D. Newsome

Comparing hiking, mountain biking and horse riding impacts on vegetation and soils in Australia and the United States of America

Hiking, horse riding and mountain biking are popular in protected areas in Australia and the United States of America. To help inform the often contentious deliberations about use of protected areas for these three types of activities, we review recreation ecology research in both countries. Many impacts on vegetation, soils and trails are similar for the three activities, although there can be differences in severity. Impacts include damage to existing trails, soil erosion, compaction and nutrification, changes in hydrology, trail widening, exposure of roots, rocks and bedrock. There can be damage to plants including reduction in vegetation height and biomass, changes in species composition, creation of informal trails and the spread of weeds and plant pathogens. Due to differences in evolutionary history, impacts on soil and vegetation can be greater in Australia than in the USA. There are specific social and biophysical impacts of horses such as those associated with manure and urine, grazing and the construction and use of tethering yards and fences. Mountain bike specific impacts include soil and vegetation damage from skidding and the construction of unauthorised trails, jumps, bridges and other trail technical features. There are gaps in the current research that should be filled by additional research: (1) on horse and mountain bike impacts to complement those on hiking. The methods used need to reflect patterns of actual usage and be suitable for robust statistical analysis; (2) that directly compares types and severity of impacts among activities; and (3) on the potential for each activity to contribute to the spread of weeds and plant pathogens. Additional research will assist managers and users of protected areas in understanding the relative impacts of these activities, and better ways to manage them. It may not quell the debates among users, managers and conservationists, but it will help put it on a more scientific footing.

Environmental Performance Reporting for Natural Area Tourism: Contributions by Visitor Impact Management Frameworks and Their Indicators

Environmental performance reporting is being increasingly demanded of many sectors of society, including those responsible for managing natural area tourism. Recent approaches include corporate reporting, state-of-the-environment reporting, and environmental management systems. This paper evaluates the usefulness of visitor impact management frameworks and associated resource and social indicators, both of which have a rich history of application to wilderness and backcountry management, for performance reporting on natural area tourism management. The evaluation draws on a recently developed evaluation framework for protected area management, plus detailed criteria, to address todays environmental performance reporting needs. Against these criteria, the visitor impact management frameworks rated well, with the Limits of Acceptable Change rating the highest. Resource and social indicators also showed great potential for performance reporting provided they are meaningful to senior managers, politicians and other stakeholders. Integrating these frameworks and their resource and social indicators into todays performance reporting, especially into state-of-the-environment reporting and environmental management systems, could significantly advance meaningful performance reporting for natural area tourism management.

Cold rocks, hot sands: In-situ cosmogenic applications in Australia at ANTARES

The ANTARES AMS facility at ANSTO is conducting a comprehensive program in the application of in-situ cosmogenic radionuclides based on strong university collaborations in the earth sciences. The program targets two major objectives: (1) to determine and improve the Quaternary glacial chronology of the Southern Hemisphere in support of global climate change studies; (2) to characterise the processes of surface weathering and landscape evolution in semi-arid regions of the Australian continent. An overview of the program is presented with preliminary results from the first phase of these studies.

The Scope and Nature of Geotourism

Geotourism sits within a spectrum of definitions (Figure 1.1). For example, Stueve et al. (2002) provide a very broad definition of geotourism – one that encompasses wider geographical, socio-economic and cultural contexts which sit under the umbrella of geographic tourism. Such reasoning probably relates to geology being the basis for the physical environment and therefore ecological systems, with extension into the cultural, spiritual and economic interface. Frey et al. (see Chapter 6) embrace geotourism at the level of social and community development according to the concept of the geopark. However, in our definition of geotourism the ‘geo’ part pertains to geology and geomorphology and the natural resources of landscape, landforms, fossil beds, rocks and minerals, with an emphasis on appreciating the processes that are creating and created such features.

Wildlife Tours in Australia: Characteristics, the Place of Science and Sustainable Futures

Wildlife tourism is one of the fastest growing tourism sectors worldwide. Across the world the number of tourists seeking close interaction with wildlife in their natural environment is growing. Understanding the interface between visitors (social) and wildlife (environmental) can make a critical contribution to the sustainability of this industry. This study examined wildlife tours in Australia. Questionnaires were posted to wildlife tour operators in Tasmania, Western Australia and Northern Territory, seeking information on the characteristics of tours, and the place of science and monitoring in their business. The results illustrate several similarities between wildlife and ecotourism, suggesting the benefits of increasing education and interpretation, both central features of ecotourism, to enhancing the sustainability of wildlife tourism. For tour operators, interactive activities included feeding, swimming with and touching wildlife, and the level of interaction was identified as high, making it imperative to better define interaction and develop species or group-specific protocols for sustainably managing these interactions. Lastly, this study showed a low level of engagement of scientists in protecting the wildlife of interest to tours. Given the centrality of science to sustainability, mechanisms for increasing this involvement particularly in impact research, through partnerships and other means, are critical for the long term sustainability of this industry.

An integrated approach to assessing, managing and monitoring campsite impacts in Warren National Park, Western Australia.

The social and ecological impacts of camping were examined in Warren National Park, Western Australia. The main objective was to apply an integrated approach to assessing campsite degradation and feed this information into a management and monitoring strategy for campsites in the park. Biophysical data were used to establish a campsite profile, providing baseline information that enabled comparison of heavy-use formal campsites with low-use informal campsites. High-use formal campsites were more severely impacted than the low-use, informal campsites. Formal sites were also larger, had experienced more tree damage and erosion, had greater soil compaction, less vegetation cover and tree seedlings, less coarse woody debris, higher riverbank degradation and more walk trails radiating from the campsite. Additionally, the low-use, informal sites had also been degraded by recreation use. Potential indicators were identified, using a social survey that enabled identification of the standards of social and resource conditions in the Warren National Park. Desired conditions were then compared to existing conditions at the campsites and relevant managerial preferences acceptable to visitors were identified in the social survey. Most of the management preferences were considered very or extremely important influences on the quality of the visitor experience.

Environmental impacts associated with recreational horse riding

This chapter provides a state of knowledge review of some of the most recent research concerned with the environmental impacts of horse-riding. Our perspective is derived from studies carried out in the USA and Australia, but the results and conclusions derived from this work are applicable in the global situation. The focus is largely on trail examples from the USA but also considers the case of free range riding in Australia. We provide the context of horse-riding as a recreational activity and summarize the spectrum of impacts brought about by recreational horse-riding. This is followed by three case studies concerned with the assessment and measurement of impacts in important conservation areas. The case study from Yosemite National Park in the USA considers the associated impact of grazing effects, while the Big South Fork study, also from the USA, highlights impacts on trail networks. The final case study explores the quantifiable damage to soils and vegetation when horse-riding occurs in a random dispersed fashion off-trail networks. The final section of this chapter provides insight into three different management situations. The first relates to reducing impacts at campsites used by horse-riders in the USA, the second management perspective, also from the USA, explores the management of horse-riding in a multiple-use recreation area. The third management scenario examines the management of horse-riding in Australian protected areas.

Effects of Horse Riding on National Parks and Other Natural Ecosystems in Australia: Implications for Management

Balancing increasing recreation demand with nature conservation objectives in Australias protected areas provides a difficult challenge for landmanagers. This paper summarises the evidence of biophysical impacts of horse riding and highlights the important differences between Australian environments and those elsewhere. Unique environmental conditions in Australia make conservation lands in Australia potentially sensitive to the impacts of horses, both direct (e.g. trampling) and indirect (e.g. alteration of soil fungal regimes in response to addition of faeces and urine). We discuss ways in which horse use may be sustainably managed on Australian conservation estates, provided that certain conditions are met.

A case study in estimating the area of informal trail development and associated impacts caused by mountain bike activity in John Forrest National Park, Western Australia

Mountain biking has increased rapidly as a recreational activity and constitutes an additional pressure on trail networks in protected areas. Furthermore, in part to a lack of dedicated mountain bike trails in natural areas, physical degradation to the environment has occurred as a result of informal trail development, non-approved modification of existing trail systems, erosion and disturbance to native vegetation. Although previous studies have tried to quantify the impacts of mountain bikes in natural areas, using general trail assessment methods to assess the physical degradation of trails, many impacts of mountain biking have not been included sufficiently in the research on trails. Because of rising demand for access to trail networks, managers require a tool by which they can quantify impacts specific to mountain biking in natural areas in order to protect these environments through targeted management. A rapid assessment tool, using global positioning system and geographic information system, was developed to quantify the effects of mountain biking in natural areas. The technique was tested in John Forrest National Park, a popular place for recreational mountain biking in the peri-urban area of Perth, Western Australia, where mountain bikes creating informal trails and modifications to existing trail systems is acknowledged as a problem by Park management. This assessment tool can effectively quantify the actual area impacted by the creation of mountain bike-specific informal trails and trail modifications. It also provides management with informative and interpretive maps of the impacted area.

The use of quartz grain microtextures in the study of the origin of sand terrains in Western Australia

The origin of extensive sand terrains which lie inland from the coastal margin of Western Australia is contentious, with the debate centering around an in situ vs. an aeolian origin. To resolve this debate the shape and surface features of sand grains are reported for sandplains, sand dunes and bedrock for the Victoria Plateau sandplain, which lies in the central west coastal region of Western Australia. All three components of the Victoria Plateau are similar in grain shape and microtexture. Quartz grains show a combination of chemical dissolution and precipitation micromorphology. Characteristics of dissolution include etch patterning, triangular shaped etch pits and solution features. Precipitation forms include edge rounding, silica veneers and plate- and sheet-like structures. Features such as peeling plates, complex precipitation forms projecting from grain surfaces, adhering particles and preserved grain contact faces indicate stability rather than a transport dominated environmental history. The combination of preserved dissolution and precipitation forms, a dearth of mechanically derived features and a correspondence between grains in rock and overlying sands points to local siliceous sedimentary rocks as the source of the sands.