Visitor management in protected areas

Marine protected areas and ocean basin management

1. All reserve designs must be guided by an understanding of natural history and habitat variability. 2. Differences in scale and predictability set aside highly dynamic pelagic systems from terrestrial and nearshore ecosystems, where wildlife reserves were first implemented. Yet, as in static systems, many pelagic species use predictable habitats to breed and forage. Marine protected areas (MP...

Protected areas – protected species?

Wild life: The elusive fosa (Cryptoprocta ferox) is the top predator in the dry deciduous forests of Madagascar, but very little was known about its biology until the 1990s. The presence of volunteer groups studying its role in the forest’s ecology has also helped to protect its habitat. (Photo: Earthwatch/ Luke Dollar.) The world’s latest national park has just been created in the east of Russ...

Minimising Visitor Impacts to Protected Areas: The Efficacy of Low Impact Education Programmes

Protected area managers, tourism providers, and other organisations commonly employ education programmes to address visitation-related impairment of natural and cultural resources, social conditions, and neighbouring communities. These programmes have different names (Leave No Trace, Codes of Conduct, Environmental Guidelines for Tourists) but share common objectives: to sustain opportunities f...

Project Management in Protected Areas: a Tale of Two Systems

This paper examines the application of information technology to project management in the context of the implementation of management plans for protected areas which now cover some 20% of the land surface of developed countries. CMS, an 'off the shelf' system intended for use on any conservation site, is compared with PMIS, an organisationally based bespoke system in which site and property ma...

International Trends in Protected Areas Policy and Management