Protected natural areas, from national parks to local open space preserves, are the primary strategy for conservation of the world's biological diversity. Outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism also provide important health and economic benefits to human communities. As a result, access to protected lands should be expanded and made available to a greater diversity of visitors, thus inspiring a broader conservation ethic among the general public. This argument rests on the simple assumption that visiting a protected natural area will lead to pro-conservation behaviors, or people engaging in specific actions that will lead to successful conservation of ecologically important lands and species. In addition, the assumed relationship between protected-area visitation and pro-conservation behavior neglects the often negative effects of visitor activities on species and ecosystems. This project tested the assumption that visiting a protected area leads to pro-conservation behaviors, documented disturbances to species communities from visitor activities, and evaluated whether participation in different activities shifted visitors' intention to engage in pro-conservation behavior or support for management actions that benefit wildlife.

The researchers intercepted more than 3000 hikers at 33 trailheads in the Adirondack State Park in northern New York. They opportunistically used the global pandemic to analyze the differences between those who were hiking there because of Covid (Covid hikers) and those who would normally hike there (non-Covid hikers), to better understand the differences between visitors unfamiliar with an area and those who are more familiar. All hikers were randomly assigned to a control, education, or citizen science group and then given a pre-hike survey. Two to four weeks after the hike, each pre-hike respondent received a link to a post-hike survey. Simultaneously the social surveys were paired with use of acoustic monitors to detect birds, remote cameras to detect mammals, and measurement of habitat characteristics associated with each trail. The social surveys asked about knowledge, place attachment, intention to engage in pro-conservation behaviors, support for management actions that benefit wildlife, and perceptions of the quality of habitats for wildlife accessed from the trailheads.

Researchers and land managers have suggested that declining visitation to protected areas contributes to waning public support for conservation; in other words, people will not care about protected areas, or the wildlife that depend on them if they do not visit them.  This research found that knowledge and place attachment moderated the relationship between visitation and support for conservation and that overall, there was less support for conservation among hikers new to an area.  Covid hikers had less knowledge of the area, less place attachment to the area, and were less likely to indicate intention to engage in pro-conservation behaviors or support for management actions that would benefit wildlife compared with non-Covid hikers. Their intentions to engage in pro-conservation behaviors did not increase after the hike or as a result of participation in either the education or citizen science group. By contrast, non-Covid hikers had higher levels of knowledge and placement attachment, were more likely to indicate intentions to engage in pro-conservation behaviors and support management actions that benefit wildlife. They were also more likely to increase their intention to engage in a pro-conservation behavior after the hike. For both Covid and non-Covid hikers, support for management actions that benefit wildlife decreased after the hike. Additionally, Covid hikers were unable to accurately assess the relative ecological value of the habitat for wildlife.  Non-Covid hikers were able to more accurately assess the ecological 'quality' of the habitat for wildlife when comparing perceptions of quality with actual ecological data collected and summarized in terms of breeding bird community integrity.

This research identified negative impacts of increasing recreational use intensity on both bird and mammal communities, specifically documenting that human-adapted, herbivore, omnivore, and small-bodied mammals were most consistently and negatively impacted by increasing recreational use. Among birds, sensitive species, cavity nesters, ground nesters, and foliage gleaners showed strongest negative associations with increasing trail use, while human-adapted and aerial insectivore guilds were positively associated with increasing trail use. Combined indices of breeding bird ecological integrity also exhibited sensitivity to recreational use intensity, with lowest values associated with the most highly used trails. These patterns, in combination with the findings that knowledge and place attachment are important to public support for recreation management actions that consider the needs of wildlife, suggest that public education remains among the most important tools in the context of protected area management.

The results of this project will inform policies to expand public access to protected lands and increase participation in outdoor recreation and help land managers shape people's experiences in protected areas to advance biodiversity conservation.

Last Modified: 12/29/2022
Modified by: Heidi Kretser