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Viewscapes: Managing the Perceptual Resource

Stillman (1966:5) said:

One thing is true, I am sure -- and that is that the scenery of a view is irrelevant. A view offers a chance to look away at nothing much; to see variety in distance, shape, color, and texture. One thinks about anything but what one sees at such a time. We all need the chance to look with unseeing eyes; we all need the chance freely to restructure our world as we see fit.

Resources are goods and services. Natural resources have the four interactive components of energy and or matter, time, space, and variety. If forest esthetics (see Feb 1995 Journal of Forestry 93(2)) is anything, it is what a forest does to or for people, thus a service. Perhaps it is a peculiar "good" that supplies a service, but that seems an unnecessary distinction to be made. Arguing that it, whatever "it" is (for the moment), is a service and experienced or utilized by people, then we can attempt to name its major components. These are:

• sights or scenes, a visual service

• odors (and rarely taste), an olfactory service

• sounds, an audial service including quiet or lack of major noise

• touch and texture (feel), a tactile service

  1Part of the concept of place, I believe will someday be recognized as being an electromagnetic perception of a force (molecular orientations) apparently present in migratory birds and other creatures. This is a natural "matching" of body forces to local place forces (avoidance of a very low level dissonance).

• place, "where I grew up", historical, cultural, family, (and perhaps psychological or biological imprinting) roots and personal attachments, a complex that we call affirmation service¹, then, finally, "pretty patches do not a pretty picture make"; beauty is in the totality of a perceptual event, not its parts; and thus "collecting" ideas of pattern, sequence of events, arrangement, "fit" and gestalt-delivery combine under an inadequate phrase, unifying service.

Part of this resource is obviously space and variety, but not-so-obvious (the evidence is in its omission) is time. A scene may change seasonally and over the years. A scene may be what can be remembered from the past (e.g., a field where soldiers once fought).

Gobster (1994) said the Leopold never explicitly outlined his "ecological esthetic" but had a view that an esthetic experience is as cerebral as it is perceptual. A major part of this cerebral resource is the feeling that goes with perception, especially that when a scene or situation is "beautiful", the things there are also protected (Schuh 1995). An area seen from a distance and not particularly unattractive may be perceived as ugly because of past experience close at hand with such areas having erosion, stream sediments, and trash. "A clearcut or a trail by company X" is the perception and that includes either experiences, TV viewing, and other learning experiences.

We manage the perceptual resource. It may include "study of" esthetics but that is much too narrow a view.

We define beauty as seasonal and that for a named group of people. Although variable, we define beauty as expressed in relative terms for a situation -- maximum, median, mean and minimum (where negative values are those of relative ugliness).

Certain features or phenomena detract from the presence or quality of a situation and the probability that the scene will be judged beautiful by the named group of people at a specified time. The detractors include: e.g., high noise levels.

Scenes or situations may be of equal value.

Scenes are weighted relative to each other.

Once the resource is defined, it may be possible to improve, stabilize, or easily reduce its value. A site may be more or less easily "ruined", made less beautiful or, past a point, more ugly. Most conditions are manageable -- improvable in reasonable time to a desired level at reasonable cost, then to maximize users of the higher valued resource; minimize those of the lower valued resource...and to set up conditions to maximize the sum over a planning period (say 50 years).

Potential Actions in Managing the Perceptual Resource: Do not disturb the area Manage buffer strips (filter, stabilization, leave strips) Place a visual barrier or screen Sequence harvests Reduce size of areas harvested "Feather the edges" or modify straight lines of harvest area boundaries Alter harvest methods Make careful road layout Maintain roads Keep mud off highways Tighten road standards Use partial removals as a harvest strategy Make low stumps Report rates of decomposition from local studies and demo plots Use slash (perceived by some as "waste") Reduce slash to a maximum of 2 feet off the ground Lop tree tops Build quality landings Install effective waterbars Remove or hide in-place garbage, equipment parts, oil cans, and refuse Plant seedlings Plant older seedlings, especially in the road zone Hydroseed exposed areas Reseed roads as soon as feasible Use partially cut buffer strips along roads With blower, blow debris from road edges onto exposed roadside-cutbanks Cut, sort, and pile logs as they arrive at the landing Use bumper trees along skid trails; reduce damage to larger high-quality trees Start work at the back of the sale; work forward Finish each section before starting another Dispose or bury all slash at the landings when the job is done Mark or build trails first, then keep tops off of these land and resource-use lanes Leave scattered clumps of trees in clearcuts Implement education (tours, etc.) Implement public educatiion program Use professional interpretive signs Restrict viewers (season, time, locations, during harvests) Increase viewer distance from the troublesome sites Increase speed of buffer-area recovery (irrigation, fertilizer, etc.) Emphasize benefits of harvests to some species of animals or plants Harvest in remote areas Fully screen clearcuts Prevent ridgelines from appearing barren (use solid tree line) Avoid rectangular harvest units (blend) Spread cuts across the landscape Include phone number on signs so that more information may be gotten about the nature of offenses Provide brochures with signs Use signs before, during, and after the harvest operations Move people; provide new access to beautiful areas nearby when one area is harvested Anticipate spending 5% of gross stumpage on the perceptual resource ($500-1500/acre) Use GIS to map viewscapes, both see-to and seen-from points Map (with GIS) the roads (and other public areas) from which the proposed harvest areas may be seen Analyze and report the regional scenic beauty index of Lasting Forests Link perceptual resource management to management of watersheds, wildlife, soil, air (air quality effect on viewing distance), water, and recreation

Preliminary Viewscape management distance zones (foreground, middleground, and background) will be established. The viewing points are typically: shore from lake positions; roads, trails, peaks, streams, recreational areas, viewing towers or platforms, and major entrance and exit areas.

The area provides points, linear views, and vast areas or vistas judged differently as interesting, beautiful, and awe-inspiring. The natural components of the area are attractions for many. Changes in where people live and increased urbanization will likely increase interest in the scenic values of the area.

The land is beautiful but that beauty can be enhanced. Even more important, it must be managed so that it is not diminished and so that the full messages of the Forests and of a system of total land management can be carried forward onto other lands. Staff will develop a plan, policies, and procedures for esthetic enhancement and management of the area that will include an integrated system for other lands. This will give the lands of the enterprise a personality and assure benefactors that their lands will be similarly treated. Not another 'park service' or 'forest service' appearance, the new 'look' of the Lasting Forests shows care, attention to studied concepts of natural beauty, cost effective work, diversity, sustainability, durability, and functional amendments to views and scenes. Talking about natural beauty is difficult and almost meaningless. We shall develop a concept and implement select elements for Lasting Forests with a full scale presentation shortly after that.

Minor changes in a viewscape can cause significant outcry and concern for the scenic resource or overall viewscape of the area.

Sensitivity zones will be mapped within the GIS. Level-I zones have great importance or sensitivity to visual change. The levels are closely related to the risk of being viewed as "ugly" or, conversely the probability of falling from a class of "beautiful."

Size and location of forest operations (if any) are an example of a viewscape problem of concern. Future developments will use the viewscape analyses of The Trevey.

Other significant aspects of the planned action:

1. Color coordination and consistent use for signs, structure paint, flags, staff clothing, vehicles and equipment, and fences.
2. Consistent use of texture.
3. Consistent use of golden-section proportions.
4. Minimum and consistent signs.
5. Scaled signs.
6. Boundary marks and signs.
7. Trail quality, signs, and markers.
8. Entrance signs and "developments"
9. Trail location to include viewpoints.
10. Viewpoint selections, enhancements for photographs, and management.
11. Roadside verge management and view (corridor view) protection.
12. Fences and their construction and color
13. Structures, new and remodeled, and gardens
14. Solar energy strategies
15. Grounds maintenance
16. Historic site development
17. Logo and correspondence
18. Office appearance
19. Software appearance
20. Publication appearance
21. Photo quality and presentation standards
22. Memorial grove and ancient forest development
23. Air quality management or emphases.
24. Interpretive aids to scenes (names of ridges; time to hike to point x).
25. Consulting services provided by the staff to others.

Initial development cost..........$40,000

Estimated 5th year profits.........$20,000

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Reference Bergen, S.D., J.L. Fridley, M.A. Ganter, and P. Schiess. 1995. Predicting the visual effect of forest operations. J. Forestry 93 (2) 33-37

This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision January 17, 2000.