Changing Conceptions of Protected Areas and Conservation: Linking Conservation, Ecological Integrity and Tourism Management

• Published in: Journal of sustainable tourism Vol. 14; no. 3; pp. 223 - 237
• Main Authors: Shultis, John D., Way, Paul A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Clevedon Taylor & Francis Group 15.05.2006; Multilingual Matters Ltd
• Subjects: Conservation; ecological integrity; ecosystem management; Ecosystems; Environmental protection; National parks; postnormal science; protected areas; Studies; Tourism; tourism management; Europe
• ISSN: 0966-9582; 1747-7646
• DOI: 10.1080/09669580608669056

From their first creation, national parks and equivalent reserves were socially constructed in the New World as static, primordial, untouched representations of a pre-European contact environment characterised by the 'balance of nature' resting in a steady (climax) state. While these images still linger in the minds of the public, the recent utilisation of landscape ecology, conservation biology and social constructivism to study and re-conceptualise protected areas has demonstrated that parks are not the protected islands of virgin wilderness they were constructed to represent; rather than protecting these areas from disturbance, we now recognise that disturbance is a major component in ecological integrity. We suggest that the resultant shift from species- to process-based conservation (i.e. ecological integrity), from attempting to cocoon parks from outside influences to re-engaging parks with landscape-level processes, has critical ramifications for protected area and sustainable tourism management. Land managers need to adapt to a new paradigm that reflects and supports this philosophical change in conservation principles; this shift is also reflected in science itself, manifested by a move from normal to 'post-normal' science which embraces these new principles. This approach should link visitor expectations with dynamic, non-linear, self-organising natural processes in order to meet conservation objectives.