Personal Wilderness Relationships: Building on a Transactional Approach

Abstract

Wilderness managers are charged with the challenging goal of balancing resource protection and experience quality across a broad, value-laden landscape. While research has provided insight into visitors' motivations and their meanings for wilderness, a struggle exists to implement experiential concepts within current management frameworks. This research posits the human experience of wilderness to be an evolving, enduring relationship, and that research needs can be addressed by conceptualizing and investigating an individuals' personal wilderness relationship. The purpose of this study was to explore wilderness relationships of visitors to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. A predictive model was proposed to investigate the internal dimensions of a visitor's wilderness relationship. A mail-back questionnaire was distributed during the summer of 2007, resulting in a sample of 564 respondents. Data were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Results from testing several relationship models provided support for a multidimensional structure consisting of five factors with a single overarching relationship factor. The preferred relationship model indicated the importance of identities and attachment in place relationships. Trust and commitment toward management were also important considerations. This research provided the preliminary evidence for a multidimensional wilderness relationship model and complements a perspective of wilderness experiences as wilderness. Findings may help to reframe decision-making and public-input processes that guide management actions to increased wilderness character protection and facilitate quality wilderness experiences.

Relationship‐scale conservation

“…People's lives are centered in places, and we continually create meanings about the places in which we live and spend time (Brooks and Williams , Dvorak and Brooks , Dvorak et al ). Social scientists consider the concepts of place and place meanings to be highly relevant to conservation research, planning, and management (Cantrill and Senecah , Farnum and Kruger , Cheng and Mattor , Williams et al ).…”

“…Protected areas are places that have unique functions, attributes, and other resources; but protected places such as national parks and wildlife sanctuaries are much more than the sum of those unique parts. Protected places are “symbolic environments created by humans” because they confer meaning to nature and the land (Dvorak and Brooks :9, Dvorak et al ). In the context of conservation, place meanings form the foundation of public stewardship and the relationships that develop between stakeholders and protected areas.…”

“…In the context of conservation, place meanings form the foundation of public stewardship and the relationships that develop between stakeholders and protected areas. Through actively interacting and engaging with protected areas and managers over time, stakeholders create place meanings and develop, nurture, and maintain relationships with those places and managers (Manzo , Brooks et al , Smaldone et al , Dvorak et al ). An understanding of long‐term committed relationships between stakeholders and protected areas is essential for implementing effective conservation (Brooks and Williams , Dvorak and Brooks ).…”

“…Likewise, how stakeholders and managers behave within a place relationship can substantially affect their experiences in that relationship and their future behaviors toward one another and the place (Hinde ). Place relationships are not independent from social, cultural, or temporal factors; relationships are embedded in a larger network of meaning consisting of shifting individuals and groups (Laursen and Bukowski , Fournier , Manzo , Brooks and Williams , Dvorak et al ). As place relationships develop, stakeholders, managers, and protected areas become dynamically linked in a continuous process of interaction, sharing, and reciprocity (Hinde ).…”

“…In relationship‐scale conservation, managers recognize and use interactions and exchanges between stakeholders and protected‐area planners and managers to build trust and commitment. Trust exists when one party has confidence in the reliability and integrity of its partner in the relationship (Moorman et al , Morgan and Hunt , Dvorak et al ). Commitment reflects the strength of the bond between partners in a relationship and indicates relationship durability over time and the investment that each partner has made in the other (Dvorak and Brooks , Dvorak et al ).…”