% of its protected areas without visitation, and Asia 4%. Latin America, which showed that 3% of its protected areas had no visitation in 1990, in the following year reported visitors in all its areas. These last findings are in keeping with the literature about nature tourism and ecotourism, which point out that even areas set aside predominantly for protection are now being sought out by visitors. Among developed countries, the largest increase (153%) was reported in Australia. All the other regions also saw an increment in the number of visitors from 1990 to 1991, with the exception of Eastern Europe, which, following the events of 1989-1990, experienced a decrease (the numbers of visitors recorded right after the 1989 "revolutions" evidently deflated in the following year, as soon as the novelty was over). Table 6. Number of visitors received annualy by the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses) [Table not available in text format] VISITOR ORIGIN In both developed and developing countries most visitors are of national origin, but the percentages vary between the two groups and among the regions. In developing countries visitors are more evenly distributed between local, national and international, with international visitors well represented, especially in some regions. South Africa, perhaps due to its political atmosphere, has a predominance of local visitors, Eastern Europe as a predominance of nationals, Latin America and especially Africa have a predominance of internationals (Fig. 7 and Appendix F). Among developed countries, the national visitors are reported as the main group in 46% of the cases, the international visitors in only 8%. These data reflect the different importance attached to tourism and recreation by people living in different areas of the world. It would not be safe to infer that developing regions are more appealing to the international visitor; as some authors have pointed out, they are just less appealing to the people of their own countries, due to economic constraints (Torres, 1992) or to different recreation priorities and values (Lusigi, 1984). Guided tours versus private visits The high majority of visitors do not take advantage of guided tours but reach their destination on their own (Table 7). However, in developing countries guided tours make up 21% of the total, almost twice as much as in developed countries. Since in developing countries the number of guided tours is bound to increase, due to the rapid growth in nature tourism, they have a pressing need for developing and implementing concessionaire management. The region which receives more guided tours (45% of the total visitation) is Eastern Europe. The majority of visitors to Eastern Europe are of national origin, and public transportation is still the most used means of travel in those countries. In addition, the few international tourists allowed in the past to visit the then Soviet Republics were always "escorted" via guided tours. This probably explains why, even now, visitors prefer to choose a well-established means of transportation when travelling in Eastern Europe. Fig. 7. The origin of visitors to the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] Table 7. Guided and private visits in the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses)* [Table not available in text format] TYPES OF VISITORS It is important for protected areas to know more about visitor types, so that they can adapt their management strategies to better suit their visitors' expectations while protecting the resource. In both developed and developing countries, as well as in all the regions, the distribution of visitors according to the reason for visiting follows a uniform trend, but there are differences in magnitude (Table 8). Most protected areas report that at least 50% of their visitors come for recreation purposes, but the percentages vary significantly between developed and developing countries (80% versus 61%). In both groups, the second most reported reasons for visiting are education and scientific research, accounting for about 10% and 5% respectively. Among developing countries, 18% of the protected areas surveyed reported no recreational visitors at all, compared with 3% among developed. Table 8. Main reasons why visitors travel to the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses) [Figure not available in text format] In developed countries, 79% of the protected areas surveyed have more than half of their area open to tourism use, compared with only 45% in developing countries. In both groups, the majority of protected areas (80% and 60% respectively) have more than half of their area open to scientific work (Table 9). Table 9. Proportion of protected area open to the public and to the scientists (Percentage of responses) [Table not available in text format] SECTION III. LOCAL PEOPLE One of the often discussed differences between developed and developing countries protected areas is the presence of people who utilize natural resources within and adjacent to protected areas. This creates any number of management problems since adjacent people using area resources are, in fact, one type of visitor that must be managed and they obviously generate the same sorts of impacts, in a more permanent way. This study, therefore, attempts to begin to document: (1) the presence of local people and park staff inside protected areas, (2) the eventual presence of subsistence activities (both authorized and not) and (3) the kind of outreach programs provided by the managing agency. People within protected areas Only 25% of the areas surveyed have people living within their boundaries. This result came as a surprise, given the large amount of literature documenting conflicts between park administrators and local populations living nearby protected areas (Myers, 1972, 1989; Swem and Cahn, 1984; Tassi, 1984; Lucas, 1988; Western, 1984). This study, however, explicitly asked for the number of people living within the protected area: no information was gathered concerning number of people living adjacent to the protected area. Regionally, in Asia and in Eastern Europe, people are present inside 50% and 60% of the surveyed areas, respectively. This sheds light on a different category of local people that may or may not be subsistence users. In developed landscapes that proceeded protected area designation, like those in Europe and portions of Asia where wildlands are scarce, local populations may have been incorporated into protected areas (more than 10,000 in several of the areas responding from E. Europe). The local people living on these protected areas may be more stable, and present different kinds of management problems that are conspicuously absent from the literature. With the exclusion of Western Europe, most park staff members around the world also live inside the protected areas they manage, with South Africa indicating the highest percentage (86%). Presence of subsistence activities Protected areas in both developed and developing countries report that they allow subsistence activities to occur on about half of the land they manage (52% and 45% respectively) but illegal subsistence activities occur on more than twice as many areas in developing countries (20% and 46% respectively). This figure seems to be lower than earlier studies have suggested and therefore indicates some progress in the curtailment of poaching and other furtive uses (Machlis and Tichnell 1985). Nevertheless, E. Europe and Africa are among the regions most affected by illegal activities which are carried on in 61% and 57% of the areas, respectively. Eastern Europe reports that up to 87% of its protected areas are utilized for legal subsistence activities, even if none of the protected areas surveyed in this region is a Multiple Use Area (see Section I). Half of these areas, however, are classified as Protected Landscape, and maintaining traditional land uses is part of their management objectives. The widespread presence of subsistence activities is possibly the reason why Eastern Europe is the region which reports the highest percentage of local people benefitting from economic activities related to protected areas: 92% versus an average of 68% in developing countries. This figure is quite close to the average reported for developed countries (Table 10). Table 10. Presence of subsistence activities in the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses) [Table not available in text format] ACTIVITIES WITH THE LOCAL PEOPLE The results show a significant difference at the 0.0001 level between developed and developing in two out of four activities: public involvement in management/planning and volunteer programs (Fig. 8 and Table 11). Fig. 8. Management activities in which local people participate in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] Table 11. Management activities in which local people participate in the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses) [Table not available in text format] Developed countries do considerably more public involvement during the planning process (64%) than developing countries (31%). In some developed countries, agencies are required to conduct public hearings by legislation, such as the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) in the U.S., by a tradition of participatory decision-making in natural resource management and by pressure from environmental NGOs. The largest difference between developed and developing countries occurs in the percentage of areas which provide for volunteer programs: 61% and 19% respectively. These data are similar to those reported in Section I on the presence of seasonal volunteers, which are often not locals. While developed countries have a long tradition of volunteering, the same cannot be said of developing countries where it is regarded as a use of time that few can afford. Both developed and developing countries report about the same amount of recreational/educational programs and community development outreach, even at the regional level. In Africa and Asia, where subsistence use pressures are strong, community development projects are necessary and the results show that they are more frequently a part of protected area management than anywhere else in the world. Overall, the most common activities are recreation and education, practiced in about 70% of the protected areas sampled. Most commonly, this is the only category of community outreach developing countries engage in, while developed countries are more frequently active in all the outreach activities listed in Table 11. Several authors have stressed the importance of education for improving parks-people relationships and as a necessary step toward conflict resolution. (Richards, 1988; Moore, 1988; Pitt, 1988). More authors however, especially in the last 15 years, have pointed out that education alone is not enough to gain the trust and, consequently, the support, of local communities. What is needed is active involvement of those community in all the stages of the decision-making process, and more willingness, from the park administrators, to participate in and to provide for community development. Unfortunately, this study shows that progress in this direction is still slow, especially in several regions like South Africa and Latin America, where it is badly needed. In areas where local communities are present, one reason for protected areas to justify their existence is to be perceived as alternative, possibly more beneficial models of development, not as abstract legal entities which deprive local people of their land and of their traditional ways of living. It is beyond the scope of this paper, which focus on visitor management, to go deeply into community-based management of protected area, but several suggestions can be found in the literature (Renard and Hudson 1992; MacKinnon et al., 1986; Lusigi, 1992; Weaver, 1991; East, 1991; Drake, 1991; Brandon, 1993; Horwich et al., 1993). PART II. VISITOR AND VISITOR IMPACT MANAGEMENT IN THE PROTECTED AREAS SURVEYED Protected area management agencies have a responsibility of being stewards of resources entrusted to them by the public. In order to ensure accountability, and to facilitate management consistency and improvement, a management plan ought to be operative before resources can be opened to public use. Unfortunately, management programs are often developed as a response to the increasing use of resources, and management practices lag behind demands and pressures exerted on the resources. Managers need to acquire a more pro-active attitude on this issue. Managers should put in place systems designed to monitor the progress of the inevitable impacts, and at the same time be ready to improve their visitor and site management tactics/techniques once the impacts observed are deemed unacceptable. A comprehensive management plan has to take into account the kind and level of infrastructure and facilities provided, the management techniques deemed most appropriate to limit impacts, and the ways to monitor reoccurring impacts. SECTION IV. MANAGEMENT, INFRASTRUCTURE AND FACILITY DEVELOPMENT Management planning and decision making frameworks The literature reviewed describes the majority of protected areas in developing countries as lacking management plans (IUCN, 1992). Results from the study may suggest some improvement in this area, with 64% now reporting management plans in place (Table 12). Among developed countries, all respondents from Australia have a management plan (100%), as do 94% of the respondents in the U.S. and Canada, and Western Europe. The difference between developed and developing countries at this regard is significant at the 0.0001 level. This may be a reflection of two concomitant factors: developing countries have a higher proportion of newly established protected areas than developed countries (Section I) and they also generally have less monetary resources available. If an area without a management plan becomes an attraction point, it would be necessary to quickly secure adequate funding for establishing and implementing a management plan so that adverse affects of visitation on the resources can be minimized before reaching unbearable levels. Table 12. Management planning frameworks utilized in the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses)* [Table not available in text format] Table 12 also shows the percentage of protected areas which make use of research based management planning systems developed in the U.S. and Canada with emphasis on sensitivity to resource and visitor issues (see Visitor impact management at pag. 18). ROS is historically the first management system developed for protected areas, and is the one most used. It is interesting to note that Australia seems to take some management systems more seriously than the U.S. and Canada, where they were first developed. These "nordamerican" systems are not being adopted in Western Europe, where 78% of the areas use other types of management systems. Among developing countries, only in South Africa a considerable number of the protected areas surveyed apply these systems. This can be attributed to an easier access to the literature on the topic and to a greater involvement in resource research. The results from other developing countries are not reported because they confirmed that the know-how has not yet been transferred to their protected areas, with few exceptions of some known individual parks in Kenya and Ecuador (Wallace 1993). Considerable efforts by individuals and institutions are under way to facilitate the transfer of information on management planning systems; worth noting in this regard is the International Course "Management of Wildlands and Protected Areas" offered at Colorado State University which every year offers theoretical and practical training to about 20 protected areas managers from Latin America. LEVEL OF INFRASTRUCTURE AND FACILITIES DEVELOPMENT It is important to determine the types of facilities in use and compare the evolution of facility development in different regions. The data collected in this survey provide information only on the types of facilities, with no reference to their location and/or state of maintenance. Table 13 shows percentage responses to a list of the most commonly used facilities in visitor and protected area management. Fig. 9 shows that terrestrial facilities are variably used in both groups, and none of them has been developed in all the areas surveyed. As might be expected, the percentages of protected areas which indicate presence of facilities are higher in developed countries, the exception being some facilities which have an orientation to accommodate people (guard posts and sleeping facilities), where the reverse is true. The difference between the two groups is significant in seven out of nine facilities at the 0.05 level, the two exceptions being food services and campgrounds. Table 13. Types of facilities utilized in the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses) Fig. 9. Types of facilities utilized in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] A brief discussion on the most commonly found facilities follows. TRAILS Trails are the most common type of facility in both developed (89%) and developing countries (68%). Most people prefer to travel on traditional well established trails, but problems can arise when any type of trail receives too much traffic, or when users walk outside the path. Properly designed trails rarely suffer if visitors stay on them, but not all trails are properly designed or maintained. About 99% of the developed areas which have trails indicate that they have also trail maintenance programs in place, versus 93% of the areas in developing countries. All the existing trails ought to have a maintenance program, given their importance as the major means of transportation by which visitors and staff are brought in contact with protected area resources. The long term costs of allowing trails to deteriorate are enormous. Provision of good, well laid-out trails along with other visitor facilities, and information channels placed at selected sites within protected areas will ensure that visitors will concentrate where the management prefer. Given the managemental importance attached to trails, an attempt was made to investigate whether there are significant relationships between presence of trails and selected managemental and information dissemination techniques. As expected, when there is a trail it is relatively common to find a self-guided program. Other associations were found with the presence of trail guides and brochures. PICNIC AREAS Developed countries provide more often for picnic facilities than developing countries, and this is in accord with the higher percentage of local and recreation- oriented visitors they receive (Section III). Notably, the results from Western Europe (developed) and South Africa (developing) are in a direction opposite to the general trends of their respective group (Table 13). VISITOR CENTERS Developed countries have a higher percentage of visitor centers than developing countries. In most cases, the presence of visitor centers might confirm the focus on the education of visitors which seems to come later in the evolution of protected area infrastructure. In this respect, protected areas in developing countries are not yet doing much to educate their visitors. Guard posts The greatest disparity between developed and developing countries is seen in the presence of guard posts. Among developing countries respondents, 58% indicated presence of guard posts compared with only 27% in developed countries. When facilities are ranked according to their relative presence, guard posts rank third among developing countries, only tenth among developed countries. It is important to realize that due to population pressures from the neighborhood, protected areas in developing countries face different threats compared to those in developed countries. Sometimes guard posts are established at access points in order to reduce inconveniences to visitors, and at the same time reduce visitor administration costs. In developed countries, the idea of managing remote areas as wilderness areas has made establishment of obtrusive structures like guard posts unnecessary, because of wilderness management philosophy. The results obtained, therefore, reflect different styles of resource and visitor management, and of regulation enforcement between developed and developing countries. For example, Parc National des Volcans, a 12,500 ha national park in northern Rwanda, employs 65 rangers who oversee the seven sectors which make up the park. Twenty eight rangers have to be on duty, four per sector, and they are replaced by other twenty eight on a weekly basis. Since the park lacks adequate transportation equipment that could be used on daily basis, it has a guard post per sector to accommodate rangers on duty. On the other hand, due to the availability of transportation in developed nations, rangers can reach their posts daily from either their homes or a more centralized accommodation. SLEEPING FACILITIES In developing countries, protected areas have not fully been incorporated in national development plans as of yet. This has left many of them remote, with almost no adjacent primary public services like hotels and restaurants. As a consequence, visitors tend to spend the night within the protected areas as a way of shortening the distances to be covered before reaching the desired recreation settings. On the positive side, lodging within protected areas boundaries facilitates visitor control, and serves as an addition source of income. RESTROOMS Restrooms are facilities of necessity and not of choice, and could be used as an indication of the level of sanitation in protected areas, because of the need to protect the general public and wildlife from transmissible diseases. The difference in the presence of restrooms, with percentages of 71% and 51% in developed and developing countries respectively, is alarming given that many developing countries do not allow dispersed use by visitors. In developed countries, the areas which may not have restrooms are those in which dispersed use is practiced, while in all the other types of protected areas restrooms are required by law. The low presence of restrooms in protected areas of developing countries, as low as 40% in the African continent, has managemental and public health significance. For instance, the cathole or no method at all is being utilized in Parc National des Volcans in almost all its seven sectors, yet during the dry season local people depend directly on its natural water troughs, which could expose them to health hazards. While the cathole method can still be relatively safe in wilderness areas, it is important that human waste management techniques be developed in all protected areas. WASTE MANAGEMENT The questionnaire asked managers to indicate whether or not solid waste is collected and how and where it is treated. Most of the protected areas surveyed have some kind of program for the collection of waste (Appendix G): 83% in developed countries and 78% in developing countries, South Africa actually taking the lead with 95%. Further analysis shows that 76% of the developed countries have their waste treated outside the protected area, while in developing countries the percentage is almost evenly split between treatment outside (45%) and inside (42%) (Fig. 10). Developing countries' greater reliance on treating the waste inside the protected area is probably due to fewer nearby landfills and waste management facilities. Fig. 10. Locations at which solid waste is treated in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] In analyzing the methods of treatment, the answers were classified in three main categories: recycling, incineration, landfill (Fig. 11). Whether these methods are used alone or in combination, landfill is the option most frequently used (developed 51%, developing 44%). Recycling programs are in place in 21% of the developed countries and in 11% of the developing, incineration is used in only 7% of the developed countries but in 26% of the developing. Due to the fact that landfills are being created within protected areas, landfill management and infrastructure development should become topics of importance for future training. Individual differences especially among protected areas in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Africa led to a classification of a number of indicated waste treatment as "other", (they included such answer as "collected by private firms"). South Africa may provide an interesting case study since its areas use incineration, and not lanfill, to a greater degree, and recycling solid waste occurs in 30% of its protected areas. This result is surpassed only by the U.S. and Canada at 31%. By contrast, none of the protected areas in Asia have recycling programs in place. Fig 11. Solid waste treatment methods utilized in the protected areas surveyed (Multiple answers possible) [Figure not available in text format] FACILITIES SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO LESSEN IMPACTS It is in the results regarding presence of facilities designed to reduce impacts that large differences between developed and developing countries were found (Table 14 and Fig. 12). Barriers, bridges to protect stream crossing, designated parking and walkways are still noticeably inadequate in developing countries, and these are especially needed in high use areas. In this respect, Eastern Europe resembles more closely the group of developed nations. For instance, the responses obtained for use of parking lots (81%) and human barriers (69%) are higher than those reported from Western Europe, while they are not much different from those observed in the U.S. and Canada (83% and 70% respectively). South Africa and Asia show percentages in the middle, while Africa and Latin America have lowest percentages for almost all the facilities. Australia has the highest percentages of areas using the selected facilities to minimize human impacts on resources. Few of the protected areas surveyed have marine facilities, but the comparison between developed and developing countries tend to follow the same pattern set by terrestrial facilities. Boat launches, piers, etc, essential for protection, are significantly less used in developing countries at the 0.005 level. Table 14. Facilities specifically constructed to reduce visitor impacts in the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses) [Table not available in text format] Fig. 12. Terrestrial facilities specifically utilized to reduce impacts in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] SECTION V. VISITOR MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES UTILIZED IN THE PROTECTED AREAS SURVEYED A list of the management techniques most commonly used in the protected areas surveyed subdivided into direct and indirect tactics according to Peterson and Lime (1979) is shown in Appendix H. Although some tactics like patrols/ranger presence can be used as direct or indirect tool, they appear only under one category for convenience. The results indicate that indirect management tactics are more commonly used in all the protected areas sampled. In developing countries even the most used direct tactic, zoning (50%), is less used than indirect management tactics like patrols/ranger presence (76%), signs (66%) and written material (65%). In developed countries, the two most used direct tactics, designated campsites (55%) and law enforcement by imposing of fines (54%), are less used than the following indirect tactics: written material (89%), signs (86%), patrols (84%), and use of information displays (67%). These results indicate that the suggestion of "minimizing direct regulation of visitors as much as possible" (Lucas 1982) is in fact being used in world protected areas, even though this suggestion has not yet been uniformly endorsed (McAvoy and Dustin 1983). DIRECT MANAGEMENT TACTICS Most direct management tactics involve programs designed to enforce compliance in one way or the other. All the direct tactics are used by less than 50% of the areas in both developing and developed countries, with the exception of designated campsite and citations and fines in developed countries and zoning in developing countries (Fig. 13). Fig. 13. Use of direct management tactics in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] South Africa joins with developed countries like Australia, the U.S. and Canada in terms of the percentages of protected areas which employ the various direct management tactics, while the use of these tactics in Western Europe is consistently low and comparable with those reported by some developing regions like Asia and Latin America. ZONING Protected areas in developing countries use zoning more often than developed countries (50% and 39% respectively). However, zoning may be defined or may be applied in different ways. In developing countries, zonification generally implies an absolute restriction of use in some areas. In developed countries, zoning is practiced to separate different types of visitors by providing them with different recreation opportunities, not by limiting their access. USE OF REQUIRED GUIDES There is a significant difference between developed and developing countries at the 0.00001 level in this respect: visitors are accompanied by guides in 41% of protected areas in developing nations compared to only 18% of the protected areas in developed countries. In developing countries, especially in Africa, to guarantee the security of visitors and to ensure that they find the desired resources, it is necessary that they are accompanied by guides/interpreters. Very often, the guides are part of the park personnel. Well-trained concessionaire guides could ease the burden currently placed on the staff, but still few parks in developing countries have formalized concessionaire contracts (see indirect tactics below). FIXED ITINERARIES This is one of the least used tactics in both developed and developing countries (17% and 23% respectively). As noted by Lucas (1980; 1981), use of fixed itineraries in visitor management is also one of the most disliked of all management tactics in wilderness areas, a protected area category which was not considered in this study. CITATION AND FINES This tactic is used when there is a high rate of non- compliance with regulations and when enforcement personnel is present. It is more used in protected areas of developed nations (54%) than in developing countries (39%), confirming findings reported in the literature (Wallace, 1993). Data from U.S. parks like Grand Canyon National Park (the U.S.), suggested that a third of visitors deviated from their itineraries, therefore fines and patrols are used to ensure a high compliance rate (Hammit and Cole 1987). In some developing countries, the higher reliance on required park guides may be one of the factors behind the low use of citation and fines. In other areas, park personnel may not have the legal authority to charge fines to the visitors. DESIGNATED CAMPSITES To limit impacts on the resource, concentrating use in designated sites is the best choice, especially when attaining dispersal of use through education is difficult. This tactic is utilized in high developed recreation areas. Designated campsites are used by 55% and 44% of protected areas in developed and developing countries respectively. RESERVATIONS This technique is not being as largely applied as the literature would suggest: reservation systems are used in 46% and 41% of protected areas in developed and developing countries respectively. TRAIL HEAD QUOTAS These can be effectively used in order to keep use levels at the interior locations close to the desired levels (Parsons, Stohlgren, and Fodor 1981). Yet, they allow visitors to freely move about as they please and change their routes if necessary once they are already in the recreation area. While imposing trail head quotas is perhaps the direct tactic with the most potential for limiting impacts on specific sites, the results show that it is the least used in the protected areas surveyed (6% developed, 14% developing). Trail quota systems are the least used in all the regions, with the exception of South Africa's protected areas (29%). INDIRECT MANAGEMENT TACTICS Indirect management tactics attempt to influence visitors behavior without directly interfering with their freedom of choice. Most of the indirect management tactics suggested by researchers focus on information and education, and according to this study the three most used are written material, patrolling and signage (Fig. 14 and Appendix H). Fig. 14. Use of indirect management tactics in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] Pre-trip information These tactics work through influencing visitors' decisions before they reach or enter the destination site. Information can reach the visitors long before they plan visiting through use of written materials. Such management tactic has a fairly high use in protected areas of both developed (89%) and developing (65%) countries, but the difference is significant at 0.00001 level. Managers in developing countries may or may not currently have the ability to influence a visitor's decision before visiting compared to the management in developed countries. Information supply on the visitor's arrival More information can be provided to visitors on the day of arrival through introductory talks given by a protected area personnel or by information displays. Results show that orientation talks are approximately used in 50% of the protected areas surveyed in both categories, but displayed information is only used 39% of the time in developing countries compared to 67% in developed countries. On-site information Rangers on patrol provide a visible management presence. They can have a controlling effect without coming in direct contact with the visitors, and can provide information upon request. Patrolling is the third most used tactic in developed countries and the most frequently used among developing countries. These results tend to confirm developing countries' higher dependance on surveillance rather than on information, education and interpretation techniques already encountered in other parts of the survey. However, patrolling should not be utilized as a substitute for distribution of information at key points. Signage is an indirect management tactic when signs are used to carry messages which advertise new attractions with the aim of dispersing use from popular sites. Use of signs can also be a direct tactic, for instance when they bear messages like "no dogs are allowed". Results indicate that signing is used by 86% of the protected areas in developed countries but only by 66% of those in developing countries. All the respondents in Australia make use of written materials, patrols and signs. Africa consistently indicates lowest percentages of protected areas which use the various indirect management tactics with the exception of use of patrols (71%). Concessionaire contracts Tour or concessionaire operators can be delegated with the responsibility of ensuring that the group they are leading behaves properly at the recreation site, especially in the cases in which visitors do not get regulations or supervision from the management personnel. This tactic has not found much use in many protected areas of both developing and developed countries, with the exception of Australia, where 64% of the respondents use it. On average, licensed tour operators are used only in 20% to 35% of the protected areas of both groups. However, the appropriate use of tour operators presents the potential to off set visitor management costs and to support the overall management of a protected area, especially in those developing countries where it is required that visitors be accompanied by guides. It is necessary that protected area managers develop and implement guidelines for training and incorporating tour operators in park management issues (Wallace 1993). SECTION VI. USE OF VISITOR INFORMATION AND INTERPRETATION SERVICES AS MANAGEMENTAL TOOLS Information and educational materials For all the information techniques considered, protected areas in developed countries use each of them more than developing countries (Fig. 15). The differences between the two groups are significant at the 0.001 level except for the use of posters (0.05). Brochures and maps are the most used information materials. Nature guides, educational materials, posters are used by approximately 50% of the protected areas in developed countries, and only by 30% in developing countries. Postcards and newsletters are the least utilized for all the sampled areas. Use of brochures, nature guides and postcards show a tendency to be more associated with developed countries than other techniques. Fig. 15. Information distribution techniques utilized in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] The regional breakdown (Appendix I) shows that Eastern Europe demonstrates a balanced use of information techniques, followed by the U.S. and Canada. All areas that responded from Australia supply brochures and maps (100%). Most eco-tourism visitor studies have indicated that international visitors want more information than they find, especially maps and nature guides, and information about protected area resources. In Asia, Africa and Latin America the use of maps is still moderately low and the use of nature guides and educational material is very low considering that most people expect to find these materials available. Tourists are almost always willing to spend money on such materials (Lindberg, 1991) and most protected areas in developing countries are missing an important opportunity to generate income for the area, and are not doing much to enhance visitor knowledge of area resources and visitor satisfaction. Interpretive Techniques Although the full array of interpretive techniques is being utilized to a greater extent in developed countries, guided talks and self-guided walks or tours are frequently used in developing countries and in some cases exceed the usage found in developed countries (Fig. 16). Fig. 16. Resource interpretation techniques utilized in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] Regional results (Appendix J) indicate that Latin American protected areas report using guided talks 76% of the time, and this Fig. exceeds that of all developed countries except Australia. Eastern Europe surpasses all but the U.S. and Canada in the use of self guided tours. In general, guided talks, self-guided tours, and exhibits do much of the work of interpretation in all the areas surveyed. Exhibits are noticeably under utilized by those reporting from Latin America and Africa. The gap between developed and developing countries regarding the use of audio-visual programs is evident but not pronounced except in Africa and South Africa where about 30% utilize such media. Campfires or evening programs are in high use in Australia, the U.S. and Canada, in moderate use in Africa and Eastern Europe and not much utilized in the remaining regions. Living interpretation, which involves people playing the role of historical characters or practitioners from another time, is used mostly in the US and Canada and in Asia, which has this tradition outside of protected areas. The full variety of techniques are available to all protected areas managers and are economically feasible at some level, and their use should be encouraged (Ham, 1992). The data points out some weak areas which could be the focus of future training and technical assistance. The differences between developed and developing countries are not extreme and indicate a growing awareness of the importance of interpretation and education as important management tools in protected areas. Unfortunately, the data obtained do not allow inferences on the quantity or quality of these visitor services. SECTION VII. RESOURCE AND SOCIAL IMPACT MONITORING Bio-physical impact monitoring Bio-physical impacts result in natural resource deterioration, and their amount is an indication of the level of, lack of, or success of management programs. Monitoring of bio-physical impacts is not being done at an acceptable level in either developed or developing countries. However limited a protected area's infrastructure or level of visitor management, monitoring should keep the pace to see if management is working. Fig. 17 and Appendix K illustrate that overall monitoring of basic parameters is occurring in only a little over 50% of the protected areas in developed countries and a little more than 35% of developing countries. Fig. 17. The level of bio-physical impacts in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] The differences between developed and developing countries are small for monitoring impacts on wildlife and for trail problem segments, but significant for water quality, trail depth and width, site spreading, and erosion at the 0.0001 level and vegetation changes at the 0.01 level. Water Human and solid waste management, land use practices and pollution from non-point sources all affect water quality in protected areas. Testing some water quality parameters requires field equipment that would not be common in many developing protected areas, but most of the other parameters are easier to test. Since developing countries have more water born diseases, it may be necessary to upgrade monitoring for pathogens in order to improve visitor safety. Wildlife Visitors can change wildlife behavior by increasing stress and altering ranges, territories, and feeding patterns. About half the protected areas in both developed and developing countries monitor such impacts. Impacts to wildlife are the most frequently monitored bio-physical impacts in developing countries. This is encouraging and reflects the fact that wildlife viewing is a featured attraction of many developing areas. Vegetation changes and site spreading Concentrated use along trails and visitor sites such as campgrounds, overlooks, boat launches, tramples vegetation resulting in reduced vigor and reproduction, altered species composition, denuded vegetation exposing bare soil, and removed seedling trees and organic horizons unless otherwise controlled by adequate management techniques. These are key impacts to monitor as part of visitor management mostly to see if techniques that concentrate or disperse use and modify visitor behavior are working. Only 36% of protected areas in developing countries are monitoring these impacts and surprisingly, only 56% are doing so in developed countries where much would be expected. Erosion Erosion is almost an irreversible loss since it is so difficult to mitigate and its seriousness must be reflected in any monitoring program. A substantial percentage of protected areas in both groups indicate that soil erosion, trail depth and width, site spreading have exceeded the acceptable levels (Fig. 17). Appendix K shows that the number of protected areas in which these three parameters (trail depth/width, site spreading, and erosion) have exceeded acceptable levels is twice as large in developed countries than in developing ones. The regional comparison (Appendix K) shows that Australia has the highest percentage of parameters which have exceeded acceptable changes (25%) for trail depth/width, site spreading and vegetation damages. Africa in general does more monitoring than other regions in the developing countries. South Africa indicates considerable percentages of protected areas which have impacts that have exceeded acceptable levels within the developing group. The low Fig.s from other regions of the group can be attributed to the fact that monitoring impacts is still a new concept and many areas have not yet acquired the necessary technical know-how. Social impact monitoring The categories of social impacts considered in the study were predominantly those impacts which affect the visitor experience while they are within a protected area. Less consideration was given to specific social impacts imposed by tourists on host communities because their management is not solely the responsibility of protected area managers. However, attitudes of local people and damage to cultural resources are good indicators of impacts on the local community and were included. Fig. 18 shows the responses for the selected social impacts. Social impacts are monitored somewhat less than bio-physical impacts in both developed and developing countries. Fig. 18. The level of social impact monitoring in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] Littering Littering is the most measured parameter, being monitored by 45% of the areas in developing countries and about 60% of the areas in developed countries. Littering is also the number one social impact whose levels are exceeding acceptable limits. It is the only impact reported exceeding acceptable levels by more protected areas in developing than in developed countries. This may be because it is easier to notice and to measure than the kinds of impacts caused by crowding. Littering is also the number one impact perceived by tourists and so its mitigation is an important way to enhance the visitor experience. Vandalism Vandalism is an important indicator of negative visitor behavior. Visitors can damage facilities when they are dissatisfied with services, or when they are so satisfied that they want to leave a mark of remembrance behind. Vandalism is the second most monitored social impact by protected areas of both countries categories: 49% in developed countries and 42% in developing countries. Crowding When too many people use the same area, some traditional values are lost. Most of these values include a healthy environment, esteem and prestige, aesthetic enjoyment, understanding, freedom of choice, self reliance and solitude. Use of recreation areas tends to be distributed in a highly uneven way over both space and time mostly because of the natural allocation of attractions and temporal phenomena. This results in irregular resource use and can exacerbate problems of crowding and environmental impacts (Manning, 1986). Crowding at individual sites often occurs at locations with spectacular attractions. Crowding at sites can be exacerbated when the resource is available or accessible only at certain periods of the year. Over use of such sites lead to relative decrease of recreation space, and this has adverse effect on visitor solitude. In addition, resource damages at the sites have often negative effects on visitors perceptions and attitudes. Monitoring of crowding at sites is still very low, despite the fast growing number of visitors to natural attractions. Group size Visiting in groups is increasing, for several reasons. It has the advantage of distributing the costs among the participants, of being with friends, and more especially it is becoming a useful tool as natural areas become more of classrooms in addition to being recreational settings. Large party sizes must be specially managed for, because they cause great impact on other visitors they meet, they also cause more impact on resources at one time than do small groups. Group size is monitored by only 30% to 40% of the protected areas surveyed. Visitor satisfaction Visitors seek satisfaction from the resources they visit. Visitor satisfaction needs to be managed for if a protected area management has to increase its constituency. By monitoring visitor satisfaction, managers get to know the success of programs and services provided, and to determine where improvement is needed. Visitor satisfaction is being monitored by only 30% and 40% of protected areas in developing and developed countries respectively. This is very low when we consider the fact that resource management is actually managing people (visitors). This may be caused by the complexity of the satisfaction phenomenon, and only in few protected areas the knowledge and ability to measure satisfaction is available. Local attitudes Not only can visitor behavior and numbers cause conflict among themselves, they also have the potential to conflict with local people neighboring the resources. Both management personnel and visitor behavior can potentially affect local people either negatively or positively. It is absolutely important that the support of local residents be sought if protected areas and visitor management programs have to succeed on long term basis. Knowing the attitude of local people can help in designing a good public relations and visitor management programs. Only about 40% of the protected areas are monitoring the attitude of the local people towards resource protection and management approaches that are employed. Cultural impacts Visitors enjoy the culture of people they find in or around the protected areas they visit. Unfortunately, as in all visitor-resource interactions, cultural resources can be changed. This then changes the whole spectrum of cultural resources which new generations of both residents and visitors will enjoy in future. Though management of these resources is not a sole responsibility of a protected area manager, monitoring is necessary to get the knowledge of the impact of protected area programs to other resources around. Only a little more than 30% of the protected areas surveyed do monitor cultural impacts. Estimation of whether or not impacts have exceeded acceptable levels should only be taken as the current perception of managers, since knowledge about and monitoring of parameters like crowding, local attitudes etc., may be in their early stages in many areas. It will be important to establish objectives in order to determine at what level impacts become a problem demanding management actions. The general regional consideration (Appendix K) shows that the U.S. and Canada, and South Africa monitor social impacts more than other regions, notably vandalism and littering. SECTION VIII. BUDGET ANALYSIS Average budget The results on budget are reported in U.S. dollars. Conversions from the local currencies were computed at the exchange rates as of May 1993. A comparison based on exchange rates is not the only method available; the United Countries' International Comparison Program (UN/EUROSTAT, 1986-87) allows for comparisons based on the purchasing power parity for a basket of common goods. This kind of comparison would have seemed more appropriate, but it only provides indexes for a limited number of countries, from which assumptions for unrepresented countries cannot be made. The great majority of the protected areas surveyed (developed 69%, developing 82%) complains of being under funded, regardless of their budget. About 14% of the protected areas did not provide specific revenue generation information, 7% of them stating that such information was confidential. Average annual budgets for 1991 and average budgets for the five-year period 1987-91 are reported in Table 15 and Fig. 19. Due to the extreme variability among regions, among countries and among sizes and types of protected areas, the average budget is not very useful to describe the real situation, but additional information is provided once the data are grouped in budget categories. Table 15. Distribution of budget categories (U.S. dollars) in the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses) [Table not available in text format] Fig. 19. 1991 average budget (U.S. dollars) in the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] More than 50% of the protected areas surveyed in developing countries operated in 1991 on an annual budget below 100,000 dollars. The notable exception is South Africa, whose areas can count on a larger budget availability. Among developed countries, with the exception of Australia, whose areas operate on a smaller budget, the majority of protected areas surveyed have an annual budget larger than 500,000 dollars. Data from the period 1987-91 show that 1991 was not an isolated case, but part of a recognizable trend. The difference between the two groups is significant at the 0.0001 level. Further analysis has been conducted in order to: a) investigate possible relationships between level of revenue and protected area size, number of visitors and number of employees; b) analyze differences in revenue within a single category of protected areas (e.g. national parks) of comparable size; c) analyze differences in revenue among different IUCN categories of protected areas. Interesting results are obtained when the budget is correlated with protected area size, number of visitors, and number of permanent and seasonal employees (Table 16). Among developed countries all the correlations are significant, suggesting that their greater financial support affects not only the number of employees they can hire, but allows for an adjustment of their budget to area size and to the number of visitor they receive. In developing countries, budget increases may mean hiring more personnel, but have almost no relation with the area size or the number of visitors they get. These results are based only on approximately half of the areas in the sample, due to the high percentage of missing values in some of the variables under correlation. Table 16. Correlations between budget and selected variables in the protected areas surveyed [Table not available in text format] Differences in revenue between developed and developing countries in protected areas of comparable size (national parks of a size between 1,000 and 50,000 ha) were tested. Results (Table 17) show that national parks in developed countries have a much larger budget than those of equivalent size in developing countries. Particularly striking is the difference between U.S. and Canada national parks and those in Asia and Latin America. All the parks in the U.S. and Canada report budgets greater than 500,000 dollars, while 67% of the parks in Asia and 56% of those in Latin America have a budget between 10,000 and 50,000 dollars. Table 17. 1991 budget (U.S. dollars) in the national parks surveyed with a size between 1,000 and 50,000 ha (Percentage of responses) [Table not available in text format] A test was performed to see if, among developing countries, different IUCN categories of protected areas receive different funding levels. National Parks, Protected Landscapes and Wildlife Refuges were compared for this test and results were computed for Asia, Africa and Latin America in particular. The results (Table 18) show that Protected Landscapes (category V) tend to be better funded than the other categories. Caution must be used in interpreting these results, due to the small number of cases involved. Table 18. 1991 budget (U.S. dollars) in the protected areas surveyed in developing countries according to their IUCN category (Percentage of responses) [Table not available in text format] Sources of revenues Protected areas in both developed and developing countries use a similar mix of funding sources to generate their annual budgets. Funding coming from administrative agencies account for 86% and 78% of all revenue in developed and developing countries respectively (Table 19 and Fig. 20). About 20% of the protected areas surveyed receive funds from donations and/or foundations. In some cases, a significant amount of the funding protected areas receive from their administrative agencies may also come from donors who support those agencies. Although many areas do not generate revenue from user or concession fees, developing countries are more likely than developed countries to charge entrance fees, especially in Africa and South Africa. Surprisingly, requiring fees for concession operations is not a common practice, being used in 12% of the protected areas surveyed in developing countries and in 17% of those in developed countries. Guided tours are more frequently used in developing than in developed countries (see Section II), but these results underline that the potential for applying concession fees is still largely untapped. Table 19. Various sources of revenues used by the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses)* [Table not available in text format] Fig. 20. Sources of revenues used by the protected areas surveyed [Figure not available in text format] In most protected areas that do charge entrance fees, the average fee is less than 5 dollars. As Table 20 shows, in most cases income generated by a protected area is not directly spent there, but is sent back to the central treasury for redistribution. This is especially the case in South Africa (75%) among developing countries and in U.S. and Canada (52%) among developed. It is important that protected areas in developing countries find ways of increasing their local revenues and their ability to utilize more of the income they generate. Table 20. Destination of the revenues generated within the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses) [Table not available in text format] PART III. RESPONDENTS' COMMENTS About 67% of developed countries and 82% of developing provided additional information on their protected areas in the space reserved for comments at the end of the survey. The comments obtained were content analyzed and divided into thirty eight categories, reflecting visitor, resource, and management concerns which had not been addressed in the rest of the survey. Results were computed only for the areas which did provide comments, not for the entire sample. Given their diversity, even after the subdivision in categories, the majority of the comments (51% in developed countries, 44% in developing) had to be filed under the heading "other". Only few statistics were performed on the remaining data, due to the small numbers involved. The most frequently reported comments for each group are shown in Table 21. There is a marked difference between the two groups not only in the type of comments more often reported but also in their relative frequencies. Lack of infrastructure, be it in the form of facilities, equipment or adequate transportation, tops the list of concerns among developing countries, together with conflicts with local people, and encroachment. The need for more training, information exchange at general and specific levels about management and conservation strategies is prevalent. Both developing and developed countries comment on habitat degradation as a problem in about 15% of the cases. This is actually the most frequent comment among developed countries, followed by complaints about inadequate collection of scientific information and lack of personnel. Such emphasis placed on personnel scarcity in developed countries (ranked second versus tenth in developing) occurs in spite of the fact that they have on average more personnel (42 versus 28 permanent employees, 56 versus 16 seasonals). Developed countries are also more likely to report problems linked with excessive tourism pressure, directly or, indirectly, as in the case of traffic and waste generation. These results confirm those discussed by IUCN regional documents prepared for the IV World Congress of National Parks and Protected Areas held in Caracas (IUCN, 1992). In both groups, comments that forecast anticipated events are ranked fourth in order of relative frequency: under this heading are grouped together comments for both problems and accomplishments, the latter exceeding the former. On the whole, the analysis of the comments supports other study's findings that in developing countries protected areas an adequate level of basic infrastructure, information exchange, and training must still be reached before visitor and resource management issues can become the focus of attention. Having satisfied their basic designation and protection, infrastructure and training needs, protected areas in developed countries can focus more on problems related to visitor and resource management. Table 21. Respondents' comments from the the protected areas surveyed (Percentage of responses) [ Table not available in text format] LIMITATIONS There are a number of limitations a worldwide study of these proportions is bound to have, not all of them related to the sampling strategy and the survey instrument. Incomplete list of protected area addresses The IUCN list representing the world population of protected areas is not current. This was realized when many known areas in the U.S. were not found on the list. Addresses of other known areas such as Murchinson Fall National Park in Uganda were listed only in terms of general location and in some cases, like in Italy, the majority of regional parks (IUCN category V) were not listed. Thus, the list provided did not represent the whole population of protected areas and therefore the sampling was not as accurate as it could have been. Unbalanced return rate It is known that many protected areas, especially in developing countries, are located in remote areas where communication services are still very slow. Some responses were still arriving three months too late, during the writing of the results. In addition, of the 52 questionnaires returned for incomplete or wrong address, 88% were from developing countries. In the initial design, developing countries made up 80% of the sample (see methods for details), but due to these inconveniences, in the results developing countries represent only two thirds of the total sample instead of four fifth as was planned. This confirms however, the difficulty of obtaining information from developing countries which was at the root of the authors' assumption in defining the size of the stratified sample. As might be expected, US and Canada are over- represented in the results, due to their proximity to the place where the study originated. Given the circumstances however, the return rate obtained can be considered a success. Questionnaire design The scope of the study desired by its participating reviewers at the IV World Congress in Caracas, was so wide that all issues could not be included without loosing some clarity. In an attempt to take advantage of the congress to get as much information as possible, the questionnaire was necessarily long and somewhat complex. Despite the length, some important questions were not asked and some other questions, if better phrased, could have elicited a greater response rate and would have lent more meaning to the results. The relatively little amount of experience of the present authors in administering surveys and the limited time available to develop the first outline of the questionnaire at the IV World Congress of National Parks and Protected Areas in Caracas are both responsible for the flaws in the questionnaire design. Language barrier The questionnaire was developed in English and translated into French, Spanish, and later into Portuguese. The short time period available for polished translations may be considered a limitation regarding a few survey items. Time constrains More than six months are needed in order to receive results from remote protected areas in developing countries. The fact that questionnaires slowly continued to arrive even three months after closing data entry shows that protected areas are admirably willing to provide available information and this willingness should be awaited patiently when possible. Regional subdivision into developed and developing countries The strata of developed and developing countries depended on a number of issues/factors, some of which are not standardized as yet; in light of the results, there is a doubt whether protected areas in Eastern Europe and South Africa should still be considered as part of the developing countries or should rather be part of a third group, in between developed and developing countries. Other classifications should perhaps be experimented to better suit such worldwide studies. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Even in the face of its limitations, the results obtained from this study represent an overview of what is experienced in the field. The information collected also sets the stage for further collection of worldwide data on protected areas on a regular basis which will enable comparisons of past and future and the ability to judge progress in protected area management. The following recommendations, with the exception of the last one, are intended for the international agencies involved in protected areas development and management, as well as for protected area managers themselves worldwide. Distribution of protected area types according to IUCN categories In several countries, especially in the developing world, national parks dominate the establishment of protected areas. This choice is a product of the history of modern protected areas, which started with the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872. The concept of the national parks as the best way to protect and manage the wonders of nature has overshadowed the need to have a balanced spectrum of protected areas in all the regions. Countries have come to regard national parks as instrumental in conveying a positive and prestigious image of their country to the world. As a consequence of that choice, however, the opportunity to accomodate a diversity of users and of visitor demands as well as national needs have been overlooked. In a world affected by overpopulation and resource scarcity it is not feasible to continue to just "put aside" large areas for protection without the provision of other areas dedicated to the sustainable use of natural resources. Multiple use areas are needed to better balance national protected areas system. Managing for regulated consumptive but renewable activities like hunting, wood and other forest products, grazing, etc, in adjacent multiple use areas will greatly help to ease the pressure on national parks and to reduce conflicts with local populations. Governments and protected area agencies should consider this in mind when they plan the establishment or reconfiguration of national and regional protected area systems. The results have also shown that even protected areas classified as Strict Reserves (IUCN category I) receive a certain amount of visitation and have developed some infrastructure and facilities. This is the norm in the developed countries which have visitation in areas where strict resource is a priority. The IUCN classification probably needs to be redefined to acknowledge the appropriateness of this visitation and to allow these protected areas to receive adequate funding for improving their visitor facilities. If strict protection is an overriding concern and the main reason for granting protected area status, efforts should be made to redirect most visitors toward nearby alternative areas and manage permitted visitors at the highest level. Habitat representation The results of the survey indicated that wetlands are still under represented among protected areas of the developing countries. The ecological value of wetlands cannot be overlooked; they are among the most productive ecosystems in the world and one of the most important sources of biodiversity, necessary for the well- being of many species of animals, especially migratory birds. They act as natural filtering systems which help to purify the environment and as buffers which prevent flooding and erosion. The importance of wetlands induced the international community to sign, in 1971, the Ramsar Treaty for their protection, with the intent of slowing down the rate of their destruction. In the U.S. alone, it is estimated that 50% of the original wetlands have already disappeared at the rate of 200,000-300,000 acres/year. It is auspicable that all countries recognize the immediate need for the protection of the last remnants of wetland ecosystems. Participation of local communities As stressed several times in this paper, the active involvement of local populations in all various phases of park planning and management is the key in obtaining their support. Among developing countries, only about half of the protected areas surveyed involve local population in their activities. High number of comments about the number of illegal activities which topped the list of concerns sent by the respondents make this difficult but all the more essential in moving from adversary to cooperating relationships. While U.S., Canada and Australia legislation requires public involvement in planning before funds are released, in developing countries public involvement is essential to help meet the basic human needs of people near and within protected areas. Agriculture stabilization, limited resource harvesting, health and education activities will have to be integrated in planning and managing in developing countries. Many good examples exist of this type of integrated public involvement and should be featured on exchange study tours, and via regional training sessions. International agencies and NGOs could do much to improve such training by identifying, rewarding and exposing exemplary protected areas/local community relationships. Management planning While the majority of protected areas in developed countries today have management plans, developing countries are still behind even if some improvement can be recognized. Once protected areas have been established, the preparation and adoption of comprehensive plans defining the long term management priorities for the development of the park should be coupled with short term operation plans or implementation schedules (which are often forgotten even where management plans exist). This need is particularly acute in those protected areas which may receive (or already have) large numbers of visitors, which forecast conflicts with the local populations, and which have particularly fragile or endangered resources to protect. The U.S. and Canada have been the leaders in the development of protected area planning, and at times the Australians have applied these concepts more vigorously than the founders themselves, but most of this information has yet to be adapted and transferred to the majority of developing countries. The limited availability of literature and the scarcity of exchange programs for protected area managers is confirmed by the analysis of the respondents' comments, many of which contain specific requests of CSU for information on existing training management plans and training programs. International agencies should find ways of improving the existing training programs to reach a larger number of protected areas as was discussed at the IV World Congress in Caracas, and international development agencies like USAID, IDB and others must elevate protected area management to a priority status. Investment in infrastructure in protected areas In developing countries tourism is increasing at the rate of 28% compared to 6% in developed countries. Most of the visitors are viewed as a source of foreign exchange in countries which are burdened by foreign debts and are experiencing deteriorating economies. Yet, these countries are also less prepared to handle increases in visitor presence according to the available data on presence and maintenance of infrastructure and facilities. National governments and donors must take seriously the responsibility for development of infrastructure and training for visitor and concessionaire management because it is an investment that will be rewarded in terms of maintaining the resources, enhancing visitor experience, and generating foreign exchange. Training needs The need to develop and promote training at regional and local level was already stressed at the III World Congress on National Parks in Bali (Miller, 1984) and reaffirmed at the IV World Congress in Caracas (IUCN, 1992). Even if some progress has been made, more remains to be done in this direction. The lack of adequate training in communication skills and interpretation techniques may be the reason behind the greater emphasis developing countries place on patrol and law enforcement rather than on visitor education, a fact which emerged several times in the results. In this regard, South Africa, which is more advanced in its training, should be explored for training facilities. South Africa's experience can be of great benefit to Africa's protected area management as soon as its political situation is settled. Given the continuous increases in visitation in developing countries, training should become a priority for financing agencies in the following fields: a) Interpretation and education, b) trail construction and maintenance, c) visitor management and monitoring of impacts, d) concessionaire management. It is worrisome to note that the majority of the impacts listed in the questionnaire are monitored only in 50% of the protected areas surveyed. Social impacts are the less monitored, indicating the greater familiarity protected area managers have with nature-related issues compared with people-related issues. Impact monitoring should play a major role in the routine operations of protected area management. If impacts are not monitored, managers cannot know when the capacity of an area has been reached and when changes in the natural and social environment have reached unacceptable levels which demand a managemental action. Improvements are needed in the field of concessionaire management, guided tours and certification. Concessionaire development and management should be encouraged and their contribution to management should be clarified. Importance of keeping organized records The ability to make effective and sound visitor management decisions depends on the availability of good information. At minimum the following are worthy knowing: how many people use the area; where people come from; mode of travel, party size, length of stay; how people are distributed spatially and temporally; visitors preferences and perception of management (Fazio, 1979). About a quarter of the protected areas surveyed do not collect any kind of visitor information. For many others, information reported in the survey is often incomplete and based on the respondents' estimates rather than on systematic records. The majority of areas started only recently to collect visitor information; in some regions less than half of the areas had recorded the number of visitors prior to 1990. The respondents' comments reveal that for some of the areas surveyed the present survey represented the first occasion that prompted conducting some kind of inventory of area facts and figures. It is auspicable that the survey results will stimulate more and more protected areas to keep organized records. Recommendations for further studies General studies like the present one are important for establishing a worldwide networking of IUCN data base protected areas. The following reccomendations are based on the experience gained during the present study. It is advisable to administer the same survey instrument from several locations in different regions so that language and logistical problems can be reduced and other effects on the results can be minimized. It is also important to continue to add on to the data base via studies that focus on specific topics like fees, infrastructure, training, public involvement efforts, monitoring, regulations used, etc. There is the possibility that protected areas in developing countries are at stages in evolution of visitor management in which management tends to devote more attention to the protection of the habitat rather than to the implementation of visitor infrastructure and visitor management plans. According to this hypothesis, the evolution of protected areas management would evolve along the following lines: - designation - strict protection (limited visitor use) - area open to scientific studies - visitors begin to arrive spontaneously and are under little control - area open for limited recreation activities - development of visitor management plans - development of visitor infrastructure and facilities To test this hypothesis, the data regarding the year of establishment were broken down in 5-years intervals and a chi-square measure of association was performed to investigate the possible association between the year of establishment and selected key variables such as collection of visitor information, percentage of the area open to visitors, presence of visitor facilities like campgrounds, visitor centers and so on. 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