Christopher J. Lemieux

Changing Climate, Challenging Choices: Identifying and Evaluating Climate Change Adaptation Options for Protected Areas Management in Ontario, Canada

Climate change will pose increasingly significant challenges to managers of parks and other forms of protected areas around the world. Over the past two decades, numerous scientific publications have identified potential adaptations, but their suitability from legal, policy, financial, internal capacity, and other management perspectives has not been evaluated for any protected area agency or organization. In this study, a panel of protected area experts applied a Policy Delphi methodology to identify and evaluate climate change adaptation options across the primary management areas of a protected area agency in Canada. The panel identified and evaluated one hundred and sixty five (165) adaptation options for their perceived desirability and feasibility. While the results revealed a high level of agreement with respect to the desirability of adaptation options and a moderate level of capacity pertaining to policy formulation and management direction, a perception of low capacity for implementation in most other program areas was identified. A separate panel of senior park agency decision-makers used a multiple criterion decision-facilitation matrix to further evaluate the institutional feasibility of the 56 most desirable adaptation options identified by the initial expert panel and to prioritize them for consideration in a climate change action plan. Critically, only two of the 56 adaptation options evaluated by senior decision-makers were deemed definitely implementable, due largely to fiscal and internal capacity limitations. These challenges are common to protected area agencies in developed countries and pervade those in developing countries, revealing that limited adaptive capacity represents a substantive barrier to biodiversity conservation and other protected area management objectives in an era of rapid climate change.

Ethical considerations of last chance tourism

Global environmental change is altering natural and built systems in many regions of the world and such changes play a significant role in an emerging travel trend that has been labelled ‘last chance tourism’ (LCT). In LCT, tourism demand is based on the desire to see these vulnerable places and features before they disappear or are essentially and irrevocably changed. The paradox in this new form of travel lies in the fact that the tourists often travel long distances and, thus, are disproportionately responsible per capita for increased greenhouse gas emissions and various other stressors that have the potential to alter further the very attractions being visited. The emergence of LCT requires careful ethical consideration and adds a new twist to the debate about ‘loving a destination to death’. In this case, the relationship is indirect and intangible, and is complicated by spatial and temporal lags, as well as the complex system of biophysical interactions at the heart of climate change. LCT presents a situation that is considerably more difficult to manage and mitigate than those where tourism involves only direct and local impacts. Through a praxis/reflective approach, we discuss this complexity and the various ethical issues associated with marketing and managing LCT. In order to provide context and clarification of the LCT concept, we use one of the most evocative symbols of climate change, the polar bears of Churchill, Manitoba, Canada, as a source of empirical evidence and a foundation for exploring ethical considerations.

Natural resource manager perceptions of agency performance on climate change.

An important precursor to the adoption of climate change adaptation strategies is to understand the perceived capacity to implement and operationalize such strategies. Utilizing an importance-performance analysis (IPA) evaluation framework, this article presents a comparative case study of federal and state land and natural resource manager perceptions of agency performance on factors influencing adaptive capacity in two U.S. regions (northern Colorado and southwestern South Dakota). Results revealed several important findings with substantial management implications. First, none of the managers ranked the adaptive capacity factors as a low priority. Second, managers held the perception that their agencies were performing either neutrally or poorly on most factors influencing adaptive capacity. Third, gap analysis revealed that significant improvements are required to facilitate optimal agency functioning when dealing with climate change-related management issues. Overall, results suggest that a host of institutional and policy-oriented (e.g., lack of clear mandate to adapt to climate change), financial and human resource (e.g., inadequate staff and financial resources), informational (e.g., inadequate research and monitoring programs) and contextual barriers (e.g., sufficient regional networks to mitigate potential transboundary impacts) currently challenge the efficient and effective integration of climate change into decision-making and management within agencies working in these regions. The IPA framework proved to be an effective tool to help managers identify and understand agency strengths, areas of concern, redundancies, and areas that warrant the use of limited funds and/or resource re-allocation in order to enhance adaptive capacity and maximize management effectiveness with respect to climate change.

Identifying and evaluating adaptation strategies for cruise tourism in Arctic Canada

ABSTRACT The cruise tourism industry in Arctic Canada has recently grown rapidly with stable numbers now emerging. While there are many socio-economic opportunities associated with growth, climate change, and environmental, technical and cultural risks also present significant management challenges. To enhance understanding of these opportunities and risks, this study adopted a policy Delphi approach to identify and evaluate potential adaptation strategies to aid decision-makers and policy-makers managing cruise tourism development and its associated impacts. Over 500 ideas were identified. These were distilled down to 65 potential adaptation options, which were evaluated for priority and feasibility by key stakeholders including local residents, tourism operators, and policy-makers. The majority of recommendations were evaluated as of high priority and most options were perceived to be somewhat affordable and implementable. Key needs included disaster management plans, updated technology and ship navigation systems, improved marine resource mapping, and the development of a code of conduct for cruise tourists to guide visitor behaviour and promote a sustainable approach. The research represents the first empirical study to identify and evaluate adaptation strategies for cruise tourism development in Arctic Canada and outlines current priorities, opportunities, and challenges associated with managing socio-economic change in Arctic Canada in sustainable ways.

Climate change collaboration among natural resource management agencies: lessons learned from two US regions

It has been argued that regional collaboration can facilitate adaptation to climate change impacts through integrated planning and management. In an attempt to understand the underlying institutional factors that either support or contest this assumption, this paper explores the institutional factors influencing adaptation to climate change at the regional scale, where multiple public land and natural resource management jurisdictions are involved. Insights from two mid-western US case studies reveal that several challenges to collaboration persist and prevent fully integrative multi-jurisdictional adaptation planning at a regional scale. We propose that some of these challenges, such as lack of adequate time, funding and communication channels, be reframed as opportunities to build interdependence, identify issue-linkages and collaboratively explore the nature and extent of organisational trade-offs with respect to regional climate change adaptation efforts. Such a reframing can better facilitate multi-jurisdictional adaptation planning and management of shared biophysical resources generally while simultaneously enhancing organisational capacity to mitigate negative effects and take advantage of potentially favourable future conditions in an era characterised by rapid climate change.

A Role for Nature-Based Citizen Science in Promoting Individual and Collective Climate Change Action? A Systematic Review of Learning Outcomes:

As a model of communication and engagement, citizen science has the potential to promote individual and collective climate change action. This article systematically reviewed literature that jointly addressed climate change and nature-based citizen science and identified 23 reported learning outcomes. Overall, evidence related to learning outcomes was limited across reviewed studies, but documentation of outcomes that are directly relevant to collective climate action was particularly scarce. Findings suggest more research examining citizen science from a collective climate action perspective is needed. To support future research efforts, results link the 23 revealed learning outcomes to two potential evaluation frameworks.

Understanding consumer behaviour and adaptation planning responses to climate-driven environmental change in Canada's parks and protected areas: a climate futurescapes approach

Parks and protected areas are a global ecological, social and health resource visited by over 8 billion people annually. Their use can yield substantial benefits, but only if a balance between ecological integrity and sustainable visitation is struck. This research explores the potential influence of climate-driven environmental change on visitation to North Americas most popular glacier, the Athabasca Glacier in Jasper National Park, Canada. Photorealistic environmental visualizations were used to gauge visitors’ perceptions of environmental change and potential impacts on consumer behaviour. Results suggest that impacts could substantially diminish the sites pull as a tourism destination. Rather than improving visitation prospects, expert-proposed adaptations underestimated the importance of perceived naturalness and contributed to further potential decline. Findings are relevant to protected areas planning and management. They suggest that a natural path to climate change adaptation is the best way to support both ecological integrity and the long-term tourism pull of protected areas.

Policy and management recommendations informed by the health benefits of visitor experiences in Alberta's protected areas.

Executive Summary: Leisure in parks and other forms of protected areas are connected to an individual’s health and well-being. In this paper, we report on the results of a multi-year study that surveyed 1,515 visitors to three Provincial Parks and three Kananaskis Country Provincial Recreation Areas in Alberta, Canada. Results revealed several important findings with significant policy and planning implications for Alberta Parks, as well as the international parks and protected area community more broadly. Findings show that anticipated human health and well-being benefits were a major factor motivating individuals’ decision to visit a park or protected area. Perceived psychological/emotional benefits (89.1% of visitors), social benefits (88.3%), physical benefits (80.3%) and environmental well-being benefits (79.4%) were deemed the most important motivations. However, there was a negative correlation between age and each of these perceived benefits, indicating that older visitors were less motivated to visit protected areas for these reasons. Perceived benefits (outcomes) followed a similar pattern to motivations. The most improved factors were psychological/emotional (90.5%), social (85%), and physical well-being (77.6%). A demographic analysis revealed that females rated financial, social, psychological/emotional and spiritual well-being motivations higher than males. Income and education were also positively related to individuals’ ratings of physical, psychological and environmental well-being. Interestingly, health motivations and benefits (or outcomes) were correlated highly with nature relatedness, meaning the more connected one is to nature, the greater the motivation to visit parks and the greater the health and well-being benefits received from park experiences. Overall, this study represents the largest examination of the human health and well-being benefits associated with visitor experiences in a Canadian protected areas context. The results substantiate the need for park organizations to better understand the “service provider” – “client” relationship from a human health and well-being perspective so that integrated policies and visitor experience programs can be developed or enhanced where appropriate. The Alberta Parks Division, and the international protected areas community more broadly, should actively develop the social science foundation internally, and externally (through partnerships with the social science research community), to ensure that decisions are science-based, society-oriented, and effective at meeting both conservation and visitor experience objectives. Finally, our research indicates the need for a better empirical understanding of the human health and well-being motivations and benefits of visitors representing different social and population subgroups (e.g., youth, elderly, couples, family units, new immigrants) and of the role of distinct natural environments in health promotion.

“The End of the Ice Age?”: Disappearing World Heritage and the Climate Change Communication Imperative

ABSTRACT Rapid environmental change in vulnerable destinations has stimulated a new form of travel termed “last chance tourism” (LCT). Studies have examined the risks of LCT, while leaving potential opportunities within this new tourism market largely underexplored. Results of survey (n = 399) research in Jasper National Park, Canada reveal that a LCT motivation influences decisions to visit this iconic Canadian destination, and suggest that this motivation is linked to a desire to learn about the impacts of climate change on the Athabasca Glacier. Findings suggest there may be short to medium term opportunities associated with LCT, including promoting climate change ambassadorship through management interventions. This paper discusses a range of possible education, interpretive, and outreach activities that might be employed at LCT destinations. It outlines the relative merits (or what we refer to as “uneasy benefits”) of promoting the glacier and other LCT destinations within a protected areas management and climate change adaptation context.