Social Science And Natural Resource Recreation Management

This book deals with the interaction of various social groups, and the extent to which they may or may not conflict. It focuses on the interface between the various publics related to recreation, including recreationists themselves.

This book is about the conduct and contributions of applied social science. It represents the beginning of a new intellectual tradition in applied social science and its purpose is to foster an exchange among the variety of social scientists who are concerned with natural resource policy.

This report examines the capacity of natural resource agencies to generate scientific knowledge and information for use by resource managers in planning and decisionmaking. This exploratory study focused on recreation in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. A semistructured, open-ended interview guide elicited insights from 58 managers and 28 researchers about recreation issues, information exchange, and research-management interactions. Data were coded and analyzed using Atlas.ti®, a qualitative analysis software program. Results indicate that recreation managers seek information to address user conflicts and manage diverse activities across sites and landscapes. Managers do not always turn to the research community when looking for scientific information and are uncertain about the proper channels for communication. Managers consult a variety of information sources and aggregate various types of scientific information for use in planning and management. Managers desire greater and more diverse interactions with researchers to promote knowledge exchange useful for addressing recreation problems. Barriers to interaction include organizational differences between management and research, researcher responsiveness, relevance of information to manager needs, and the lack of formal interaction opportunities. Several structural processes were suggested to facilitate opportunities for greater interaction and information exchange.

Over a 3-day weekend in the spring of 2004 a group of scientists interested in extending understanding of place as applied in recreation research and management convened a working session in Portland, Oregon. The purpose of the gathering was to clarify their understanding of place-related concepts, approaches to the study of people-place relations, and the application of that understanding in recreation management for the purpose of integrating perspectives from different disciplines, discussing approaches to understanding and measuring sense of place, and other questions around the study and application of place-related concepts. Topics that generated the most discussion included how social processes influence place meanings, how place meanings are shared and negoitated within social groups, and when and how place meanings and attachments focus, reduce, or avert conflict in natural resource planning and management. This collection of papers is a result of that meeting.

This book documents some of the perceptions, strategies, and actions of natural resource agencies in the twenty-first century as they seek to respond to the changed reality influencing their policies and practices. It considers some of the responses in tools, techniques, and organizational change.

While community quality-of-life indicators are gaining much needed attention in both scholarly work and practice, their application in the areas of parks, recreation and tourism management are not as well known. The applicability of indicator systems for natural resource and natural resource area management within the parks and recreation arena is very high, including urban parks and recreation programs and their influence on quality of life. Tourism is also an area that needs much more work in terms of assessing impacts as well as developing indicators for gauging progress in the long term. All three areas are an integrated discipline and most programs throughout the developed world are housed co-jointly. There are several researchers across the globe who are conducting innovative work in these areas. The editors feel that a volume on the topic will spur additional interests as well as serve to lead the research efforts.

Written by and for scholars, planners, and policymakers, Natural Resource Management: The Human Dimension focuses on issues such as the publics role in the decision-making processes of ecosystem management that affect how we use (or abuse) resources. It exposes the reader to a wide variety of applications of Human Dimensions Research, as well as to significant issues involved. One of the greatest needs in natural resource management is for a deeper understanding of the intricate relationship between humans and the natural environment. Human Dimensions Research, an interdisciplinary field involving a broad variety of social science approaches, seeks to fill this need by providing multidimensional assessments of peoples’ behavior, attitudes, and expectations toward natural resources and their uses. Written by and for scholars, planners, and policymakers, Natural Resource Management: The Human Dimension focuses on issues such as the publics role in the decision-making processes of ecosystem management that affect how we use (or abuse) resources. It exposes the reader to a wide variety of applications of Human Dimensions Research, as well as to significant issues involved. At a time when we are either loving our forests and parks to death or paving them over, a better understanding of the problems is critical if we are to create workable policies that will preserve and protect our natural resources