Abstracts for Session 17

Options and Needs for Wilderness Tourism

 

 

Title: Seeking Confort in Boglands

Authors: Jana Raadik Cottrell and Kaire Toomingas

Affiliation: Centre for Blue Economy, Tallinn University of Technology

 

Bogs are part of Estonian cultural history.  Although bogs offered refuge during wars and pandemics in the ancient past, boglands were also considered wastelands, homes of mystical creatures, dangerous and threatening, lonely places deprived of natural beauty, as portrayed in Estonian folktales and classical literature. During the 19th and 20th century people fought against bogs, slowly, but strenuously dredging, to transform into something economically useful. The past 50 years exhibited another wave of “bog war”; this time for protection, to reestablish the ecological and cultural value of bogs. Recent years and especially Covid-19 pandemic have brought Estonians back to bogs in increased numbers, seeking physical and mental comfort in solitude. Trips to boglands are fashionable and often the experience of solitude is more imaginary than real. How can we protect our desire to experience the silence and solitude found in boglands? Are bogs threatened through this newly found love? Interviews with scientists, nature lovers and tour operators reveal conflicting opinions and ideas how to move forward. Are re-purposed residual boglands a solution for a fleeting love affair in fame to protect a true wilderness?

 

 

Title: Post-pandemic nature tourism in wilderness areas and new tools for visitor monitoring

Authors: Elina Hutton and Seija Tuulentie

Affiliation: University of Lapland, Luonnonvarakeskus

 

Northern Finnish Käsivarsi wilderness area is an important recreation destination for visitors and locals. Visitor numbers in the area grew at the start of the pandemic in summer 2020. Overnights in the village as well as in the reservation huts in the wilderness area broke previous records and the trend seems similar for summer 2021.  

We have studied the usability of public social media data, web-shared GIS and online PPGIS surveys for visitor monitoring in remote protected recreational areas. The study was made as a part of Interreg Nord funded Halti project consisting of popular recreational sites of Käsivarsi Wilderness Area, Malla Strict Nature reserve and Kilpisjärvi village in Finland and Reisa National Park and Kåfjorddalen in Norway.  

In 2019-2020, we conducted visitor survey, social media, and web-share GIS data collection and PPGIS survey in the region. The results confirm what similar studies have previously indicated. We concluded that the new tools can provide researchers and land management with additional information which traditional surveys lack.  

Rapid changes, such as the sudden and unpredicted increase of wilderness tourism during summer 2020 can be monitored with counters. In addition, we suggest, that social media data and online PPGIS could offer up-to-date and relatively inexpensive monitoring solutions for protected recreational land management.  

 

Keywords: outdoor recreation, public participation geographic information system, protected areas, social media, visitor management, visitor monitoring, visitor survey 

 

 

Title: Framing tourism in Antarctica: An analysis of the growth of Antarctic tourism and the debate regarding its regulation

Authors: Michael Cacciapaglia, Machiel Lamers, and Bas Amelung

Affiliation: Wageningen University & Research

 

Antarctica has become an increasingly popular tourism destination in recent decades. Pre-pandemic exponential growth in visitor numbers is likely to resume relatively soon. Tourists are drawn to experience Antarctica’s intrinsic values, such as wildlife and wilderness. However, the presence of visitors in such numbers may threaten those same values. Over the years some Antarctic decision-makers from have raised concerns about tourism and its impacts. However, consensus has not emerged on the framing of tourism and its growth as problematic for the Antarctic at either the level of formal governance or across the range of stakeholders. Nor has consensus on the need to place limits on tourism volumes ever been articulated by these same actors. Perhaps as a consequence, binding regulatory solutions for managing tourism have yet to materialize in Antarctic governance. This paper presents a comprehensive review of these challenges. First, it traces how Antarctic tourism has grown and diversified up to the present. Then, it tracks how the discourse regarding tourism in Antarctica has developed over time, particularly since the establishment of the 1992 Environmental Protocol. Historical and ongoing debates over restricting the growth of Antarctic tourism are assessed, as are the policy options previously put forth to do so. Finally, the opportunities created by such challenges are discussed along with the relevancy of this analysis for the introduction of novel policy measures.

 

 

Title: Nationwide Wilderness Mapping in Iceland: Implications for Tourism

Authors: David Ostman, Ole Neumann, and Þorvarður Árnason

Affiliation: Hornafjörður Research Center, University of Iceland

 

This paper outlines a working methodology of wilderness mapping in Iceland based on certain impacts from manmade structures, originally conducted for the Central Highland and then most recently applied to the rest of the country. The mapping model involves six impact criteria and a scoring system that is designed to function as a flexible framework for evaluating current and future anthropogenic influences. Previous tourism research in Iceland has shown that different types of manmade structures yield different impacts on perceived wilderness, and our mapping approach aims to embrace this ethos. It has also been well-documented that the predominant motivation for tourists visiting Iceland has been the country’s diverse, natural landscapes that are free from intrusive anthropogenic features. Therefore it is crucial to identify these proto-wilderness areas, not only out of respect for the intrinsic value of allowing natural processes to evolve independently, but to encourage more specialized and amicable forms of nature-based tourism in Iceland that minimize potential conflicts with wilderness conservation efforts. It will also be important to consider other nuanced mapping approaches such as continuum or hybrid methods in future mapping iterations as part of an ongoing deliberation to better understand the wilderness concept in the Icelandic context and how it can be most responsibly applied to support sustainable tourism. 

 

 

Title: Arctic wilderness tools compared: The regulation and management of tourism in three Arctic case studies

Author: Antje Neumann

Affiliation: University of Akureyri

 

Wilderness protection in the Arctic is predominantly subject to domestic regulation and management of the individual Arctic states. Thus, legal provisions and management tools may differ from country to country. Tourism regulations, on the other hand, may not only vary from state to state but also from region to region, depending on tourism pattern, geographic settings, socio-cultural conditions and other factors. Despite these differences, and based on a primary legally defined research approach, certain comparable ‘stressors’ with potentially significant impacts on wilderness can be identified. They encompass parameters, such as the number of tourists, sites of visitation, diversity of tourism activities and the establishment of permanent and/or semi-permanent tourism related infrastructure. The comparison of wilderness protection regulation and management tools in three Arctic case studies –the Hammastunturi Wilderness Reserve (Finland), the Archipelago of Svalbard (Norway) and the Denali National Park and Preserve (Alaska, United States) -in relation to these ‘stressors’ comes up with numerous general and specific measures. These tools might be similarly inspirational for the protection of wilderness values in newly established or planned tourism destinations in the Arctic as well as in areas, where tourism will resume after the Covid-19 pandemic. They may also stimulate, at least this is the hope of the author, a reconsideration of tourism strategies and policies towards the recognition of wilderness values.