In March 2020, many United States-based parks and protected area (PPA) managers implemented disease control measures (e.g., park and facility closures) in response to the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. This thought-piece considers expected transformations in PPAs during unprecedented circumstances. We employ a challenges and opportunities framework to explain pandemic-induced alterations in visitor accessibility, PPA management, and scientific research. We acknowledge the complex difficulties that visitors, managers, and researchers may experience during pandemics and provide a listing of opportunities that result from these challenges. We suggest that PPA managers explore alternative solutions that maintain recreation access during future times of uncertainty. Maintaining access allows PPAs to continue serving as places for healthy recreation and restoration for park visitors and may create new opportunities for visitors, managers, and researchers. We underline the necessity to include human disease impacts into adaptive management frameworks and the shifting needs for current and prospective research. These details can affect the availability and accessibility of PPAs, how managers approach and adapt to unusual circumstances, and the focus of future recreation research.
Indigenous communities possess long histories of using land acknowledgments to reinforce their cultural ties with specific areas. Today, many public and private institutions use land acknowledgments to recognize the Indigenous Peoples who inhabited and still live in local areas. However, an opportunity exists to move beyond institutional acknowledgments and into action-oriented frameworks that support decolonization efforts, especially within parks and protected areas (PPAs). PPAs present an opportunity for the actualization of the #LANDBACK movement, which could strengthen Indigenous land governance, conservation, and sovereignty. This thought piece uses decolonization and storytelling methodologies to demonstrate how current PPA management paradigms perpetuate harm against Indigenous communities. It also explores how these paradigms can evolve to improve the social-environmental efficacy of PPAs by highlighting three areas of change where PPAs could perpetuate the cultivation of Indigenous sovereignty: (1) addressing cultural tensions and transforming current management systems; (2) creating Indigenous Knowledge spaces in PPArelated educational settings; and (3) building decolonial futures by returning lands to Indigenous communities. This paper presents reflective frameworks with guiding questions for PPA managers to embrace the #LANDBACK movement in partnership with Indigenous communities. These frameworks provide opportunities for park managers, educators, and PSF PARKS STEWARDSHIP FORUM Cultivating sovereignty in parks and protected areas: Sowing the seeds of restorative and transformative justice through the #LANDBACK movement PAPERS FROM THE 2021 GEORGE WRIGHT SOCIETY STUDENT SUMMIT SOCIOENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE researchers to center Indigenous epistemologies, ontologies, and community well-being. Additionally, this manuscript provides the scaffolding for PPA managers and Indigenous communities to implement restorative and transformative justice practices within current PPA systems. Implementing the proposed frameworks within PPAs could generate monumental social transformation.
Measures to limit the spread of COVID-19 require changes in the ways that people travel, gather, and recreate in outdoor spaces. In 2020, to limit human-to-human transmission of COVID-19, US park and protected area managers at all levels of governance implemented closures and restrictions on the types of activities and facilities available for public use. At the same time, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlined suggestions for social distancing, wearing face masks, and limiting travel and group sizes for social gatherings. This thought piece explores potential shifts in park accessibility and human behaviors that may lead to cascading impacts on visitor spatial use, terrestrial flora and fauna, and park management. We discuss potential changes in visitor spatial behavior and possible subsequent ecological impacts on terrestrial flora and fauna. Additionally, we connect these topics with management implications and emphasize adaptive management and continued monitoring to address current and future pandemic-related issues. We provide park managers, researchers, and other professionals with expected social and ecological implications resulting from managerial and behavioral shifts in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, we suggest management approaches to address and monitor these impacts. This information can help shape how park managers respond to the ongoing pandemic and future human health issues that impact park visitors and flora and fauna. Finally, we offer suggestions for where prospective researchers can direct their focus, especially in areas where recreation ecology and human disease management intersect.
U.S. Federal Land Management Areas (FLMAs) are grounded in settler colonialism, including Indigenous land dispossessions and violations of Tribal treaties. This critical thought-piece is written by Indigenous scholars to reimagine FLMAs (especially recreation areas) through decolonization and the Indigenous value systems embedded within the “four Rs”: relationship, responsibility, reciprocity, and redistribution. We reweave conceptions about parks and protected areas, reimagine park management, and reconfigure management foci to reflect Indigenous value systems shared by Indigenous peoples. We emphasize a need for Tribal comanagement of FLMAs, the inclusion of Tribal land management practices across ecosystems, and the restoration of Indigenous land use and management rights. Land and recreation managers can use this paper to 1) decolonize park management practices, 2) understand how Indigenous value systems can inform park management foci, and 3) build a decolonized and reciprocal relationship with Tribes and their ancestral landscapes.
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