Treesearch

Sustainability science “transcends the concerns of its foundational disciplines and focuses instead on understanding the complex dynamics that arise from interactions between human and environmental systems” (Clark 2007: 1737). This is reflected by McCool and Kline (2019), who stated that “…a systems thinking approach views problems within a context of interacting social and ecological systems…,” and that implementing systems thinking requires that we “explicitly recognize connections and relationships between people and their natural heritage.” Thus, systems thinking requires integrating...

This chapter synthesizes the organizational change literature germane to adaptive change in public-sector organizations. Specifically, we analyze the organizational changes needed to integrate sustainability into government-sponsored science, analytic planning tools, and management best practices. Next, a common set of organizational change factors are posited that contribute to successful change in public-sector organizations. These organizational change factors are elaborated by examining two descriptive organizational change cases from the natural resource governance field—first, the...

Anthropologist Clifford Geertz described language as a cultural practice that provides a “template or blueprint for the organization of social and psychological processes” (1973: 216). Language matters because the way we speak becomes the blueprint for how we construct and manage our world. It holds power in framing issues, forming knowledge, and normalizing certain ways of interacting with the environment. The ways that we talk about recreation, including the very term “recreation,” reproduce assumptions about people and places while influencing management actions and outcomes. This...

This chapter explores the historical use and application of the term “outdoor recreation” as an organizing theme for sustainable public land management planning. We suggest that agencies need a more encompassing concept and approach to management involving people—one that recognizes the variety of connections that people have with natural and cultural landscapes, whether for leisure, lifestyle, livelihood, or health. This perspective suggests the need to move from a “recreation as leisure” focus to more of a “recreation as human connections” approach to public land management that better...

Recent scientific studies from around the world identify a broad array of human health benefits associated with experiences of nearby nature. This chapter explores how the current surge in health response science can inform recreation facilities planning and programming on both rural and urban public lands, at local to regional scales. We also introduce a number of evidence-based active living and nature-for-health initiatives—both conceptually and literally—that have emerged in communities across the country and that can be implemented across the entire landscape gradient. This collection...

This chapter investigates the effects and potential of evolving technology, especially digital connectivity, on outdoor recreation managers, participants, and nonparticipants. My goal is to conceptualize and demonstrate the role of such technology in the context of larger cultural developments such as changes in values and in modes of experiencing the out of doors, the ways that these experiences are shared, and the management challenges they may bring to public agencies. Additionally, I will identify management and research strategies to leverage new and emerging technology to improve...

Public lands and protected areas play an integral role in regional economic development—a connection often overlooked in the United States. This chapter makes the case for devoting greater attention to the role of public lands as a generator of regional tourist activity, and points to the opportunity for public land managers to collaborate with tourism industry providers, tourism promoters, and regional planning entities to ensure sustainable tourism growth. Public lands visitation provides benefits to gateway communities in the form of jobs, expenditures, and new business development,...

This chapter identifies global dimensions and international perspectives that may help shape a research agenda for the future of sustainable recreation and tourism on public lands and in protected areas.

Societies flourish when their natural heritage thrives. Benefits derived from their natural heritage include resources that can be extracted for sustenance and shelter such as wildlife, vegetation, and minerals, as well as psychological benefits such as the satisfaction acquired from the uplifting of the human spirit, a sense of fulfillment, and a sense of identity. When connections to our natural heritage are severed, we may lose those benefits. Public lands serve as a “commons” for our culture, and as protected lands represent a major means of ensuring those connections to American...

Outdoor recreation management on public lands is at a crossroads both at home and abroad. The number of visitors is increasing in the United States, and visitor expenditures are creating economic benefits exceeding those of any other resource production contributions for the national economy and for many rural communities near public lands (Rosenberger 2018, Rosenberger et al. 2017, White et al. 2016). Open space and recreation access provided by federal lands are key population and development drivers in rural communities (Headwaters Economics 2019, White et al. 2016). A deepening...