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Conflict Between Conservation and Recreation at Oulanka National Park?

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Conflict Between Conservation and Recreation at Oulanka National Park? Conflict between conservation and recreation at Oulanka National Park? By Mark Baas Student no.: 860206024080 Supervised by: Ramona van Marwijk René van der Duim Wageningen University and Research Centre Department of Environmental Sciences Chairgroup of Socio Spatial Analysis Msc. Leisure Tourism and Environment Course code: SAL-80433 Wageningen, 4. March 2010 Summary During the early years of Oulanka National Park (ON), trails and facilities were constructed in biodiversity rich areas. Managers in that time believed that biodiversity would give people a richer visitor experience. As this is currently questioned, research is necessary to investigate the relation between biodiversity and visitors experience. However, the dataset available did not provide sufficient data to explain these interrelations. Additionally, exploratory research was needed to investigate if there were actual indications for a potential conflict between the conservation function and the recreation function of Oulanka National Park. Therefore this research tried to explore: (1) whether there is a conflict between different functions of ONP by spatial analyzing biodiversity hotspots, facility density and visitor usage; (2) which groups of visitors can be distinguished based on their motivations for visiting ONP; (3) whether visitors and different groups of visitors perceive environmental impacts; (4) whether there is a difference in group composition and visitor perception of environmental impacts at different locations throughout the park. The spatial analysis regarding the identification of conflict zones indicated that there is indeed a conflict between conservancy and recreation at ONP. From the visitor sample, three motivational groups were distinguished. Nature was the primary motivation for all visitors. One group was less motivated by anything else than nature. Additionally, this group (1) was also less satisfied with facilities and less active than other groups. Another group (2) proven to be, besides nature, motivated by being away. It is suggested that these people are coming to ONP with their families to relax from stress of the daily life. The last group distinguished (3) was motivated by all factors, which included nature, being away and active involvement. This group seems to consist of people which are positive and highly motivated to be in ONP. The visitors at ONP has perceived erosion, amount of people and waste disposal as the most important issues. The motivational group which was less motivated by anything else than nature, was significantly more disturbed by these issues than the other two groups. The spatial comparison of motivational group composition and perception of environment impacts did not result in many significant differences which may conclude that either the dataset was too small in some cases or that there is not distinguishable difference between visitors at different locations. Some significant differences were found between different perception of impacts, as locations in the South- East (Juuma) region were significantly more disturbed by erosion and amount of people. Finally, it was concluded that there indeed existed a potential conflict between nature conservation and recreation. This conclusion is mostly based on the results of the spatial analysis of biodiversity, facility density and visitor usage indicating an overlap. Erosion, amount of people and waste disposal were the factors that most amount of people were disturbed to. This research stresses the importance of further research to explain: the actual environmental impacts, visitor environmental awareness and behavior by studying attitudes and behavior, landscape preference studies, satisfaction at different locations and the creation of visitor opportunities. i Acknowledgements I would like to thank Luuk, Grace, Peter and Citlalli as they have provided assistance in numerous way. I thank Ramona van Marwijk and René van der Duim for their supervisor and the revision of my work. I also want to express my gratitude to the people of the Oulanka Research Station for providing their facilities and a nice environment. I am grateful to people which were part of the project, Pirkko Siikamäki and Stuart Cottrell. ii Table of Contents 1 Introduction.............................................................................................................................................1 §1.1 Problem statement.........................................................................................................................2 §1.2 The study area: Oulanka National Park.........................................................................................3 §1.3 Information availability and previous research in ONP................................................................4 §1.4 Target group...................................................................................................................................4 §1.5 Research objectives and research questions..................................................................................5 2 Literature review.....................................................................................................................................7 §2.1 Nature-based tourism....................................................................................................................7 §2.2 The negative effects of tourism on nature.....................................................................................8 §2.3 Tourist awareness of environmental impacts................................................................................9 §2.4 Travel motivations and destination choice..................................................................................10 §2.5 Biodiversity, Indicator species, Habitat and Landscape configuration.......................................13 §2.6 Summary of theory......................................................................................................................14 §2.7 Overview of concepts..................................................................................................................15 3 Methodology.........................................................................................................................................16 §3.1 Data availability..........................................................................................................................16 §3.2 Limitations...................................................................................................................................18 §3.3 Research tools..............................................................................................................................19 §3.4 Biodiversity and visitor pressure.................................................................................................19 §3.5 Motivation groups.......................................................................................................................22 §3.6 Visitor perception of environmental problems............................................................................22 §3.7 Comparison of the variables at different locations in park..........................................................23 4 Results...................................................................................................................................................24 §4.1 Biodiversity and visitor pressure.................................................................................................24 §4.2 Motivation groups.......................................................................................................................31 §4.3 Visitor perception of environmental problems............................................................................35 §4.4 Spatial analysis of different variables..........................................................................................37 5 Conclusion & discussion.......................................................................................................................45 §5.1 Conclusion...................................................................................................................................45 §5.2 Discussion...................................................................................................................................46 6 Bibliography..........................................................................................................................................52 7 Appendix...............................................................................................................................................57 Appendix I Oulanka National Park Visitor Survey 2005....................................................................57 Appendix II Map Oulanka National Park and surroundings...............................................................65 Appendix III Design QGIS plug-ins ..................................................................................................66 Appendix IV User-interface biodiversity plug-in QGIS.....................................................................67 Appendix V Items included in the NEP..............................................................................................68 Appendix VI Extended set of categories leading to a negative response of wildlife..........................69 iii List of figures Figure 1.1: Location of Oulank National
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