Perceived Effects of Setting Attributes on Visitor Experiences in Wilderness: Variation with Situational Context and Visitor Characteristics

Understanding how setting attributes influence the nature of the visitor experience is crucial to effective recreation management. Highly influential attributes are useful indicators to monitor within a planning framework, such as Limits of Acceptable Change. This study sought to identify the setting attributes perceived to have the most profound effect on the ability to have “a real wilderness experience” and to assess the degree to which attribute importance varied with situational context and visitor characteristics. To this end, exiting hikers were surveyed at moderate and very high use trailheads in Alpine Lakes Wilderness, WA (USA), and Three Sisters Wilderness, OR (USA). They were asked about the degree to which encountering varying levels of different setting attributes would add to or detract from their experience. Attributes with the largest range of effect on experience, based on evaluations of different levels, were considered most important. The most influential attributes were litter and several types of campsite interaction—people walking through camp and number of other groups camping close by. The perceived importance of setting attributes did not vary much between wilderness locations with substantially different use levels, suggesting that conclusions are robust and generalizable across wilderness areas. There also was little difference in the perceptions of day and overnight visitors. In contrast, we found substantial variation in the perceived importance of setting attributes with variation in wilderness experience, knowledge, attachment, and motivation. Our results validate the emphasis of many wilderness management plans on indicators of social interaction, such as number of encounters.     

Magnitude and distribution of option value for the Washakie Wilderness,northwest Wyoming,USA

Option value is estimated for the Washakie Wilderness, northwest Wyoming, USA, using the contingent valuation technique. Consumer surplus, the traditional measure of economic value, is estimated separately and compared with option value. Several populations are tested, including Washakie visitors, Yellowstone National Park visitors, and residents from four metropolitan test markets: Salt Lake City, Utah; Portland, Oregon; Nashville, Tennessee; and Orlando, Florida, USA. The average annual preservation option value (consumer surplus) expressed by on-site wilderness visitors is $46.17 ($80.13), by urban residents is $9.70 ($8.97), and by rural residents is $8.43 ($7.80). Four selected attributes are determined to be important in motivating option demand for the Washakie, including existence value, bequest value, the desire for an on-site visit, and interest in securing the visiting privileges of others. The results suggest that option value is important in wilderness valuation and that off-site users account for a large part of the economic value of wilderness.     

Changes in Use of Three Oregon, USA, Wildernesses

/ Several studies have suggested that use of wildernesses within national forests is declining. Data from three wildernesses in Oregon (based on mandatory permits and voluntary registration) indicate that between 1976 and 1991 in two areas and between 1980 and 1993 in another area the number of recreational visitor days (RVDs) has declined between 23% and 63%. However, the number of visits has remained roughly stable in one area and more than doubled in the other two. The disparity between the two measures of use may be the result of shifts from mainly overnight to mainly day use in these wildernesses. Day use has increased from about 30% to over 60% of all visits. Trends are different enough in each wilderness to warrant independent analyses over time. Management implications of using different measures of use as well as observed trends are discussed.KEY WORDS: Wilderness management; Wilderness use; Trends     

Assessing the Transactional Nature of Wilderness Experiences: Construct Validation of the Wilderness-Hassles Appraisal Scale

Concerns over the increasing popularity of wilderness recreation have resulted in attempts to determine the amount of use that different areas can tolerate without adverse affects to the resource. Early attempts to establish recreational carrying capacities focused on managers' assessments of biophysical impacts. The perceptions of wilderness visitors, however, are now considered integral to capacity decisions. This study used a stress appraisal framework to understand wilderness visitors' perceptions of on-site conditions. It was based on the premise that negative appraisals of wilderness conditions produce stress and that individual perceptions vary based on personal and situational characteristics. The purpose of the study was to assess the validity of a wilderness-hassles appraisal scale by testing hypothesized relationships between experience-use history (EUH), place attachment, and stress appraisal. Data collection occurred through a postal survey of hikers (n = 385) contacted in the High Peaks and Pemigewasset Wilderness Areas during the summer of 2004. An exploratory factor analysis indicated that stress appraisal is a multi-dimensional construct. Validity testing procedures were restricted to those dimensions that were consistent between study areas and provided partial support for the hassles scale. As hypothesized, EUH did not influence perceptions of wilderness conditions. Place attachment, on the other hand, was positively correlated with stressful appraisals of social and managerial conditions. Although Kruskall Wallis tests revealed significant differences in visitors' perceptions of managerial conditions between study sites, perceptions of social conditions did not vary significantly. Implications for management and recommendations for further refinement of the wilderness hassles construct are discussed.     

Personal Wilderness Relationships: Building on a Transactional Approach

Wilderness managers are charged with the challenging goal of balancing resource protection and experience quality across a broad, value-laden landscape. While research has provided insight into visitors’ motivations and their meanings for wilderness, a struggle exists to implement experiential concepts within current management frameworks. This research posits the human experience of wilderness to be an evolving, enduring relationship, and that research needs can be addressed by conceptualizing and investigating an individuals’ personal wilderness relationship. The purpose of this study was to explore wilderness relationships of visitors to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A predictive model was proposed to investigate the internal dimensions of a visitor’s wilderness relationship. A mail-back questionnaire was distributed during the summer of 2007, resulting in a sample of 564 respondents. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Results from testing several relationship models provided support for a multidimensional structure consisting of five factors with a single overarching relationship factor. The preferred relationship model indicated the importance of identities and attachment in place relationships. Trust and commitment toward management were also important considerations. This research provided the preliminary evidence for a multidimensional wilderness relationship model and complements a perspective of wilderness experiences as wilderness. Findings may help to reframe decision-making and public-input processes that guide management actions to increased wilderness character protection and facilitate quality wilderness experiences.     

Defining acceptable conditions in wilderness

The limits of acceptable change (LAC) planning framework recognizes that forest managers must decide what indicators of wilderness conditions best represent resource naturalness and high-quality visitor experiences and how much change from the pristine is acceptable for each indicator. Visitor opinions on the aspects of the wilderness that have great impact on their experience can provide valuable input to selection of indicators. Cohutta, Georgia; Caney Creek, Arkansas; Upland Island, Texas; and Rattlesnake, Montana, wilderness visitors have high shared agreement that littering and damage to trees in campsites, noise, and seeing wildlife are very important influences on wilderness experiences. Camping within sight or sound of other people influences experience quality more than do encounters on the trails. Visitors’ standards of acceptable conditions within wilderness vary considerably, suggesting a potential need to manage different zones within wilderness for different clientele groups and experiences. Standards across wildernesses, however, are remarkably similar.     

Applying knowledge-based methods to design and implement an air quality workshop

In response to protection needs in class I wilderness areas, forest land managers of the USDA Forest Service must provide input to regulatory agencies regarding air pollutant impacts on air quality-related values. Regional workshops have been convened for land managers and scientists to discuss the aspects and extent of wilderness protection needs. Previous experience with a national workshop indicated that a document summarizing workshop discussions will have little operational utility. An alternative is to create a knowledge-based analytical system, in addition to the document, to aid land managers in assessing effects of air pollutants on wilderness. Knowledge-based methods were used to design and conduct regional workshops in the western United States. Extracting knowledge from a large number of workshop participants required careful planning of workshop discussions. Knowledge elicitation methods helped with this task. This knowledge-based approach appears to be effective for focusing group discussions and collecting knowledge from large groups of specialists.     

The indicator performance estimate approach to determining acceptable wilderness conditions

Using data from a study conducted in the Cranberry Wilderness Area of West Virginia, United States, this paper describes how a modified importance—performance approach can be used to prioritize wilderness indicators and determine how much change from the pristine is acceptable. The approach uses two key types of information: (1) indicator importance, or visitor opinion as to which wilderness indicators have the greatest influence on their experience, and (2) management performance, or the extent to which actual indicator conditions exceed or are within visitor expectations. Performance was represented by calculating indicator performance estimates (IPEs), as defined by standardized differences between actual conditions and visitor preferences for each indicator. The results for each indicator are then presented graphically on a four-quadrant matrix for objective interpretation. Each quadrant represents a management response: keep up the good work, concentrate here, low priority, or possible overkill. The technique allows managers to more systematically and effectively utilize information routinely collected during the limits of acceptable change wilderness planning process. This paper is submitted with the approval of the Director of the West Virginia Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station as Scientific Article No. 541. The study was funded in part, through a grant from the USDA Forest Service, Monongahela National Forest.     

Transboundary Issues in Wilderness Management

/ The management of lands adjacent to federally designated wilderness is increasingly seen to have the potential to negatively impact wilderness resources and management objectives. This paper first examines the numerous and often conflicting laws and regulations that influence how managers can mitigate transboundary issues. We then examine the various types of transboundary issues, and describe how they impact wilderness resources. Transboundary issues include recreational use, extractive activities, fire management, exotic species introductions, aircraft overflights and military operations, water diversion, urban encroachment, and transported pollutants. KEY WORDS: Adjacent lands; Buffer zones; Ecosystem management; Wilderness; Zones of influence     

The costs of congestion and wilderness recreation

Existing research on the effects of congestion in wilderness areas suffers from problems associated with asking people directly what they would be willing to pay to avoid congestion under hypothetical circumstances. The work reported here is based on methodologies that infer conclusions from observed behavior. Two inferential methodologies are used to examine visitors' willingness to pay at three California wilderness areas during peak and off-peak use periods. Inferential methodologies do not provide unambiguous measures of consumer surplus. However, they do yield the conclusion that, with the exception of a relatively few individuals, solitude is not of overriding importance. Convenience of timing and the attributes of different wilderness areas appear to be more important than congestion.     

Evaluating wilderness recreational opportunities: Application of an impact matrix

An inventory of the severity and spatial distribution of wilderness campsite impacts in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks identified a total of 273 distinct nodes of campsites or “management areas.” A campsite impact matrix was developed to evaluate management areas based on total impacts (correlated to the total area of campsite development) and the density, or concentration, of impacts relative to each area's potentially campable area. The matrix is used to quantify potential recreational opportunities for wilderness visitors in a spectrum from areas offering low impact-dispersed camping to those areas offering high impact-concentrated camping. Wilderness managers can use this type of information to evaluate use distribution patterns, identify areas to increase or decrease use, and to identify areas needing site-specific regulations (e.g., one-night camping limits) to preserve wilderness resources and guarantee outstanding opportunities for solitude.     

How important is wilderness? Results from a United States Survey

The designation and management of federal wilderness areas has generated much controversy in the United States. The decade of the 1980s has been a difficult one for public land managers as there has been growing opposition to their traditional “conserve but use philosophy.” Public lands are to be managed for the public benefit. Unfortunately there has been little survey research to find out what the attitudes of the public are towards the management of federally designated wilderness. We report the results of a national survey of 2670 residents of wilderness counties. We found that the presence of wilderness is an important reason why 53% of the people moved to or live in the area; 81% felt that wilderness areas are important to their counties; and 65% were against mineral or energy development in wilderness areas. On some issues there was less agreement as 43% of the respondents wanted more access to wilderness, and 39% were in favor of additional wilderness with 26% undecided. There were no large differences between counties and regions despite the differences in economic and social characteristics and the historical contexts within which they evolved.     

Carrying capacity as "Informed Judgment": the values of science and the science of values

Contemporary park and wilderness carrying capacity frameworks rely on formulation of standards of quality, which are defined as minimum acceptable resource and social conditions. Formulation of standards of quality involves elements of both science and values, and both of these elements must be integrated into informed judgments on the part of park and wilderness managers. That is, managers must ultimately make value-based judgments about the maximum acceptable level of visitor-caused impacts to the resource base and the quality of the visitor experience. However, such judgments should be as informed as possible by scientific data on the relationships between visitor use and resulting impacts and the degree to which park and wilderness visitors and other interest groups judge such impacts to be acceptable. Such information represents the “values of science” to managing carrying capacity in parks and wilderness. A growing body of literature has begun to address the corresponding “science of values,” and how this type of information might be integrated in park and wilderness management. Visitor-based research has employed normative theory and techniques to explore the acceptability of a range of resource and social impacts related to visitor use, and findings from these studies are being integrated into a body of knowledge and applied in management decision-making. Conceptual and methodological extensions of the normative approach are currently being explored in a variety of park and wilderness contexts, and new theoretical and empirical approaches are being adapted to address trade-offs inherent in carrying capacity. In these ways, the science of values is progressing to meet the opportunities and challenges of the values of science to park and wilderness management. The concept of carrying capacity, along with the theoretical and methodological approaches described in this paper, can be extended to a large number of natural resource and environmental issues.     

Attitudes Toward Wilderness Study Areas: A Survey of Six Southeastern Utah Counties

Southeastern Utah is a region of world-renowned red-rock sandstone formations, large tracts of federal public land, rural communities centered on agriculture and extractive industries, and is often at the epicenter of environmental protection efforts in the western United States. Environmental groups have proposed formal Wilderness designations for much of the regions public land—proposals that have been actively fought by rural community leaders who do not want large areas locked-up from traditional livelihood and recreational uses. The debate over wilderness designation in the region has been characterized in the media as one that is particularly contentious and polarizing. A survey of southeastern Utah residents was conducted in order to better understand this conflict. The survey focused on attitudes toward wilderness designation and management. We found that residents of southeastern Utah have negative attitudes towards the designation and management of Wilderness Study Areas. We propose that these attitudes should be carefully considered and engaged in future policy and management decisions. We suggest that negative opinions expressed by residents of southeastern Utah are not directed primarily at the concept of environmental protection but rather at the strong perception that these programs and initiatives have been carried out in a heavy-handed manner and dominated by outside influences that have overwhelmed local voices.     

The (un)common good: diverging justifications for wilderness making in a modified landscape

ABSTRACT

Wilderness is most often conceived as comprising large remote areas where evidence of human influence is slight. Little attention has been afforded to the study of wilderness ‘making’ in smaller landscapes that have been heavily modified by human activity. This paper addresses this knowledge deficit by employing the pragmatic sociology of Boltanski and Thévenot to analyse a case study of wilderness making in the west of Ireland. The application of this framework illustrates how contending positions on ‘why’ wilderness making should occur and ‘how’ it should be conducted reflect ethical frameworks rooted in different conceptions of the ‘common good’ presented by the idea of wilderness. The paper demonstrates the difficulties with developing such a new nature-based concept in the absence of conventional (received) ideas of wilderness by revealing how the diverging justifications used suggest incommensurability in the competing notions of wilderness that are formulated and advanced.     

Patterns of Streamwater Acidity in Lye Brook Wilderness,Vermont, USA

Under the United States Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977, a class I designation safeguards wilderness areas from the negative effects of new sources of air pollution. We monitored streamwater chemistry in the class I Lye Brook Wilderness in southwestern Vermont from May 1994 through August 1995. Stream samples were collected biweekly at nine sampling locations throughout the wilderness and were analyzed for major cations and anions, dissolved organic carbon, pH, and acid-neutralizing capacity. Eight of nine sites sampled had mean annual acid neutralizing capacity values below zero. During the study period, decreases in streamwater acid neutralizing capacity values were caused primarily by SO₄ ²⁻. At some sites, however, NO₃ ⁻ and naturally occurring, weak organic acids were seasonally important. During high discharge, the low pH and high concentrations of inorganic monomeric Al were at levels that are toxic to acid-sensitive aquatic species. Watershed mass balances were calculated to determine annual gains or losses for measured ions. These budgets indicate that S inputs and outputs were nearly equal, there was a net loss of base cations, and a net gain in N. How long these watersheds can continue to assimilate additional N inputs is unknown.     

The change of European landscapes: human-nature relationships, public attitudes towards rewilding, and the implications for landscape management in Switzerland

The rewilding of landscapes is one of the most important and intensively discussed landscape changes occurring in Switzerland, as the need for agricultural and forest land is decreasing. To ensure that decisions concerning future landscape management will be supported by the public, it is crucial to take public opinion into account. Hence the present study aims to assess the public attitudes towards nature and "rewilding" processes. In order to analyze these attitudes, we sent a standardized questionnaire to 4000 randomly selected households throughout Switzerland. A cluster analysis led to a typology with four different types of human-nature relationship ("nature lovers", "nature sympathizers", "nature-connected users" and "nature controllers") that each characterize a particular attitude towards nature. These human-nature relationship types differ in their attitudes towards rewilding as well, allowing a rough classification of the sample into wilderness opponents (51.1%) and wilderness proponents (49.9%). However both groups agree with regard to their opinion concerning the rules and regulations that should apply in future wilderness areas. The parallels of the human-nature relationship typology of this survey with other typologies, and the implications for further research are discussed. We can conclude that, due to the differences concerning the attitudes towards wilderness between the human-nature relationship types, between the rural and urban dwellers, and between the language regions, a uniform strategy for the designation and management of wilderness areas in Switzerland is not possible. We recommend that, when managing landscape change, all stakeholders are included in a participatory process and we advise a thorough assessment of the attitudes of the involved persons towards nature and rewilding at the start of such processes. Such an assessment would facilitate the identification of well-defined target groups allowing specific interventions and management actions customized to the needs and characteristics of each of these groups. In addition we see the commonalities between wilderness opponents and wilderness proponents concerning the rules in wilderness areas as an ideal starting point for a successful participatory process.     

Information as a management tool: An evaluation of the Pemigewasset Wilderness management plan

The newly instituted management plan for the Pemigewasset Wilderness area of New Hampshire, USA, which relies principally on providing information to visitors, represents a departure from traditional plans. Logit analysis of survey data indicates limited evidence of the plan having much direct impact on visitor behavior. There is evidence of success in information dissemination to area users; however, the type of information that is being relayed to backcountry users does not appear to be that which the management plan is attempting to promote.     

Using ecological criteria to evaluate wilderness planning options in Idaho

Legally designated wilderness areas are acknowledged to be an important element in strategies to conserve biological diversity in United States. However, because of the restrictions on consumptive uses in wilderness, their establishment is normally contentious. Criteria for establishment have typically been associated with opportunity and aesthetic and experiential values. Biological data have not normally played a major role in guiding wilderness establishment. We present four wilderness allocation options for those public lands considered suitable for wilderness designation in Idaho. These options cover the span of choices presently available to wilderness planners in the state and range from not establishing any new wilderness areas to the inclusion of all suitable lands in wilderness. All options are evaluated using spatial biological data from the National Biological Survey's Gap Analysis Project. A conservation strategy that would protect a minimum of 10% of the area occupied by each of 113 native vegetation types and at a minimum 10% of the distribution of each of 368 vertebrate species was evaluated for each option. Only the inclusion of all suitable lands in wilderness, creating a system of 5.1 million ha came close to achieving these goals, protecting 65% of the vegetation types and 56% of the vertebrate species. We feel this approach, which allows planners to evaluate the ecological merits of proposed widerness units along with other values, can provide a means to resolve the impasse over additional wilderness designation in Idaho.     

The wilderness use simulation model applied to Colorado River boating in Grand Canyon National Park,USA

A modification of the Shechter-Lucas Wilderness Use Simulation Model (WUSM) for peak season boating on the Colorado River through Grand Canyon National Park, USA, is evaluated as a tool for making management decisions. A new microcomputer program to select trip itineraries for inclusion in the WUSM that was developed as part of this study is presented. This program simplifies user input and expands the WUSM's usefulness as a tool for management decisions by randomizing itinerary schedules based on probabilities developed from actual use of sites by canyon visitors. Model usefulness is demonstrated by simulating various management changes and comparing use levels of attraction sites and campgrounds as well as numbers of encounters between parties. The WUSM is being used as part of an ongoing study, to reflect the impact of fluctuating flow regimes through the turbines at Glen Canyon Dam on river trips.