Biodiversity Hotspots and Visitor Flows in Oulanka National Park, Finland

Lyon, Katie; Cottrell, Stuart; Siikamäki, Pirkko; Marwijk, R.B.M. van

doi:10.1080/15022250.2011.629909

Cited by 21 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…The importance of biodiversity for visitors to protected areas is further highlighted by our finding that the recreational routes overlap with biodiversity rich areas within NPs, as was also shown earlier by Lyon et al (2012) in one of the most popular Finnish NPs. Our study reveals that this phenomenon of an overlap between biodiversity and visitor pressure is not restricted to this one particular NP, but exists in several NPs, and in addition to species-level, it also extents to habitat-level diversity.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

Biodiversity attracts visitors to national parks

et al. 2015

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To cope with the funding constraints of biodiversity protection, nature-based tourism, which is regarded as an important ecosystem service, is considered as an option for creating revenues for biodiversity conservation. Here we show that Finnish national parks (NPs) with high biodiversity values are more attractive for visitors than parks with lower biodiversity values, providing evidence on the direct linkage between biodiversity protection and the provisioning of ecosystem services in protected areas. We found that the number of visits NPs received annually, i.e., their attractiveness, was positively associated with the number of Natura2000 habitat types and occurrences of species considered threatened in Finland according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List Categories and Criteria. Interestingly, recreational use also overlapped spatially with areas containing high biodiversity values: the number of occurrences of threatened species and Natura2000 habitat types were on average higher close to recreational routes than among randomly picked control areas within NPs. Our results emphasise the need for careful planning and park management in protecting biodiversity in NPs. However, these connections between biodiversity and recreational use of Communicated by

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

Biodiversity attracts visitors to national parks

et al. 2015

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“…The number of logged points were counted per cell (ten metre resolution) within a radius of 25 metres to compensate for reception inconsistencies (Section 4.2) and converted to the number of points per ha. The resulting map was considered to represent visitor density patterns and to enable visual connections to ecological variables (Lyon et al, 2011) and facilities.…”

Section: Data Analysis Methodologymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An increase in the number of people using an area could mean its ecological carrying capacity is exceeded (e.g. Hadwen et al, 2007;Lyon et al, 2011;Wimpey & Marion, 2011). An area's recreational quality could be negatively influenced by conflicts in recreational behaviour (Ligtenberg et al, 2008;Orellana, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, park managers not only need information on ecological and environmental values, but also require spatio-temporal data on visitor flows. Analysing tourist behaviour -such as places visited, time spent and facility use -can help managers adapt infrastructure and facilities to offer more diverse options to different visitor groups (Dye & Shaw, 2007;Holyoak & Carson, 2009;Wolf et al, 2012) or to route visitors to a range of park locations to avoid overcrowding and to achieve greater matching of visitor and interest (O'Connor et al, 2005;Lyon et al, 2011). Moreover, spatial visitor flow information could be used to define ecological zones and facilitate recreation routing to avoid ecological carrying capacity overload in natural areas (Freuler & Hunziker, 2007;Lyon et al, 2011;Orellana et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Analysing hiker movement patterns using GPS data: Implications for park management

Meijles

Bakker

Groote

et al. 2014

Computers, Environment and Urban Systems

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Analysing hiker movement patterns using GPS data: Implications for park management Meijles, E.; de Bakker, M.; Groote, P.; Barske, R. Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. AbstractIn natural areas, park management organisations need to cater for economic, environmental, recreation and social demands and values. However, multifunctional land use also creates conflicts. Increased numbers of people using an area could exceed its ecological carrying capacity. The recreational quality of areas could be negatively impacted by conflicts in recreational behaviour. Therefore, park managers require spatio-temporal data on visitor flows, but there appears to be a shortage of suitable visitor data. If there are data available, these often do not deliver the information required by managers and there is little guidance on appropriate monitoring variables. This paper therefore combines user movement analysis with environmental and ecological factors for natural resource management. Through a case study we describe the entire working process from field data acquisition to usable park management information. GPS and itinerary data from 138 visitors to the Drents-Friese Wold National Park (the Netherlands) were collected to estimate visitor densities and distribution patterns within the park. Data acquisition is efficient in the working process, but careful error handling is a time consuming but necessary part of it. We introduce the definition of 'hard' and 'soft' errors to make spatial analysis more flexible. We show that walking speed, trip time and spatial distributions varied between park visitor groups. Classification and Regression Tree (CART) analysis showed that factors such as the presence of marked trails, distance to facilities but not land use (such as forest or arable land) explained visitor distributions. Patterns differ between respondent groups based on group size and composition, which is also true for itinerary variables such as walking speed and trip time. The combination of high resolution location data with itinerary information from respondents provides a good impression of the different walking preferences of different respondent groups. We conclude therefore that combining GPS data with itinerary information is a useful tool in profiling different natural park visitors. This is useful information for park managers in steering tourists and in catering for different visitor demands in natural parks.

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“…From the teleological viewpoint of tourism development, the main purpose of establishing national parks is to maintain a balanced relationship between the needs of visitors and the conservation of ecological environments (Lyon, Cottrell, Siikm€ aki, & Marwijk, 2011;McCarthy, Llord, & Illsley, 2002;Sharpley & Pearce, 2007;Smith & Newsome, 2002) or between the capacity constraints of the ecological environment and the sustainable demands of tourism development (Schwartz, Stewart, & Backlund, 2012). However, many studies have indicated that tourism activities and the establishment of recreational facilities for visitors within national parks have more or less induced environmental damage (Arrowsmith & Inbakaran, 2002), diminished the value of the environment (Buultjens, Ratnayake, Gnanapala, & Aslam, 2005), and had other negative eco-systematic impacts (Lyon et al, 2011;Smith & Newsome, 2002).…”

Section: Conclusion and Suggestionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Examining eco-environmental changes at major recreational sites in Kenting National Park in Taiwan by integrating SPOT satellite images and NDVI

Chen

2016

Tourism Management

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Biodiversity Hotspots and Visitor Flows in Oulanka National Park, Finland

Cited by 21 publications

References 28 publications

Biodiversity attracts visitors to national parks

Biodiversity attracts visitors to national parks

Analysing hiker movement patterns using GPS data: Implications for park management

Examining eco-environmental changes at major recreational sites in Kenting National Park in Taiwan by integrating SPOT satellite images and NDVI

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