Planning for Human Use and Environmental Sustainability on

Public Lands

Dale Blahna, US Forest Service, PNW Research Station Lee Cerveny, US Forest Service, PNW Research Station

Bill Spain, Cardno/ENRTIX

IUFRO Conference on Forests for People May 21, 2013

Traverse City, MI

Outline

What’s the problem?

Increase recreation/social science in planning 1. Shift emphasis ‘recreation’ to ‘human use’

2. Broaden spatial scale—regionalism

3. Integration: Use AND protection simultaneously

Implications: paradigm shift in recreation?

The Problem? Recreation critical to agencies

• 166 million visitors/year • 65% of USFS GDP contribution • Sustainable recreation • Ecosystem services • Better links to regions, urban areas,

& kids

Decreasing capacity • Use patterns changing • ~2-3% of R&D budget on ANY social

science • 10% decline in budget last 10 years • NFS recreation budgets spent on

other applications • Recreation viewed as contrary to

resource protection

Most Recreation planning methods date to the 1970s & 1980s.

1. Getting Beyond Recreation

Recreation is an outdated concept for understanding human-resource interactions on public lands.

• Focused on leisure, play • Focused on non-commercial

activities • Focused on individuals, small

family groups

A broader conceptualization of human interactions with public lands is needed.

A Broad Spectrum of Human Uses

Human Uses

Recreation

Outdoor Work

Subsistence

Stewardship

Culture & Heritage

Social & Family Ties

Learning & Discovery

Healing & Therapy

The Forest is a place to play.

The Forest is a place to work.

Logging in the Coconino NF

Livestock Grazing in the Gunnison NF

Commercial Tourism in the Tongass NF

Mining Claims

The Forest is a place to feed the family and supply fuel for the household.

The Forest is a place to steward.

Washington Trails Association

Watershed Restoration, Ashland, OR

Volunteer Vacation Work Party

Kiln Restoration, Beaverhead-Deerlodge NF

The Forest is a place with deep cultural and historical ties.

• Tribal connections (sacred places, symbolic events)

• Heritage sites (CCC, Lewis & Clark, railroads)

• Family heritage (logging families, ranchers)

• Homelands

Tongass NF, Alaska

The Forest is a place for people to connect with each other.

Family Picnic, Olympic NF

Outing Club Group Hike, Mt. Baker, WA

Group Camping on Rogue River

The Forest is a place to learn.

Interpretive programs

Environmental education

Outdoor leadership training

Citizen Science & Service Learning Hubbard Brook, NH

The Forest is a place to restore health by connecting with nature.

Wilderness Therapy Group Group Counseling Session Cradle to Grave 30K

Trail Running Race Pisgah NF

Planning Implications

• Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) or Human Use Spectrum (HUS)? Acknowledge a wider range of forest settings user experiences.

• People as forest users, not visitors. For many, the Forest is their home, workplace, or breadbasket.

• New accounting systems for gathering and commercial uses. Treating permits as data and assessing trends over time.

• Large groups are not anathema to the Forest.

• Most current research and planning tools are site, activity, or issue specific – we must broaden (Cerveny et al. 2013).

2. Expand Spatial Scale of Recreation Planning & Management

• Reactive, site specific management (default)

• Shortcomings:

– Assumes closed system

– Does not understand context (how a management unit interacts with others)

– Implications for potentially displaced visitors?

– Potential for homogenization between sites

– Recreation site succession

Insights from Ecology

Ecology benefitted from studying phenomena at multiple scales (Peterson & Parker 1998)

• Dominant processes change as spatial scale increases or decreases (e.g. interspecies competition at smaller scales vs. climate at larger scales)

• Research results may not translate to other scales

• Research methods differ (e.g. field surveys at smaller scales vs. GIS-based analyses at larger scales)

Regionalism

• Environmental and social problems rarely occur at the scale of existing governance or management.

• E.g., air pollution, “sprawl”, transportation.

• Regional governance or collaboration necessary to address these issues

• Multi-agency (e.g. air quality or watershed districts)

• May be informal or non-governmental (e.g., NGOs, land trusts . . .)

Olympic Peninsula

• Pop. 234,772 (2010)

• 1.7 million hectares

• Dispersed, rural communities

• Changing economy and land use

• Special Designation – UN International

Biosphere Reserve

– World Heritage Site

• Multiple jurisdictions – Olympic National Park

– Olympic National Forest

– 8 recognized tribes

– State forests

– Private landowners (timber companies)

18

Rain shadow

How would a region be ‘defined’?

• Dimensions at which ‘phenomena’ are observed • Assume ‘open system’

• Multiple jurisdictions • Interactions between units

• Based on issue, ‘problem’ or purpose of plan • Not simply site or jurisdiction • Multiple hierarchical levels • Recognize ‘nestedness’

• Utah State Park plan used ‘visitorshed’ • Purpose to develop statewide plan with both state-level programmatic and

regional management recommendations • Where are visitors coming from? • Lakes/reservoirs substitutes? • Three scales: 1) lake or reservoir; 2) region; 3) statewide

Planning Implications

• Interagency collaboration: ‘all lands’ approach

• Identify ‘niche’ in region

• Role of ‘spectrum’

• Collaboration tool

• Conflict management tool • Utah SPs: Separate potentially conflicting uses on

different water bodies – within region

Prince William Sound EVOS Human Use Framework

PWS—Scales of Analysis

31 Analysis Areas General Areas example: Harriman Fjord—Barry Arm (AA02)

PWS—Sample Analysis Scales

Proportion Kayakers-Bear Hunters

3. Integration: Use and Protection

• “Incorporate knowledge from diverse disciplines” • Fool’s errand?

• Endless data, no stopping rule, analysis paralysis . . . • Add social science, spectrum of uses, and multiple scales

• Not data focus but final outcomes • Encourage use & protection simultaneously

• Paradox? NPS dual mandate?

• Problem Framing • Issue/problem specific • Relevant scales (at least one higher) • ID relevant data: social, ecological, economic sciences • Select tools based on ecosystem management criteria

Prince William Sound Framing the Human Use Framework

• Identify ‘keystone’ experiences • Popular, specific, and relatively unique to the area (PWS),

and a primary visitor attraction rather than simply something visitors do as they travel to another destination.

• PWS keystone experiences 1. Tidewater glacier day trip

2. Overnight tidewater glacier and solitude

3. Big game hunting

4. Wildlife watching

PWS Framing the Human Use Framework

• Key Issues 1. Reduce heritage site degradation 2. Direct use away from Alaska Native Claim Settlement Act selected sites 3. Facilitate solitude opportunities at tidewater glaciers 4. Maintain existing solitude opportunities at the regional scale 5. Address existing restriction of commercially guided sport fishing in

eastern PWS 6. Evaluate big game hunting 7. Improve outfitter/guide commercial use allocations

• Identify range of actions & monitoring that . . . • Address issues • Protect keystone activities • Using relevant scales/analysis zones & data • Meet ecosystem management criteria

Ecosystem Management Criteria

• Decisions can integrate

• Key: thinking regionally and multiple scales

• Need integration ‘rules’

• Little research • How meet criteria

• WHY Successes?

• Social and political

Ecologically sustainable

Economically feasible

Socially acceptable

Slickrock-Sand Flats Area ( Moab, UT) • Use of SRT increased from 300

in 1986 to 90,000 in 1993.

• Camping expanded into Sand Flats (~9,000 acres of PJ, sage, grasses)

• Local community conflict

• SUWA: BLM must set use limit to protect the landscape

• Two surveys: SLT in 1993 and regional survey in 1994

Slickrock/Sand Flats Management

• Rather than limit/disperse, BLM used concentration strategy.

• Collaborated – Grand County and Canyon Country Partnership.

• Trail rides increased >120,000

• Impacts decreased.

• BLM used funds to

• Harden existing campsites, parking areas, trails;

• Add new sites in ecologically resistant areas; and

• Redirect campers to new sites around trail, and reduced impact on Sand Flats.

• Access fee: Annual revenue >$200,000

General Planning Conclusions

• Need new suite of recreation planning tools.

• Broad, reinterpretation of ‘outdoor recreation’ in planning for public lands is needed.

• Broaden to consider all ‘human uses’

• Include broader region & multiple scales in ‘analyses’

• Encourage human use and protection simultaneously

• Issue not data driven planning

• Link scale, data, and issues

• Improve social science application of geospacial tools

Thanks!

Questions, Ideas, Feedback?