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A manager in the Yellowstone area once told me that you could herd elk "... anywhere they want to go!" Perhaps people are like elk. Observing adoption of new practices, increased efficiency, and the success of new products suggest that people can change and are changed by efforts intended to do so. Changing other behavior such as smoking, driving after drinking alcohol, and eating unhealthful foods suggests people may not be easily "herded."
This chapter is about controlling people but only in a very limited and voluntary sense. It uses "control" meaning "knowledge about" at least as much as "having power over every action." When I know the average temperature I have control, special insight into my environment. When I know area A is more productive than B, or how a person will vote, I have a degree of control over the decision-making situation. Knowledge is one type of control. I do not hold that people are, can be, or should be made into puppets. I stress, though, that people can be changed. They can act differently as a result of a manager's effort. That difference can be real and beyond the realm of chance events or random change.
An outside unit, The NRM-changelinks site provides an on-line guide for natural resource managers and others working to help improve the use of participatory approaches for environmental management. External links and on-site material offer approaches, information and theory in related fields such as sustainable development, adaptive management, collaborative learning, action research, facilitation, conflict resolution, information management and Internet use.
I have limited this chapter somewhat, emphasizing extensive outdoor recreation, and leaving scattered elsewhere within the book other aspects of the synergism that the wise manager will seek in working to achieve the benefits from the simultaneous work with of animal populations, faunal space, and people. The other user-related topics include care of game and fish meat and trophies, safety, effective hunting and fishing, effective bird watching (and a boring long list of other forms of life: salamanders, insects, reptiles, fish, etc.), camping, hiking, canoeing - all strongly faunally related. I have not discussed here the role of the guide, the shooting preserve manager, the staff of the turkey guild (Chapter 15), farm and estate managers and others who chose to see the faunal resources as major parts of their livelihoods (not as some by-product of other land use). This entire book is intended to cause change in the reader. Continuing education and agency improvement (Chapter 18) are other demanding aspects of working with people.
High-Grading
Not many years ago in forestry circles one of the ugly things that could be said about certain landowners or foresters was that they were high-grading their forest. It did not take a very astute person to recognize the condition. All of the vigorously growing trees were cut and removed. All that was left were very young trees, trees of low monetary value, and those with twists, sweep, and defects. It was done under the guise of selection cutting, a well-established practice that could yield quality wood products and other forest benefits in perpetuity (Minckler 1980). High-grading looks like selection cutting only to the causal observer. It is a timber-mining operation and identical to the "get, then git" operation of the mineral miner of yore. It is a profit-maximizing job without any concern for the next cuts or the generations dependent on them. It relegates to children a trash forest.
With the emphasis on clearcutting over the past 40 years, high-grading as a derogatory phrase is no longer useful. It has almost been removed from the language. The word, however, may be more useful among recreationists and citizens than among foresters. It is possible to see many examples of recreational-resources high-grading. If it can be recognized for what it is, then there is the possibility it may be stopped.
Remember the beautiful campsite visited a few years ago when it was first opened. There are few other ways to express your pleasure: you loved it. On return, you discovered it was loved to death by others. It was eroded, showed exposed roots, had vandalized trees, and was covered with litter and societal excretion called plastic. The site was high-graded.
Recreational options in major state and national parks are being "cut-down" in their prime, destroyed by commercialism, access, over-use, under-maintenance, and new risks and hazards that people seek to avoid in "getting away from it all." People seek peace and quiet, and the places of peace and quiet are hard to find, for they have been high-graded.
Outdoor recreation opportunities, like forests, are a renewable resource. But recreational space, like tree and animal space, is not renewable (except in the most theoretical future sense when the ruins of our spaces are gawked at and poked among by incredulous archaeologists and sight-seeing societies.) Because opportunities are renewable, then only the most short-range thinkers and nihilists will reject management of them. Such management does not have to be done by professionals. It seems, nevertheless, that managers are needed for it is very unlikely that a whole society will disperse itself rationally; use limited on-site resources carefully; bring energy and water to sites that are short of these commodities; and benefit at the highest possible level from the other resources that are there. People - their cats and dogs, trappings, and noise - are not likely to be inconspicuous if unmanaged. They are not going to leave everything as they found it. Surely they will not drink deeply of what is known about each available recreational space. They must be actively managed.
The faunal system manager generally has used high-grade as an oath, and has assumed education was the only way to reduce it. Education really has not worked. Since high-grading continues, it seems necessary, first, to improve the education of resource area managers and to give them a fundamental mission of controlling systems to aid in balancing human use with environmental capabilities and achieving stated objectives for the total forest. They need a powerful idea of a guidance system to aid in bringing forest recreational and related use potentials to some pre-determined end. Second, there is a need to sharpen the authority of the manager to enable preservation and control of sites. Third, more diverse and dispersed sites for users are needed, offering variety of resource use opportunities close to more people. Fourth, use and occupancy quotas or related effects of fees (Harris and Driver 1987) are needed, no matter how unpleasant, to prevent deterioration of sites and the total environment within which recreation can occur. Fifth, there is great need to accelerate educating recreationists and resource users so that they (a) become less conspicuous, less consumptive, and more protective of sites; (b) experience each site more fully; and (c) are less frustrated by the controls required by increasing users of shrinking space within which all types of resource benefits can be experienced.
The Manager and Change
People interested in work with forests and wildlife are most often not highly social. Within the line of freshmen at my door annually there were a preponderance of hermits, those with an image of themselves alone, fur capped, astride a stream or log. It has been that way for 30 years; I am told it has been longer. This condition does not bode well for a discipline that must work equally with populations, the complexities of faunal space and..., of all things, people. They change while in the university, but all of them do not become socially oriented or even willing to include managing people as part of their responsibility.
A natural disinclination to deal with social phenomena limits the forest-wildlifer, but even more limiting is the blinding excitement and noise of the present environment. The day-to-day environment prevents any of us seeing (or even looking for) the changes in our lives and the growing forces that will change things for us and society soon. We live on the truths of parents and schools, and these are past tense. The economy is different, the forces have changed, the ratio rules no longer work, the things "known for sure" no longer hold.
Beef cattle are no longer Herefords; more people are urban than rural; most farming is productive and profitable - there are some losing farms; computers now respond to voice control; data from an entire encyclopedia are held in incredibly small part of a computer; all of the conceivable data for 100 years for one forest can be stored on a computer disk. A few years from now the above list will sound very "historical" for it is current, and yet some people will view the list as futuristic.
There are many ways of analyzing social change but there is one that emphasizes that change is occurring and will influence how forest wildlife managers deal with the resource user (Dillman 1985). There was in the U.S. the community control era (through the 1940's), then the mass society (through the 1970's), then the information age, and the systems age. The first era was of local controls on behavior, standards, geographic association, social boundaries, relatively homogeneous concepts and goals. Much was changed with war movement, industrialization, family displacement, economic instability, high mobility, educational expansion, and vast sharing of ideas through radio and TV.
There were large agencies and companies built. Hierarchy was, almost essentially, emphasized. The wildlife manager educated in the early 1950's was watching a quarter-million farmers per year leave agriculture. In the 1980's the number lost was 30,000 per year with more than 80% of the nation now living in urbanized areas and no longer depending on farming for their major employment. Good or bad is not being discussed here, only the change. The new reality is that what the wildlife manager once saw as his or her job - educating farmers, working with sportsmen and anglers - is about as relevant as requiring all students to be able to hitch up a buggy. Nice to know! Essential for a few, ... but certainly no longer essential for every graduate of a wildlife program.
During that era, agriculture became specialized, forest clearcutting became financially relevant, and farmers, as they learned from the corporate world, borrowed to bring wealth. Concern for social issues seemed to wane as government roles were expanded, employment was relatively high, and "everyone" was a displaced person unattached to a group. In the wildlife arena, lands were posted at an increasing rate, trophies from hunts were de-emphasized, families with at least one rural connection decreased, hunting accidents increased, anti-hunting and anti-trapping sentiment grew, and programs for non-game animals were funded.
The forest faunal system manager needs to realize that he or she is now in the systems age and while they may not have experienced much of it personally, their plans and concepts need to reflect the forces of that age. To shoot at such a fast moving target even with a modified-choke is to miss it a mile.
We no longer need to move people as we once did. Telephones, radio, teleconferences, and the internet are now available. Costs of moving people have increased; costs of moving ideas and images have decreased. The information age has become the systems age for it includes the major system parts: information collection, storage, organization, retrieval, transmittal, presentation; input to output. Automated page and graph readers; user-friendly input devices; graphics digitizers; sensors of all types - these are the new input devices including voice-reading computers and television-telephones. Research has provided enormous new knowledge in the last era. A newsworthy find is presented almost daily. Much is lost or not used but that is not the point ... yet. We now know much, much more of what we need to know than ever. Perhaps more than we even dreamed. Yet we continue to thirst for answers. More knowledge will be gained and the more educated citizenry will realize how little is known with confidence. They will become more skeptical. A doubling of inputs and a halving of confidence is a no-gain situation. The educator, the faunal system manager needs to realize this. They cannot teach only "facts" to a well educated and healthily skeptical audience. Inputs, the knowledge and confidence are essential, but equally so is the teaching of the processes, the ways to handle the mass of information to derive acceptable answers useful in making current decisions.
The increases in the information age occurred in:
The major reversal has been in reduced need to move physically people to get something to happen. Some movement remains essential, but the electronic media now require re-thinking the fundamentals of communication, education, and all aspects of people management. To re-think is a mere assertion. Why? There is always a lag between the time that something is perceived as a good decision and the time that it is implemented. In addition, there is an increasing awareness that the rules of most games are changing. Once you could only move one square forward, now it is always two on the diagonal!
There are changing examples, but legislators from the city will certainly respond differently than those from the country - a response that is a product of confidence in and amount of information, perception of personal or public risk involved with a topic, and the location of the respondents - the voter constituency. At least at one level, the forest wildlifer needs to know the legislative audience.
At another level, the corporate forest leader's audience is now fully involved with world wood markets, taxes, tariffs, export-import barriers - all accompanied by information from satellites. The same systems provide inventories, harvest strategies, even optimum log cutting strategies to maximize profits. A Hank-from-the-hills, personal approach by a wildlifer in such an environment is unlikely to be very effective except with a few people.
Nevertheless there will be cultural lag, but this too is the topic of the forest wildlifer for his or her objective is to cause desired behavioral change. What is "cultural lag" other than non-change? Old knowledge needs to be laid aside. Laying it aside can be perceived as a great waste (the cost of learning it) and a loss of prestige or place (due to the rights of those who now have such knowledge.) A replacement must occur with a product of value of approximately equal but greater amount and prestige. Older groups are increasing in proportion and thus the problem of changed vales arises more frequently than in the past. There is not time or energy for replacement, so prestige must be greater if an equally indexed value is to result from managing people.
All of the power of the people manager needs to be brought to the analysis of faunal system care and use and then systems designed to get the desired change. The usual elements are (1) desired behavioral change, K = (Ct-C*) (as discussed in previous chapters), (2) per unit effort, E, or cost, and (3) per unit time, t. This appears as K/E/t, an expression similar to the familiar concept of habitat or faunal space production, kcal/m/t. K/E/t is the production metric of the people management subsystem.
The Resource Users
"A duck is a bird" is not a definition. The words are true, but it does not do the job. Saying that wildlife management means "producing wild animals from the land" is not a definition. It is incomplete and inadequate as a means of developing the fundamentals and operations for the vast forest faunal system. A key dimension omitted is people management (Fig. 13.1).
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| Fig. 13.1. People management is fundamental to the definition of faunal system management and interactive with two dominant topics. |
The three dimensions are all important, each in their own way, with relative importance, amount of work, and sequence varying with each situation. For over 50 years, long enough for many managers to catch on, the importance of education, public relations, and a variety of similar terms has been espoused in national and regional wildlife conferences. An agency executive director, I.T. Quinn, said before 1957 that wildlife management was 90% people and 10% wildlife work. Many have said it since, probably some before.
Saying "we're in the wildlife business," meaning we only "do zoology," does not make it so. To manage the forest faunal system requires manipulating people. To some, this sounds evil or, at best suspect. It is done every day by advertisers, teachers, preachers, sales people, army officers, and ... by mothers and fathers. It is as simplistic an idea as a command "do this," "don't do that." The command is intended to, and frequently does, change behavior. Previous behavior is stopped; planned behavior is changed.
The most powerful concepts for the forest faunal system manager are
The User Subsystem Objectives
It is, unfortunately, easy to tell where wildlife management ends and outdoor recreation starts with universities. It should be more difficult; the forest faunal resource manager badly needs the expertise within this area of knowledge (Hammit and Cole 1987). There are hunters and then there are people who do outdoor things... called outdoor recreation (Seitz and Dahlgren 1975). They often note deer and other wildlife as highlights of their trips. Like hunters, they are people to be managed.
The fundamental objectives of the recreation subsystem for people is that outdoor activities (generally dispersed as contrasted to spectator sports)
... whether undertaken lightly or with serious intent - are essentially "renewing" experiences that provide refreshing contrasts with the workaday world.... Internal and external tensions caused by today's technologically oriented society give added poignancy to the individual's need for recreational activity. If individual and societal problems are to be resolved intelligently, our adaptive capacities must be at their best, our energies must be available for prompt and effective action, and our inner sense of wholeness must be as complete as possible. Recreational activities foster these desirable qualities (Shafer and Lucas 1979:312).
The primary subsystem objectives are typically:
When a system is seen and objectives stated as shown, it takes little imagination to think of at least one way to begin to achieve each objective. Many techniques are used at public and private campgrounds and parks and these can be studied and adapted for each unique situation. A few suggestions about each may be helpful.
Desirable Encounters
You may want to rewrite objective No. 1 listed above, but if it was as stated, I would find the cheapest way to get "points," measures of these encounters. One hundred outdoors people having an experience weighted as 1.0 are equivalent to 10 people having an experience weighted 10. The costs for the 10 people would probably be less than for the 100. You may not like the results. Do you maximize the head count, or the experience, or both, or some weighted combination of both? The answer must be carefully phrased because, for example, weighting the number of people as 3 times more important than the quality simply raises the total number ((3 x 100) x 1 = 300). If everyone is using the same weight, then all scores stay relatively the same and "maximizing the product" will produce the same results, weighted components or not.
The actions to increase people in a wildlife area include:
The numbers are more frequently well handled than the quality. General suggestions are:
Unless people know about things to be observed, the demand will be zero or low. Unless they know the chances are low, they will have a low quality experience. "I drove 100 miles and didn't see Q" is a frustrated comment by a person with excessive expectations. The manager, working to achieve realistic expectations, would expect to hear about the things that were seen and about arrangements to return to see Q.
I can imagine taking a bus load of elderly people on a forested road in the early spring when grouse are drumming and turkeys gobbling. I would do a hearing test in some off-handed way at the sign-up place. If they cannot hear, then going on a trip oriented to sound (CAP66) is going to assure frustration. Of course if a person still wants to go, this will be acceptable. Then, while on the trip (or perhaps 1-2 evenings before it), participants would need to come to presentations made about grouse and turkeys, their life histories, ecology, etc. The birds will not likely be seen on the trip, only heard. In this experience an image is being created that will be as real as if the birds were being watched while they are being observed by ear by the people on the trip. The quality of the event is thereby greatly enhanced (cf Dahlgren et al. 1977).
Blinds, observation points, planned use for scopes, rented binoculars, requirements that all people on the trip have binoculars of greater than 5x, etc., are ways to assure the quality of the experience.
The user has to know what to experience, has to know the expectations (probability), has to be in a suitable place at the right time, must be reasonably close to the animal (not "that white flash of hair at the far edge of the field"), and must not have distracting associates (loud, disinterested) or unpleasant events (flat tires; insect swarms; sunburn). Animals do not have to be seen on high quality faunal-resource-user days if these conditions are met.
From skeptics, the suggestion is heard: Let the user integrate the factors. Make no measures, evaluations, or analyses. Faunal system managers, however, work with populations. The true measure of the goodness of any resource user system is user performance reflecting satisfaction, namely (a) the proportion of hunters (or other users) expressing intent to return at (t+1) or (b) the proportion that hunt in year t that also hunted in (t-1).
There is no such thing as an average faunal resource user (Wright et al. 1977, Clark 1985). The relevance of this easily-agreed-upon observation is that the manager needs to identify specific user groups, not the awful word "publics." By a group I mean people of common characteristics, not merely social bonding, card-carrying, or mappable groups. A group is all the people having the characteristics of one pathway through an analytical network such as in Fig. 13.2. Such analyses keep the characteristics separate, allow (require) categorical analyses, and keep managers from working to contact or manipulate the average person.
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| Fig. 13.2. An analytical network of all possible major characteristics of resource users can be constructed. At the end of each pathway is "a group," people having the characteristics along the path (shown as a solid line). In this diagram there are potentially 1,152,000 groups. |
Once the group (the pathway in the network) is identified, it can be weighted. "One-person, one-vote" and "created equal" are nice ideas but the decision world of the faunal resource manager is that some people are more equal than others. Many people do not vote, some people truly do not care about wildlife issues and never will, and some people are opposed to every decision...because they find satisfaction in the process of opposition. The manager may weight these groups on the basis of the number in each, their resource use rate, their expressed quality of experience, a product of these, or the product, likely change, and estimated costs of change. Of course, perceived influence on agency or corporate leadership is important and should be analyzed as objectively as "quality of the experience." In public agencies, these "politics" are discussed. Dominant people and dominant organizations do influence decisions. Dominant commissioners do influence projects selected. Supervisors do have "pet" ideas or project areas. The results are usually decisions that are suboptimal for the "general public." I now believe it is naive to believe that it will ever be otherwise. Thus, the relevance of analyzing groups is that instead of doing a suboptimal job of allocating money and other resources, faunal managers need to analyze groups, assign weights to their relative importance, and solve for maximum quality-weighted use. The group weights or weighting procedures documents must always be destroyed because they make overt (under freedom of information acts) the process that is unfair but one about which we smile and call "biopolitics." Since we will do it, I recommend here, only that we do it well, optimally. The resource as well as more people will be the better for the work.
So much faunal resource management is done by public agencies that the above may be incredulous. Where faunal resources are managed for "the king," "the corporation," or "the club" then there is little concept of "conservation in a democracy." There is clear power. The continually-hired faunal system manager understands this power and employs it. So too do notably successful public area managers, but they do not discuss it. Formalizing the notion, the manager seeks to achieve a performance index, here Q*, often maximizing it. The desired state is C* and C is the individual's or groups current behavioral state thus:
notably successful public area managers, but they do not discuss it. Formalizing the notion, the manager seeks to achieve a performance index, here Q*, often maximizing it. The desired state is C* and C is the individual's or groups current behavioral state thus:
Q* =(
( Wi Absolute value of (Ci - C*) E) / t
Each ith group is weighted, Wi, e.g., where 100 is most important to the manager, the agency, the corporation, or "perceived success by the staffs," and others are assigned weights of importance, estimated extent to-be- satisfied relative to the group or person weighted 100. In a pure democracy, all may be assigned 100.
Note also that Q* is merely an initial index. It can be improved, for example, by using an exponent reflecting how the change in a dominant person or group, a leader with large Wi influences changes in associates or observers.
The manager of users will quickly note that a network for 2 sexes, a state resident-or-not class, 10 age classes, 8 economic classes, 6 employment classes, 6 residence classes, 10 resource interest classes, a prior-success-or-not class, and 5 willingness-to-pay classes results in a total of 1,152,000 groups! (Fig. 13.2) There may be only a few people in each group; perhaps each person is truly unique, locatable at the end of a network pathway. If this is the case, as it probably is, the more precise, the smaller the group, the more specific the user-manipulation techniques employed, the more likely will be the effectiveness in causing change. Cost and time then become the qualifiers.
The scope of the potential activity is suggested by the 14 million visitor days of hunting spent in National Forests, only slightly more for fishing. Use is poorly accounted, so costs for changing it are almost meaningless. A visitor day is 12 hours of use from any combination of users. A person day is one person for one day of a week. A visitor day and a person day are not comparable. Complications arise at every turn; they are especially difficult to understand or compare when fractions of days are tallied for brief auto, bike, or hiking visits to an area.
The recreation opportunity spectrum (ROS) has been developed in the U.S. Forest Service (Clark 1982) as an analytical technique with many purposes. There are parallels within it, many of the concepts in this text. These include:
Undesirable Encounters
Bears, poisonous snakes, invertebrates, and certain plants (e.g., poison ivy, Rhus) can produce undesirable wildlife-related events. Some people have tried to achieve net benefits, subtracting undesirable events, but the quantification of events is at least as difficult as quantifying the monetary value of wildlife. Undesirable events are best kept as separate, weightable, with an objective to minimize them. Recreational events have constraints. As long as q did not happen, then the event was good or at least sufficient. Conditional probability concepts need to be used.
When personal friends come for an overnight visit, I show them their bedroom, bath, kitchen and try to "make them feel at home." Of course this is not possible (territory and all that), but I acquaint them, without actually speaking them, with the rules of the house. "This is where you urinate" does not have to be said. On the other hand, not enough is said to the public visiting a faunal area. Too much is asked of them. No one shows them the forest, the wildlife area. Yet they are supposed to know all of the rules, know the area, know wildlife, and be more socially circumspect than they are in the litter-strewn, radio-blaring, crime-ridden, dog-barking streets where they live. Wildlife managers have ranted and raved in conferences for 50 years about campground abuses and slob hunters and there have been few noticeable positive changes. There is a need for instruction and rationing (Stankey and Baden 1977). On wildlife areas, in the managed forest there, are needs for (1) limiting the people entering or using an area (advanced reservations, lottery, queuing, fees, merit or knowledge); (2) admission fees to establish a relationship; (3) education upon admission (e.g., watch a television tape or pass a quiz based on a booklet); (4) minimum but clear rules; (5) fees inversely related to knowledge of the area and its rules (everyone pays, some get refunds); (6) easy access to a means of reporting violations; (7) enforcement, including ability to eject a person or group and rescind admission; and (8) contacts with officers of the courts.
Wildlife Harassment
There appear to be negative effects on wildlife of hiking and camping, boating, observation and photography, off-road vehicle use, snowmobile use, swimming and shore recreation, and rock climbing. Hiking tramples habitat, visits to nests may cause losses, and disturbance of large animals surely reduces time that they have available for consuming quality forage. Animals fed at roads and dumps become vulnerable to poaching. Snowmobiles reduce bird density. Cave visits can change microclimate and disrupt the quality of caves that house bat colonies and invertebrates. Rock climbers may disrupt nesting raptors, mountain sheep, and vegetation. Reducing these problems may be of greater importance in many areas than "improving habitat," the banner of the current evolutionary era of wildlife management. Use seen as impact is wrong-headed (Pomerantz et al. 1988) in resource management, but clearly net effects of total user experiences need to be tallied relative to system objectives.
Pet dogs, cats, birds, and reptiles probably should be excluded from all wildlife areas. Making this one of the conspicuous rules can simply eliminate the visitors with pets. Too bad ... but it has a secondary desirable effect because many human disturbance, disease-related, and nuisance experiences that distract people from the wild faunal resource are caused by pets (Clark et al. 1971a).
Snowmobiles and other off-road vehicles need to be tightly controlled for the areas, conditions, and times where use is permitted. Allowing bikes or horses or trails in wet weather increases costs to managers, increases silt in streams, etc. Public lands do not need to be uncontrolled or unregulated lands. In some special situations there may need to be "sacrifice areas" where anything goes for those equipment users that will take only a political "yes" over a managerial "no."
People need to be kept off of certain trails during certain seasons. Faunal resource managers need to know breeding periods of all important fauna so that timber harvests can be scheduled to reduce harassment. In many areas, preventing people from entering the woods too early "to help wildlife" could be more easily and just as legitimately justified on the basis of protecting working equipment, reducing downtime, increasing profit, reducing soil compaction, and preserving tree site quality. The ends are important, not the name in which the good act is done. Instead of a "they won't let us go in," them-against-us attitude, how good it would be if we could look at the stated objectives for the total forest and then, together, work for them.
The possibility of attracting animals to a place, partially to avoid dispersing observers and their associated harassment, should be considered. Attracting animals to salt or feed may be undesirable for several reasons; the offsetting advantages may make it a very reasonable tactic.
Harassment of some animals can be avoided by using horses since people on horses (or in buses or cars) do not seem to bother some animals. Using spotlights at night can allow thousands of high quality sightings to be made by many people without them disturbing animals. Signs can keep people out of areas. Telescopes or platforms will encourage people to move to a point rather than to disperse. Signs work in some areas but are costly. I recommend thorn shrub plantings where you want to exclude people. You do not have to say or teach anything! Thorns have their own language.
Managerial Intrusion
It seems reasonable to keep signs, equipment, and developments at a reasonable and low scale, locally compatible, and "natural" looking. It also seems reasonable not to have a uniformed officer inspecting users several times a day. "Presence" of enforcement personnel, however, seems desirable as a deterrent to a variety of problems. Education is essential so that everyone knows the rules and social pressure may thereby be exerted (at least the disapproving look). The rules need to be minimum. Nothing provokes lawlessness like unreasonable or unnecessary rules. An easy means to report a violation is needed. People do not want to become involved with violation reports, ever, and especially on recreational or wildlife- related outings. In addition to the need for readily available staff, a telephone, a radio, even a push-button signal are examples of means that can be developed for reporting. These can be combined with first aid and other emergency service communications.
Action Alternatives
There is so much known about human psychology, about educational methods, about motivation, and behavioral modification that I despair in efforts to grasp it. (Giles (1978:211) gave a list of journals relevant to the human aspects of faunal system management.) To read, screen, assimilate, and reduce to relevance the mass seems impossible. The effort must be made, however, and those in faunal systems work must soon support such effort. Some is underway but it is narrow and continues expansion as bits and pieces. The needs are for synthesizing, unifying, and directing efforts to primary needs. The resources are not adequate (and never will be) to address all of the behavioral changes needed - including causing someone to sign an international agreement, stopping poaching, contributing money, not littering, not mutilating swans in urban forest parks, or developing a plan. There is too much to do; too many people; the needs are too diverse; the time is too short.
I favor a national program of actions to overcome this limitation and impasse including:
Private Landowners
In the U.S., about 47% of forest and rangeland is in private ownership (Cordell 1979). In the South, 88% is in private ownership. It is clear that if the faunal resource manager wants to influence large areas where the work may be centralized, areas do not equate to owners or decision makers and certainly not to resource users - either areas used or time of use or people per unit area or time. In the South, for example, faunal resource management, if it is to be viewed as relevant, must be directed at 300 million acres owned by corporations, families, and individuals (Cordell 1979).
There is much written about the concepts of attitude, motivation, rationale for action, incentive, tendency, willingness, tradition and knowledge. There is jumble, confusion, imprecision and overlap. It may be that what individuals do, their actual behavior, is all that can be counted with meaning in faunal systems work. Frequently heard is that "money talks," suggesting that, at least for some people and clearly not all, lands will be well managed for forest products, one of which are benefits from the faunal resource, if there is profit.
A modest manager's proposal: Timber landowner, I know that you and your family like wildlife. I do too, and I want to increase wildlife populations and enhance the resource generally, for many reasons and benefits. Let us look at your forest land and see how much it costs and how much you make from it now. Then I shall do an analysis and prepare a prescription for you for the period from now until you are 70 years old. Then we will assume you will give it to your family or sell it to a willing buyer who plans to continue its use as timber land. If you wish, I'll do an analysis that includes your inheritance estate too, but that's for later. I'll do the analysis at no cost to you now but with your agreement that you will give it very serious consideration and will follow it if it makes you more money than you currently make from it ... before taxes. (I do not want to get into your personal financial affairs related to taxes.) The deal is that I will do the analysis and attempt to show you how to make more gains than you are now making from your land with no capital investment. You need to follow my prescriptions exactly. We shall assume there will be no devastating fire, insect, or disease outbreak, or no timber poaching.
We shall look at the difference between (1) what you expected to make on average per year from your land (or what you have made on average over the last 10 years), and (2) what I propose by my plan you can make. I only want half of the difference for developing a wildlife system on your land along with nearby landowners.
You don't lose, ever. You gain, depending on your area and your current level of management. Wildlife gains because (1) we shall forego some income from timber and leave specific otherwise-profitable trees in the woods for their wildlife (and ecosystem) functions. The improved harvests and scheduling over the long run will more than compensate for this "contribution."
I'll use some of the money for management costs, other in private law enforcement, signs, inventory, trails, food, cover, and other enhancements. I'll sell hunting opportunity time and space units annually and manage a hunt. You and your immediate family will have the first units for free and if there are additional ones, those will be sold. I'll develop other fee-based recreation.
'Tis a modest proposal. The fulcrum: optimization of fauna-based profit for the current timberland owner in the context of a small region. See Chapter 15 and Giles and Nielsen (1990).
Public Participation
Pearse (1986), in comments before a wilderness committee, expressed support for bringing questions on land use to open public review, discussion, and advice. "If they are not, they will not enjoy public confidence and support, and doubts about the whole decision-making process will exacerbate disputes about individual cases... To serve its purpose, public participation must be effective and influential and, equally important, perceived to be so. Otherwise, if it is an exercise in futility, it will only aggravate cynicism and conflict."
In Chapter 4, I discussed objectives and the role that public participation could have in assigning values to the dimensions of B*. There are statements made in public hearings that are relatively easily translated into constraints, i.e., "... do it, but do not impact my land or where I hunt." Analyses can be done on a system to determine the costs with and without such constraints if they are feasible. Many public hearings degrade the go-no-go statements. Rarely is this the only option. Because systems are so complex, it is difficult for even the most informed to determine the full consequences of a new or alternative land use. Somewhere in the mix of comments and discussion is needed the identification of opposing views so that differences of opinion are apparent. The more educated, the more creative the audience, the more likely that it is that there will be many opinions. What improved educational systems need, and obviously faunal agencies, are responsible informed opinions, not just ideas or intellectual fun-and-games. These can be the grounds of good-faith, reasoned analyses with emphasis on the mutuality of "communication."
One of the most important inputs from the public can be on information about local extremes such as wind velocities that may affect fire control strategies or snow depths that may influence winter range. Old timers may provide such information; youths may provide renewed interest in the future and insight into desired behavioral opportunities by them on public lands.
In the remainder of this chapter (contra Giles 1978) I emphasize applied aspects of people management and those aspects of the forest that allow the faunal benefits to be experienced. Other examples of using the systems approach will be clear. The campsite and related phenomena, both large and small, are discussed.
Campsites
There were times when there were no hunting laws, but that has changed. There were times with no controls or regulations when campsites could be selected by hunters, anglers, and others. That, too, has changed (or must do so as soon as possible) to protect the physical quality and integrity of these special places. The uses and pressures are now so great and the resiliency of sites so limited, that failure to control use is to assure their destruction. Effects of recreation on wildlife are poorly studied (Ream 1980, Boyle and Samson 1985). Generally there are few negative effects, and net resource gains all seem to be in favor of user development. Wildlife clearings which may be used as camping areas in the fall may be closed to camping in the spring when they are providing game bird feed. These clearings can take some of the use pressure off of conventional campsites. Failure to regulate use of campsites is equivalent to ignoring the demise of a rare animal or plant species.
Most of us have seen abused areas called campsites ... scarred trees, trampled soil devoid of litter, tortured tables and fire places, dust, exposed roots, and erosion. They do not recover well. Rest-rotation, just as when used in grazing areas, works, but too slowly to be a relevant tactic for high-use areas or for those areas already in late stages of regression. Cole (1983) observed campsites in the Bob Marshall Wilderness; I have seen similar ones in the Idaho primitive area. There has to be education with permits or licensed use; there needs to be limited use of tent frames and poles or they must be packed in (as is required for forage for pack stock in some areas). Sites can be rationed. Information can be used to help people decide where to go. Although "wilderness" and no permanent development are allowed, corrals, hitch rails, and tent areas will have to be built (of course tastefully and compatibly) to allow desirable use rates. With use of the area and the faunal resource management, control is needed. Use needs to be promoted ... but as light-handedly as possible. The task, as ever, is optimization; there is no zero impact of forest or wilderness use.
Perhaps floristic dissimilarity between campsites and the unspoiled condition is tolerable. The difference between campsite and non-campsite should be some decided maximum such as 0.30. The difference, D, can be estimated by observing the proportion of plant coverage in a test or "standard" site, P1, and the coverage in a campsite, P2, thus the score for an area with many (n) sites is based on an average squared difference, thus:
D = 1.0 - ( (P2 - P1)2 / n )
When these differences are very small or zero, the value of D is almost 1.0. With monitoring, a site closure might be ordered when the difference exceeds a stated amount. Proper use levels can be permitted later. Compaction or reduced infiltration may be limiting factors. Loss of organic litter, increased dust, or increase of exotic plants also may be the limiting criteria.
The campsite is an important component of the forest fauna user system. It needs to be especially well located; carefully regulated, supervised, and monitored; and provisions made to control use of axes, saws, fires, vehicles, and horses. Trampling is an expected condition, so it needs to be localized and then ameliorates used (e.g., mulch on trails). Just as only people who pass a test can drive a car, only people who are educated and can pass a written or oral test should be allowed to use a campsite. Improper use of a car, campsite, or trail are socially dangerous.
Frissell condition classes (1978) were found well correlated with many measures of campsite conditions (Cole 1982, 1986). Since class is easily estimated, it, along with a measure of bare ground or camp area, and percent of campground as being with vegetation not necessarily with trees, make it a valuable observation. It readily becomes expressed as condition/ area/time and thus parallel with other ecosystem function expressions. What, at a fundamental level, is condition? The system person's answer: ability or current tendency of a site to achieve a stated set of objectives. The faunal manager's task is to slow the undesirable cjange, stabilize, or improve this condition for individual campsites but most likely for all sites within the area of managerial responsibility.
|
| Camping related to use of faunal resources includes campfires. These are key to managing wood use, trampling, esthetics, and wildfire risks in areas. This network (based on Cole and Dalle-Molle 1982) provides a guide for developing strategies to manage campfires. |
What might be done? Demonstrate superior areas. Create images of desirable "good" sites. Prevent use of fires. (See Cole and Dalle-Molle 1982) Concentrate campers since use in the first year causes most of the impact. Dispersing them only expands the area involved. Avoid erosive (sloping) sites. Protect trees, if necessary, by fences or rock walls and educate. Limit the duration of stays. Provide sufficient firewood and tent poles to prevent tree cutting. Build pathways. Restrict fires and ash disposal. Relax: to camp is to clear understory and compact soil ... almost by definition. It is managerially impossible not to change a site. It is only the extent of the on- and off-site impacts that are important. Maintaining shade is also important. Dead trees provide little shade. Protect them with fences or barriers. The task: prevent their dying and assure their reforestation. The task is large but managers are not paid for non-work or easy acts.
If not careful, the faunal system manager will emphasize trail construction or maintenance. Often more is not needed, only better allocation of what is available. The needs may be: (1) to reduce the difference in levels of use, at least reduce excessive concentrations, (2) to reduce use of critical areas or emphasize areas with great potential, or (3) to assist visitors preferring solitude or groups to match well with the conditions available. Lucas (1981) and others have shown that use of lightly used trails can be increased by providing brochures with information carefully worded, attractive, nonauthoritarian, indirect, and that are planned to be for long-term use. The information is needed early, perhaps 1 to 2 years before a trip is decided upon and a route selected. It can be done; failure in execution does not deny a technique.
Lime (1977) presented a table (Table 13.1) of measures to influence recreational use and therefore users' influence on sites. This table can stimulate creative solutions for managers who are aware that every site is unique. Cole (1989) developed an excellent set of recommendations for managing wilderness use.
Cole (1982) suggested the need for an improved evaluation scheme for campsite conditions. CAP2012 is based on his suggestion. It computes a condition using the concept of weighted objectives (minimizing vegetative disturbance, exposed roots, bare soil, and erosion) but with conditional phrasing so that if, for example, the vegetation is not disturbed but there is erosion present (that represents an unusual condition probably not camper-caused), and the site condition is only adjusted downward slightly, not to the extent usually caused by its observation. Of course such a condition might result from bad coding of observations ... a persistent problem. Checking data entry, at least each evening while in the field, can reduce such coding problems.
Table 13.1. Measures to control the character and intensity of recreational use to meet desired management objectives
| Type of Control | Method | Specific Control Techniques |
| SITE MANAGEMENT
(Emphasis on site design, landscaping, and engineering) Harden site Install durable surfaces (native, non-native, synthetic) |
Harden site |
Install durable surfaces (native, non-native, synthetic)
Irrigate Revegetate Convert to more hardy species Thin ground cover and overstory |
| Channel use |
Erect barriers (rocks, logs, posts, fences, guardrails)
Construct paths, roads, trails, walkways, bridges, etc. Landscape (vegetation patterns) |
|
| Develop facilities |
Provide access to under-used and/or unused areas
Provide sanitation facilities Provide overnight accommodations Provide concessionary facilities Provide activity-oriented facilities (camping, picnicking, boating, docks, and other platforms, playground equipment, etc.) Provide interpretive facilities |
|
| DIRECT REGULATION OF USE
(Emphasis on regulation of behavior; individual choice restricted; high degree of control) |
Increase policy enforcement |
Impose fines
Increase surveillance of area |
| Zone Use |
Zone incompatible uses spatially (hiker-only zones, prohibit motor use, etc. Zone use over time Limit camping in some campsites to one night or some other limit |
|
| Restrict Use Intensity |
Rotate use (open or close roads, access points, trails, campsites, etc.)
Require reservations Assign campsites and/or travel routes to each camper group in backcountry Limit usage via access point Limit size of groups, number of horses, vehicles, etc. Limit camping to designated campsites only Limit length of stay in area (max./min.) |
|
| Restrict Activities | Restrict building campfires
Restrict fishing or hunting |
|
| INDIRECT REGULATION OF USE (Emphasis on influencing or modifying behavior; individual retains freedom to choose; control less complete, more variation in use possible) |
Alter Physical Facilities | Improve (or not) campsites and other concentrated use areas
Improve (or not) fish or wildlife populations (stock, allow to die out, etc.) |
| Inform users |
Advertise specific attributes of the area Identify the range of recreation opportunities in surrounding area Educate users to basic concepts of ecology Advertise under-used areas and general patterns of use |
|
| Set eligibility requirements |
Charge constant entrance fee Charge differential fees by trail, zone, season, etc. Require proof of ecological knowledge and recreational activity skills |
Campsite-Related Hazards
Because values in wild fauna, wilderness or recreational resource use are rarely expressed in common units, it is almost impossible to describe net benefits from a camping or similar experience or net potentials of a campsite. Subtraction is needed and when, for example, the results of an accident (or the real threat of one) must be included, the equation goes sour. The use of multiple objectives is a feasible alternative. These objectives could be, for example: minimize accident hazards, maximize wildlife sightings, etc. Such expressions allow weighting the importance of each objective and making other computations as described in Chapter 4. CAP685 can be used in weighting these objectives.
Paine (1971) collected data on accidents in campsites caused by fallen trees and limbs and developed a procedure for hazard-rating trees. The faunal manager working with forested sites might utilize his system (Paine and Clarke 1978). In a simple example, a large limb is discovered over a lavatory. The probability of failure of the limb is estimated (based on his collected data), say as 0.10. The lavatory is estimated to be used 0.80 of the days of the year. The damage potential of a limb of the particular type (based on his data) for recreationist occupancy is 0.12. The value of the building is $4000. The product of these four numbers is $38. If the cost of removing the limb is $100, the removal effort may be judged inappropriate, given the typically limited resources of the manager. If the index value was greater than $100, then action would be appropriate.
Hazard is defined as the expected loss from mechanical failure of a tree during the current inspection cycle, thus a monetary expression. The manager can reduce or eliminate the hazard in the site, close the site, change occupancy, select hazard-free sites, change use patterns, etc. The procedure can be used in high-cost and regrettable legal cases with tree- failure accidents. The procedure seems to have excellent potentials for parallel use in other parts of the user system, especially for hunting and camping accidents. Seeking out isomorphisms is one of the challenges of cost-effective faunal management. Finding them is one of the great rewards to the systems-oriented person. The hazard rating or analysis system operated at a regional scale is a good example of a macro-management system. By contrast, campsite hazard reduction is a very micromanagerial action.
The New Disease Hazard
The backpacker's disease, Giardiasis, has now become a common topic among recreationists and those who plan for them. Giardiasis is an intestinal disease caused by ingesting cysts of the protozoan Giardia lamblia. This protozoan is prevalent in forested mountains and the back country. The clean, cool spring, surely uncontaminated and rich to the thirsty walker, may contain the organism. The creature has only recently been identified. Once ingested (and all it takes is 1 to 10 cysts) may cause a non-fatal disease 1 to 2 weeks later. The disease symptoms are abdominal cramps, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, gas, low-grade fever, chills, and headaches. About 20,000 cases had been reported from 1965 to 1981.
The organism has been found in the intestines of amphibians, birds, beavers, and muskrats. Dogs as well as humans shed the cysts and may be the primary sources of the disease. There is probably a new interaction of humans and wildlife, particularly beavers, as more people bring pathogens into the back country and the waters become infested. The camper's solution is to boil the water for 20 minutes. EPA has studied diatomaceous earth filters (Lange et al. 1984) and rapid-rate filtration (Al-ani et al., 1985) and found both were effective ways to remove the cysts from the clear mountain stream waters used by towns in the Rocky Mountain area.
One of the ways to manage users is to influence access. Access is the primary means by which some people come to understand the population- habitat-people triad. To build a road, particularly one that has grasses eaten by wildlife, is clearly habitat manipulation. It influences human use, both legal and illegal, but it influences the populations available, say to hunters and anglers, and thus survival rates, crippling loss, and density. To spend money on roads is to spend money on the managerial triad in Fig. 13.1.
If the faunal manager produces extra animals in areas where they cannot be used, then no resource is created. Money spent should be devoted to meeting demand. If there is no demand, or if it has already been met, there is no excuse for producing more. Only maintenance can be justified. In a similar vein, if demand is high, production or resources insufficient to meet it, then money spent in an inaccessible area is money not spent in meeting demand. Perhaps justified for future demand when access is achieved, such a reason for managerial expenditures seems an unlikely winning argument unless there is absolutely nothing else to be done with the available money and related resources. And that is unlikely!
In some areas access is needed. It may be a bridge or right-of-way to public or useable areas. It is amazing how much public land there is that is unavailable to the public. In some cases, an actual foot bridge is all that is needed. In others, an easement or right-of-way needs to be purchased and a road or trail built. In some cases, an aircraft service to fly users into and out of remote areas may be practical. The service is the bridge.
Foot trails can bridge users to vast areas now unavailable. Trail development is a major indicator of the opportunity for dispersed recreation (Cordell 1979:16). See Table 13.2.
| Table 13.2. Relative trail mileage in the U.S. by ownership classes. The total (1973) is about 280,000 miles (from Cordell 1979). | |
| Type of Trails | Proportion of Mileage |
| Private | 0.41 |
| Federal | 0.39 |
| State | 0.13 |
| County and Municipal | 0.07 |
They are as much a tool for gaining access as are roads, canoes, or aircraft. Hunter trails are quite different than trails for other wildlife use. They need to be short, at least to achieve the time-in to time-out constraints of legal hunting, to meet primarily the limits of the average successful hunter who must carry the game out of the forest. For a successful large-game hunter, the trip out can be very difficult, even with a partner. The reasonable hunter will only go to a spot a reasonable distance from a road or trail. In some managed areas, staff will pick up hunters at roadside. Hunters move by the most direct route to the road. In other areas, the carcass, say, of an elk, is cut up and packed out on horses. In some areas, a 1- or 2-wheel hand-held cart is used to remove game. Collecting data for managing the populations and assuring quality meat and full use of the animal are part of the reasons for concern for access, but another reason is the final concept of the quality of the hunt or success. Killing an animal is success by some criteria, but having a mild heart attack or breaking an arm while stumbling through a Rhododendron thicket pulling a 150-pound, 8-point buck up a 25 degree (CAP113) slope is hardly the stuff of great success. Of course it will be discussed and bragged about. If adversity is an ingredient of success in the woods, managers can certainly arrange for that too!
Anyone who has built trails knows about adversity. Short trails for hunters or long ones that include overnight shelters, seem to me to be excellent, gentle-on-the-land ways to make the faunal resource available to people who will walk or ride horses. Paved trails usable by people in wheelchairs are high cost but excellent techniques in areas where use rates naturally are high (city parks) or can be maintained through educational programs (say a wildlife area within a reasonable bus ride distance from several cities), or are a part of high visitation public parks and forests. Charges will surely be required under present trends. Since costs and use rates can be determined (at relatively low costs) it seems reasonable to institute trail user fees with permits or license for certain trail types. In some areas, trail-specific fees may be needed.
Trampling (defined as one person passing a point on a trail on any day at any time) reduces plant coverage quickly. Erosion rates vary depending on soil type, vegetative cover, and slope. After a moderate amount of use, compaction will level off. Heavy use has been acquitted as the culprit in trail problems. The causes of trail deterioration are location, design, maintenance, and inappropriate use (unregulated) for the type of trail that is available. Nevertheless, it appears that recovery from compaction can take many years. Vegetation recovers more rapidly (see Leonard et al. 1985).
Reliable information on trail use, especially users and patterns of use, allows managers to maintain the quality of the outdoor experience and protect the trail and related resources. Sign design, visibility, the message, data card design, location and maintenance (cards, pencils, etc.) of the trail user registration box are all factors influencing compliance with the request of visitors to provide information. Signs placed a short distance up the trail (not at the trail head) get best response (Petersen 1985). Separating requests for information by user type (hunters, hikers, riders) increases response (Petersen 1985). Sign location is an artistic judgment but the scientific criteria are: visible for reasonable distance; offer user a safe place to stop; and placement at a likely stopping place (to rest, view, cross a stream, etc.). Petersen (1985) noted that a registration site up the trail, while more difficult or costly to service, may be worth the costs in better information provided. Lucas (1983) warned of extremely variable compliance in trail users registering and thus the uses to which such data can be put. Mandatory permits have been recommended in lieu of such poor compliance and the need for user data is great (Lime and Lorence 1973). (See CAP 2016.) Mandatory permits are now widely used (since 1966).
The information obtained may be used to get user rates (trampling data) for relationship to erosion, vegetation change, or for probable contacts (a measure of quality of trips for backpackers). It can suggest educational target groups and provide justification for expenditures in maintenance, management, and alternative developments. (See Wilder 1969.) It may also be used to influence future users, i.e., knowledge of intensive use may cause people to stay away from such areas or select low-use areas.
A commonly proposed solution to crowding in wilderness is spreading use more evenly. Certainly, some redistribution of highly uneven use could be advantageous. However, redistribution itself is not a panacea for overuse. Techniques to modify use distributions, short of un-appealing authoritarian controls, are poorly developed. Also, a perfectly uniform use distribution in wilderness is neither possible nor would it be desirable. Some diversity in use levels is desirable because both resource capabilities and visitor desires vary. Some managers have expressed concern that spreading use into areas now lightly used might destroy fragile vegetation or disturb certain wildlife species. And, in fulfilling the objective of The Wilderness Act to provide visitors "outstanding opportunities for solitude," having some very lightly used areas in a wilderness seems essential (Stankey et al. 1976).
The forest manager may perceive that there are many users, many publics or human subsystems. He or she is fully aware of the many environmental subsystem that exist in every forest. The potentials exist to find patterns in these two sets that allow the number of visitors to be greatly increased without seriously damaging the environment or reducing the quality of the experience for other users. The options include keeping some area or areas inviolate, some natural for people to see nature, some with ware-resistant paths, some with guidance devices for the handicapped. Then users may be regulated by rationing visits, separating use by both time and space, regulating entrance times, allocating trails and areas, restricting viewscapes as well as soundscapes, and by educating them to bring expectations more in line with the conditions available.
Lucas (1981) found one brochure worked poorly in distributing wilderness users but developed an important theory of recreational choice behavior (1981:5), easily fit to general systems theory in which some desired feeling or end state, the recreated state, is defined as the objective for the user, and then the factors operating to allow that state, either natural or controlled by the faunal system manager, are the other parts of the system.
There are only a few studies of how far from roads wildlife users go. For the bird watcher, it is usually time dependent. The time-rate-distance relations for returning to the car will match well with the time that bird activity slows (usually 3 hours after sunrise). A slow walk, say at 1 mile per hour (1.6 kmph), in a circular loop for 2 hours, where C = 
d, then (5280 x 2) / = d or 3361 feet or 0.6 miles. This is similar to the distance that deer hunters went from roads in North Carolina. These observations suggest that if a zone of 0.6 were drawn to each side of existing roads, then a map of potential use area can be created. Coverage may therefore be evaluated, decisions made about where to place new roads to achieve additional use areas, and where certain additional action such as providing food and cover may be relevant. The outer limits of the use zone may intercept animal ranges. Roads are often built in low-elevation areas, e.g., valleys, and animals in some areas move into these zones during cold weather and deep snows. The topic can become as detailed and complicated as the analyst wants to make it. Computer mapping systems can be invaluable in presenting reasonable zones of influence, e.g., by not printing areas in wetlands or where there are impassable cliffs, where land is posted etc. Jones et al. (1986) provided an excellent framework for forest road location. The same algorithms can be used for wildlife. The systems can be combined for timber and wildlife. CAP22 allows experiments to be made with the road zone of influence concept and how managed areas can be covered with potential use zones.
Visibility
 |
| Figure 13.4 Roads in an area and a zone around them can be mapped to suggest the potential area influenced or used by resource users ... and the area not likely to be used (from Casabona 1995). |
Computer programs now provide analytical capabilities for determining quite accurately viewscapes. There are various types but they are very strongly user oriented, at least as much a function of the viewer as of the landscape. Figures 13.4 and 13.5 show viewscape maps. The uses:
| Fig. 13.5. A viewscape map from work in the early 1970s( modern software produces improved images). Shading symbolizes the relative observability of a land cell (27-acres or 1/9 km2) viewed from roads and trails within a 60,000 acre management area.The potentials are great for locating camp and recreational facilities, for engaging constructively in environmental impact analyses, for improving surveillance of fires and poaching potential, and for selecting high-quality sites for teaching about animals and their habitats. | 
|
Wildlife law enforcement is discussed in the next chapter (Chapter 14). Vandalism is a problem often encountered by the enforcement agent seeking to change behavior and intercept violators.
Vandalism
Vandalism at campgrounds occurs during entertainment (39%), while studying nature (36%), and while doing camp chores (25%) (Clark 1972). The nature study vandalism observed by Clark was by children whose parents allowed them to climb on signs and fences. This suggests that, there being no way to change parents instantly, the manager can try to make signs childproof ... or build diversionary structures for children. Surely better climbing and play things can be created for these little people bored with the passive nature trail or unreadable sign at the wrong height (clearly not intended for them!). In some areas, children's programs may be useful.
Camp rules about disposal of waste, wash water, and excretion need to be very clear. Vandalism can occur when the firewood runs out. People are rarely evil, only frustrated in completing a task. They become opportunistic and creative in completing it. They may be, however, indifferent to the consequences. The level of awareness of the consequences and the expectation of unpleasant consequences for the camper may be increased by the manager while the frustration situations are simultaneously reduced. The message for users may be to call the manager. Where there are short term visitors, they may, justifiably, be indifferent to the consequences of vandalism. This requires the continuous presence of staff and continuous upkeep as demonstrated at many large amusement parks. Vandalism can be counted, in part, as a shortage of activities. Chopping live trees, for example, could easily be displaced.
Recreational facilities, like highways, create demand, not meet it. This is true only to a point, but it needs to be realized for relatively open, potentially public forests. A wildlife agency or division of a company reluctantly builds toilet facilities at high costs for wildlife resource users. Other recreationists use the same facilities, perhaps more than the intended users. In some areas, facilities have not been built for this very reason. In others, there have grown well-rounded, year-around, total faunal management programs with objectives like those suggested above. Of course the costs are high...but as compared to what? A $2000 toilet used by 20 hunters for 10 days for 10 years is quite different than that same facility used by 4000 visitors for 2 days each for 10 years. See CAP99 for cost considerations and consider the management quality experiences by the 4000 visitors or 20 hunters.
Christensen (1981) studied how a manager making appeals for help (littering was the test action) might reduce vandalism. She concluded that such appeals had a significant effect. Apparently defining the problem and suggesting ways to deal with it increased camper involvement. The appeals had mixed use: message, commitment, personal responsibility, influence of the officer, etc. but perhaps those motives need not be teased apart. Perhaps comparisons need to be made relative to a standard minimum, some "innately nasty" index.
Christensen (1981) found that 16 percent of the subjects receiving appeals reported staged littering, 10 percent more than the control group. These percentages may suggest social tendency to report or "get involved" and may have additional relevancy as a coefficient to allow the full scope of vandalism, poaching, or other illegal behavior to be estimated. (For example if 0.145 of the campers seeing vandalism report it, and 20 cases are reported, then the actual amount occurring may be estimated as 138 cases.)
Carrying Capacity
The concept of carrying capacity of recreational lands (and therefore of sites for the users of faunal resources) has led recreational researchers and scholars down a tortured path (see Stankey and Lime 1973, Lime 1977, Verburg 1975). There are more definitions of it in recreational than in wildlife circles (Edwards and Fowle, 1955; Giles 1978). The phrase is sufficient, similar to "I have a cold" is sufficient if I did not really understand my symptoms, will not go to the doctor, and will treat myself as my mother did years ago. It can be put among the word wastes or retained for social adjustment periods at conferences or unplanned committee meetings. In its place may come the realization that each site is a system. Each has the following characteristics (or should have if it is said to be "managed"):
Whether all potential campsites (or other faunally-related user sites) have been developed is a dimension of capacity as well as are the dimensions of variety of wildlife and variety of users. Recreational use seems highly substitutable for most people. How close to capacity a particular site appears seems very much related to alternative sites available, numbers, types, related uses, proximity, and extent of the potential already developed.
User attitudes, perceptions, and expectations are related to objectives because, hopefully, at least on public lands, the objectives were formulated for the public. A group of people that has lived in a filthy urban slum will find little to complain about in a clean but ecologically degraded site. Everything is relative.
If expectations are for very high quality sites and less is observed, satisfaction (and expressions of it on feedback instruments) will be low. The better educated that users become, the greater will be their dissatisfaction, for they become more discriminating. Education about how to use an area wisely usually includes an answer to "why" and therewith the exposure of the other sharp side of the educational sword.
The managerial guides to be derived from this are: (1) to balance expectation with satisfaction; (2) to include pictures of improvement, utilizing the notion of "deserved" campsites, for this influences perceived satisfaction; (3) to match user groups with sites; (4) to include improvement efforts in planned trips for the good of the site, of course, but for great immediate gains among the users. (Make clear to all the costs in time and energy of clean-up and repair; the intended message is not always derived by the workers.)
Explaining why certain things have been done is not a bad idea. It influences attitudes. A state of "hostility" can be reduced to "resignation" by a convincing, inclusive presentation. After action is taken, there are no agreements to be made, no briefs. Offended people may "get even" or if they understand (though not agree at the time), they may decide to "go along," a not uncommon, negentropic action.
As in most other aspects of faunal resource management systems work, the manager cannot do just one thing. To increase trails and campsites is to increase maintenance activities and costs and the scourge ... crime and vandalism. Crime has been reported as being major in 85% of federal recreational areas. Attitudes differ in the woods; there seems to be an assumption that people who camp or use the woods will not commit crimes. They do! The associated laxness in security increases the problem. Failure to report, which is likely, suggests the rates are higher than perceived. Other problems of statutory authority, lack of relevant federal laws for certain acts on national park and forest lands, and weakness in management and enforcement programs all contribute to the problem. Vandalism and crimes against property are closely related. The solution set:
Vandalism in the name of "the environment" such as spiking trees is not condoned. Long term, cost effective solutions to massive problems is needed. Judging the net effect of actions and selecting the highest is the task. Purposeful vandalism can be perceived as a winning strategy so infrequently that it need not be considered.
The LAC Concept
The "limits of acceptable change," LAC, concept is a system developed (Stankey et al. 1985) for wilderness area analysis and has use in other recreation analyses. It is a system with a peculiar emphasis on constraints or what an area should not be. It uses ideas of "issues and concerns" prevalent in other U.S. Forest Service literature on planning. These ideas tend to address the context of the system and to name specific projects or programs desired (the processes) rather than specifying objectives or criteria of goodness. In the description (Stankey et al. 1985) it is stated that "the LAC process emphasizes explicit statements of objectives" (see Type-4 objectives in Chapter 4) and "... requires managers to define desired wilderness conditions" and "... steps leading to development of a set of measurable objectives that define desired wilderness conditions." Perhaps. The steps in the process are:
The types of indicators needed include those in the resource realm such as for trails; campsites; water and air quality; faunal richness, abundance and rare species; and rangelands. Indicators of people-oriented objectives might include those of solitude while traveling, campsite solitude and noise (See CAP401), probability of encounter with people in an alternative travel mode, and party size.
Specify standards for resource and social indicators for each opportunity class. (Constraints; higher-number type objectives.) Perhaps there are explicit limits to each indicator in each class but given the interactive, multifactorial nature of recreation as well as ecosystems, it seems highly likely that the "limits" will be defined well by the interplay of the multiple objectives. As discussed under the ROS, hearing a powersaw running near the edge of a wilderness will not likely be as disturbing as hearing one within a wilderness. Even axe-chopping after discovering a spoiled, trash-littered spring is "too much." The combinations and interplay of factors, especially predictable sequences in ecology, suggest single decided limits are as likely to be of as limited usefulness as "limiting factors" (Liebig's Law) has been to applied ecologists.
It is likely that expert systems (CAP54) will be useful in analyzing conditions within classes because of the variability among sites, observers, and the general nature of cost-effectively-gained indicators.
The LAC is said to be "a system." Perhaps there are alternatives, evolution, and adjustments through which this "conceptual process" (Stankey et al. 1985:3) may go (perhaps as suggested herein), thereby allowing it and closely related work to improve use of faunal resources and their space.
It seems important to restate the importance of the manager working with the user, not just the animals or their habitat. The benefits from land and animals are experienced by people. A zoo obviously brings animals and people together, and usually very cost effectively as measured in pleasurable sightings per animal per person per unit invested. The wild resource is experienced in the field or backyard from windows. Attracting animals to a site is one method; getting people into the field to see and experience animals and their sign is the alternative. An unseen animal on a mountain can provide some value, that said to be "existence value" or "option demand" of the type: "I am glad to know it is there" or "I could see it if I really wanted to." This value is rarely sufficient grounds for management investment and is certainly not predominant in society. Such values may be asserted by a majority of the people but weighted low in a list of an alternative benefit-value expressions. There is a need to get people to the animals and once there protect them and their environments from each other. For the systems manager, the question is not only how to do it but, specifically, what are the marginal costs of making incremental increases in experienced wildlife benefits in a specific population of people. Based on intuition and studies (Sutherland 1983) highest cost-effectiveness of managerial investments will be greatest nearest urban centers. Secondary benefits of land value, esthetics, and human health accumulate as well in the same area.
Personal Attachment of Resource Users
Prakash et al. (1986) observed that a "sense of belonging" is needed in people who will care for their land and resources, saying this leads to feedback loops that stabilize or improve the conditions there. I interpret "belonging" as a sense of personal space, of place, akin to animal home range and perhaps territory, which has the dimension of being a defended area. Place has the dimension of permanency, both for the person and the group. If land area is lost, as from strip mining or urbanization, then people do not become attached to it. [How frequently have you heard: "why I remember when we used to play out in a field where that building is now;" or with a sweep of the hand "all of that used to be farmland"?] Why save a tree today when tomorrow a bulldozer uproots 3 acres before your eyes? Why invest in land if change rates suggest the investment will never mature, even for your children?
Prakash et al. (1986) said:
Unless carefully incorporated into the design or circumvented, external factors ranging from narrowly defined political objectives to operational realities such as frictional losses, time delays, and cost escalations as well as lack of maintenance, mishandling, and vandalism, [have results that] can neutralize the benefits that the design was originally expected to produce. These [undesirable results] can only be avoided if the complete man-machine-resource-nature--society nexus is taken as the basis of the solution to be designed.
Known area or place has the dimension of risk-freeness. New places give people a sense of excitement; that is one reason why they go to them. That same sense, if not civilized or controlled (as by a tour guide) can be stressful and even harmful if people venture into the place of others or where the rules are different. A newly released deer will crash wildly through the brush, even run into trees while a native animal with large antlers can run through a dense forest at breathtaking speed and seemingly knows where ever branch is located. A camper in new territory is awakened by every sound, for perhaps it is threatening!? An experienced camper "knows" the forest and sleeps soundly.
It is important to recognize the significance of human personal place and its survival-value dimensions of risk reduction, stress reduction (and the associated energy costs of stress), and entropy reduction (efficiency in food getting, movement, communication, etc.). It is also necessary to conceive of ways to minimize its loss and to manipulate it. I can only begin to think of ways to include people in designed faunal system. These are:
Forests, as resources, are not for trees or for the birds but for people. People have an extremely wide variety of uses of the forest and all of its components - barely sentient to savage. When the view shifts from "managing animals" to "managing whole systems with people, for people" truly profound changes will occur in forest resource management. Debates about religious and cultural roots of resource management are well known. They need to continue. In the face of nature tourism, eco- or environmental-tourism, of shifting economic capabilities and leisure time, of expanding populations and shrinking low-use areas, the possibilities of sustained recreational quality and quantities by a hands-off, nature-knows-best approach to forest land management seem very low. The past is interesting; the present is brand new and demands direct, comprehensive action.
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