“I know it when I see it”: Identifying ocean wilderness using a photo-based survey approach

Abstract

a b s t r a c t ''Wilderness'' is identified and defined, in large part, as places perceived by people as possessing characteristic qualities and attributes such as remoteness, providing opportunities for solitude, and where the influence of man is not readily apparent. It has been suggested that ''wilderness is what people think it is.'' To better understand how this idea of wilderness can be most appropriately applied to ocean and coastal waters, a photo-based online survey was conducted, targeting a sample of protected area resource managers and scientists. The survey results suggested that the respondents overwhelmingly and strongly perceived coastal waters, and particularly waters adjacent to designated coastal wilderness areas, as ''wilderness.'' Offshore areas were also perceived as possessing value as potential wilderness, but somewhat less often than places located near the coast.

Wilderness perceptions of visitors to the Muskwa-Kechika Management Area, British Columbia

“…Research about wilderness perceptions has been conducted using qualitative studies (McDonald et al, 2009), quantitative surveys (Barr & Kliskey, 2014;Shultis, 1999), surveys in combination with mapping (Carver, Evans, & Fritz, 2002;Flanagan & Anderson, 2008), photo-based surveys (Habron, 1998), and with a mixed methods approach (Bertolas, 1998;Glaspell et al, 2003). The following is a brief review of methods that have been used to measure or elicit perception among wilderness users.…”

“…Photo elicitation is a predominant technique in landscape perception research and has been used since the mid-seventies (Fairweather & Swaffield, 2001;Manning & Freimund, 2004). Broadly speaking, photo-based studies have been used both with accompanying (e.g., online) surveys using quantitative methods (Barr & Kliskey, 2014), and with in-depth qualitative interviews (Fyhri, Jacobsen, & Tømmervik, 2009). What Scott and Canter (1997) found in a qualitative study, where participants were asked to classify photos of a familiar area, was that if the participants were familiar with the area (had visited before), the classification was different than if they had not been there before.…”

“…Much of the research on wilderness users is focused on studying one activity group (e.g., hikers) vs another group (e.g., ATV). Methods used to study these differences have primarily been surveys (Barr & Kliskey, 2014;Palso & Graefe, 2008), but also on-site interviews (Fairweather & Swaffield, 2001;Glaspell et al, 2003).…”