Brent Lovelock

Why it’s good to be bad: the role of conflict in contributing towards sustainable tourism in protected areas

This paper examines the historic and contemporary role of one Canadian environmental non-governmental organisation (ENGO) in the operationalisation of sustainable tourism. In particular, the extent to which the ENGO has contributed to coordinated, cooperative policy development and implementation within this policy domain is examined. While coordinated policy making is widely accepted as a basis for environmentally sustainable tourism development, organisations may contribute more towards this goal by choosing not to be included, or by being excluded from, this framework of coordination. This paper uses an interorganisational relations perspective to explore the position, influence and relationships of one ENGO active within Canadas national park tourism policy domain. Implications are drawn for the implementation of sustainable tourism within protected areas.

Longitudinal Analysis of the Environmental Attitudes of University Students.

This article addresses the important questions that higher education institutions ask concerning their impact on their students’ sustainability-related attributes ‘How do our students’ worldviews change as they experience higher education with us?’ The process of monitoring such a dynamic entity is fraught with statistical complexity but may not be impossible for an institution willing to ask whether or not its educational efforts in ‘education for sustainability’, ‘education for sustainable development’ or ‘environmental education’, and campus sustainability developments, are paralleled by changes in the attitudes of its students. We describe here a longitudinal survey process based on the revised New Ecological Paradigm scale, with two cohorts of students, in three programmes of study, operating over four years, with multiple survey inputs by each student. We implemented the longitudinal analysis using a linear mixed-effects model and describe here the development and testing of this model. We conclude that higher education institutions can benchmark the sustainability attributes of their students and monitor changes, if they are minded to. We invite higher education practitioners worldwide to join us in further developing suitable research instruments, processes and statistical models, and in further analysing the assumptions that link higher education to sustainability and to global citizenship.

Impediments to a Cross-Border Collaborative Model of Destination Management in the Catlins, New Zealand

ABSTRACT This paper examines the obstacles and opportunities for cross-border (north–south) collaboration in the development of tourism in the Catlins – a peripheral destination in New Zealand. A macro–meso–micro framework is proposed for considering collaboration. At the macro-level central government policies of retreat and devolution are important in the Catlins, and have influenced the way that government agencies have engaged with the tourism-specific demands of a growing destination. At this level, both policy and associated resourcing are issues. At the meso-level, regional and local government, largely through resourcing and legislative impediments, are reluctant to commit to a fully collaborative cross-border planning and management model. While, at the micro-level, historical perceptions over what constitutes ‘the Catlins’, which attractions ‘belong’ to which community, and of who should be involved, also act as obstacles to be overcome. The extent to which the northern and southern authorities and communities feel that they have ‘ownership’ of the Catlins (in terms of individual attractions and as a destination) has posed challenges: to the way that the destination is marketed, to how the attractions are managed, to the level and direction of tourism investment by government, and to the way that tourisms impacts are either addressed or ignored.

Multinomial-Regression Modeling of the Environmental Attitudes of Higher Education Students Based on the Revised New Ecological Paradigm Scale.

Higher education is increasingly interested in its impact on the sustainability attributes of its students, so we wanted to explore how our students’ environmental concern changed during their higher education experiences. We used the Revised New Ecological Paradigm Scale (NEP) with 505 students and developed and tested a multinomial regression model to help us to understand what can be measured and how to interpret changes. Our results demonstrate that even small differences, not apparent when only mean NEP scores are reported for cohorts of students, can be modeled to reveal statistically significant trends. We advise further exploration of this instrument and its applicability to higher educations quest for sustainability-credibility.

Is the environmental literacy of university students measurable

We report the development and piloting of an evaluative instrument and process for monitoring the environmental literacy (EL) of undergraduate students in one large research-led university in New Zealand. The instrument addresses knowledge, affect and competencies in the general area of EL in line with this institution’s adoption of EL as a graduate attribute (or in a US context, a general-education learning outcome, and something to be fostered throughout a student’s education). The instrument and associated processes were designed to fit within conventional institutional mechanisms that manage student feedback on the quality of teaching. The instrument was tested with more than 600 students from more than eight programmes over the course of a year and its use stressed that students were anonymous within the survey. We conclude that evaluating (or in a US context, assessing) the extent to which students acquire EL is an achievable objective and is a reasonable expectation for any higher education institution that claims to foster this attribute.

Seeking Learning Outcomes Appropriate for "Education for Sustainable Development" and for Higher Education.

This article shares and extends research-based developments at the University of Otago, New Zealand, that seek to explore how students’ worldviews change as they experience higher education with us. We emphasise that sustainability attributes may be described in terms of knowledge, skills and competencies but that these are underpinned by affective attributes such as values, attitudes and dispositions; so that ‘education for sustainable development’ is substantially a quest for affective change. We describe approaches to categorise affective outcomes and conclude that ‘education for sustainable development’ objectives comprise higher order affective outcomes (leading to behavioural change) that are challenging for higher education to address. Our own work emphasises the need for student anonymity as these higher order outcomes are assessed, evaluated, monitored, researched or otherwise measured using research instruments that focus on worldview. A longitudinal mixed-effects repeat-measures statistical model is described that enables higher education institutions to answer the question of whether or not ‘education for sustainable development’ objectives are being achieved. Discussion links affect to critical reasoning and addresses the possibility of documenting and assessing the development of lower and mid-order affective outcomes. We conclude that ‘education for sustainable development’ objectives need to be clearly articulated if higher education is to be able to assess, or evaluate, their achievement.

Tourist-created attractions: the emergence of a unique form of tourist attraction in southern New Zealand.

While there is considerable diversity in the way that tourist attractions are categorized and described, little or no attention has been paid to attractions that tourists physically create themselves. This paper examines three roadside examples of tourist-created attractions in southern New Zealand: a shoe fence, a bra fence and rock art. The possible motives of tourists in creating these attractions are explored. It is proposed that such attractions support the concept of creative tourism, providing tourists with a unique experience and a greater degree of agency or control within a tourism system that is largely defined in terms of capitalist modes of production and consumption.

Could Immigrants Care Less about the Environment? A Comparison of the Environmental Values of Immigrant and Native-Born New Zealanders

The potential negative environmental impact of immigration has been raised in a number of receiving countries. In New Zealand there has been a debate questioning whether or not immigrants share the same environmental values as native-born residents. This article reports on a study of the environmental values of immigrants and native-born residents of New Zealand (n = 427). The research employed a survey instrument known as the New Environmental Paradigm to examine the environmental worldviews of the subjects. The informing literature for the study is drawn from postmaterialist and social exclusion theory, and the study also considers the role of acculturation in modifying environmental attitudes. The main finding of the study is that there was no significant difference in the environmental worldviews of immigrants and native-born New Zealanders. Both groups held mildly ecocentric views. The level of immigrants’ acculturation was found to be unrelated to their environmental attitudes.

Immigrants’ experiences of nature-based recreation in New Zealand

This study addresses recreational behaviours of immigrants and ethnic minorities, with a focus on nature-based recreation in national and regional parks. The study comprised a survey questionnaire that compared immigrants with New Zealand-born citizens. The study was motivated in part by research undertaken internationally that demonstrates different recreational behaviours for ethnic minorities and for those of recent migrant status. This paper reports on five aspects: frequency of use; nature of the recreation party; constraints to participation; important features of natural areas; and benefits of visiting natural areas. The data revealed statistically significant differences based on migrant status and ethnicity for a range of recreation-related variables. The migrant and ethnic minority cohort in this study had lower incomes than New Zealand-born respondents. This may suggest that marginality and ethnicity need to be considered together as explanatory variables for recreational behaviour.

Parks and families: addressing management facilitators and constraints to outdoor recreation participation

Families face real challenges when engaging in active forms of leisure. Apart from issues of time and money, other barriers often prevent families from engaging in leisure activities outside the home. One particular form of active leisure that has been shown to provide benefits for family life is outdoor recreation. However, outdoor recreation activities may pose further challenges for family engagement as they often require specific skills and knowledge for safe participation. The purpose of this paper is to examine how management of outdoor recreation spaces, such as national parks or regional parks, contributes to general family outdoor recreation participation. This research presents findings from interviews with 22 families and 10 outdoor park managers from the New Zealand cities of Wellington and Dunedin. The findings indicate that family-oriented marketing practices and information strategies could improve participation when lack of finances, time and energy prevent family recreation activities.