Collection of ecological data by national park visitors by Graeme Baxter, 2000 Churchill Fellow

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1 Churchill report Collection of ecological data by national park visitors by Graeme Baxter, 2000 Churchill Fellow Why Visitors to national parks arrive with a variety of needs and expectations. For some it is a precious escape from routines to relax, for others the opportunity to explore the diversity of the parks flora and fauna treasures. Many want to give something back to the land and sea which not only supports their vacation but also sustains the planet s life systems. This project was devised to provide programs for an increasing number of people who want to contribute to the park systems ecological integrity. Many programs exist for people to plant trees and clean up rubbish and can be found in numerous locations around the world. They offer improvements they are easy to organise, produce initial outcomes and feel good to do. Within an hour or so large areas can be cleared of rubbish or revegetated. Natural areas however require greater levels of understanding if they are to be managed effectively. Much knowledge has been accumulated over many years has been acquired through experience and anecdotal evidence. Little has been through strong targeted research programs. Most national parks have little if any active research programs that they manage themselves. The lack of research results in management decisions being made with often inadequate information and data. This project was set up to provide opportunities for people to participate in active research programs that provide meaningful information for the future management of national parks. Prior to this there were few if any formal programs in Australian national parks where people could join park staff and researchers in the search for new ecological information. The collection of this information would enable park management agencies to make for informed decisions about the parks and reserves under their care Where Initially two nations were chosen, Canada and the USA in the original proposal as they had existing program or were in the early stages of developing similar programs. An at your own expense location of Costa Rica was also chosen not for the purpose of the project but for family reasons. This unlikely place turned out to provide invaluable resources for the development of programs here in Australia. Canada and the USA were chosen for their methods of managing national parks and reserves: Canada for its similarities to our national parks agency, Parks Victoria. Our current structure had some modelling taken form Parks Canada. The value of

2 visiting such an organisation is implementation of new projects will meet similar stepping stones and stumbling blocks. USA for its tradition of establishing the first national parks in the world. It has a traditional structure based heavily past practises of delivering visitor programs. The US parks system is also the largest worldwide with individual national parks having the budget of our entire parks system Costa Rica for its diverse methods of managing parks and reserves. Some are run by their national parks agency and many other reserves are privately owned. Many of the privately owned reserves rely on visitors to provide their funding. Consequently many innovative approaches are in place to provide cutting edge experiences in the management of their reserves. What Criteria was established for selecting which parks to visit. These included those that provided: Education and interpretation services that engaged participants in programs to collect data Programs that engaged people in real information to assist natural area managers in decision making Programs that fostered a desire to care for country Programs that are fun. Costa Rica As was mentioned earlier, Costa Rica was not originally chosen as a part of the project. It was initially to be a stopping off point. As often happens when travelling, the places you least expect can often offer the most. Costa Rica has multiple types of land management from traditional forms such as national parks, private ownership of parks, community management, international aid based management and one incidence of a school council managing a park of high ecological integrity Many of these offer non-park employees to participate in the collection of ecological data. The black sandy beaches of Dominical on the western coast of Costa Rica are breeding territory of the Ridley Turtle. A threatened species, these animals are easy prey to changes in land use such as the changing use coasts by people The local school students collect eggs on the full moon during breeding season to be taken away and incubated. When the eggs have hatched they are released on the same beach by the students. The data is collected on an annual basis giving management agencies information about breeding rates, annual survival rates as mature animals return to the site to breed. In the highlands a trio of reserves are each being managed very differently. The rainforests were originally purchased and left uncleared by Quakers fleeing persecution in the USA. The reason for non-clearing was to ensure a high quality

3 water source. this has resulted in these areas being set aside from large scale land clearing. The first of these is Monteverde Cloud Forest and is managed by the national park system. This is managed by government agencies in a similar way to those in the USA, Canada and Australia. Education and interpretation services are provided with no provision for participation in conservation activities. This proved to be similar to most government agency run programs. Non-government run parks are likely to have less funding and therefore an even higher need to find alternative sources of funding. One way is to enlist the help of not only volunteers but also paying volunteers. Children s Eternal Rainforest created from a classroom in Scandinavia by a group of students who wanted to make a difference. They started a program to have the dwindling rainforest reserved after being told the plight by their teacher. The park was purchased from funds raised internationally with enough to staff the reserve. International volunteers complete projects within the reserve including some very basic data collection. Santa Elena Reserve is the third of the trio. Managed by the local school council, students are responsible for the conducting tours, displays and education material. Funding is mostly supplied by visitor entry which like most Costa Rican parks can be expensive compared to parks in the USA, Canada and Australia. Again, access to researchers is limited to the funds available. One of the key issues raised by this is how they access information from sites such as La Selva Biological Station outlined a further on in the report. Selva Verde is an accommodation venue for the ecotourism trade. Many bird watchers from the USA stay here. The role of the venue was not a lot in terms of ecological data collection but played a significant role in the social capital of the community by having its own education centre. The centre provided activities for young people staying in the accommodation but also provided sessions for local students. These included revegetation programs La Selva Biological Station, a traditional research centre linked to numerous tropical research centres throughout the world including James Cook Uni in Townsville. Programs were also traditional with research students conducting very expensive tours. The high cost of tours tended to be a continuing theme throughout Costa Rica whether it be on public or private land. It seemed that only the affluent could afford to understand the need for conservation of these highly prized areas. The large scale funding base also seemed to exclude the need for sourcing alternative research sources. Consequently there was no provision for active participation in the reserve. Recommendations from Costa Rica 1. Involve schools in the collection of ecological data through the setting up of simple long term research activities that can be easily replicated. Possibilities can include data on particular species such as wombats with their burrow usage, breeding rates and related grazing pressures

4 2. Develop strategies for disseminating information and strategies developed. suggestions include use of web based systems and delivery of sessions at conferences. USA The original model for national parks used throughout most of the western world was established in the 1800 s in the USA. The US national parks system is a traditional organisation with traditional forms of interpretation and education. This is generally delivered by national park staff with some assistance by volunteers Interpretation and education has a long tradition in the US national park service with minor fluctuations in budget compared to Victoria and Canada. This may reduce the need to develop create innovative approaches to environmental management and education. Sites visited in the USA were limited to those in the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada regions. National parks, national monuments forests were visited. Yosemite is an icon National Park with around five million visitors annually and a staff of six hundred. Surprisingly only one of these is devoted to education and interpretation. Many parks have a variation of our Friends groups (Friends of the Prom) and are referred to as associations. These groups such as the Yosemite Association are highly effective groups in raising funds and profiles of the parks. Some such as Yosemite have either taken on or been given the role of delivering interpretation and education. All seem to vary in the approaches. Some run a subsidiary group known as institutes such as the Yosemite Institute which is their interpretation and education arm delivering programs to school students throughout the year. A variety of institutes were visited in the USA with each having their own target groups. Like most of the institutes visited focussed on delivery of programs to people. some participation in weeding programs was offered but not much in terms of long term data collection. Mesa Verde National Park by comparison, involved visitors in archaeological digs. Archaeology has long used volunteers to assist in programs. They provide the balance to people of gaining new skills while contribution to the areas knowledge bank often areas that they would never be able to access. The park with the most sophisticated system of delivering interpretation and education services with the ability to provide visitor experiences with research activities is Yellowstone National Park. The Yellowstone Association not only has its own visitor centre and shops within the park but also runs the Yellowstone Institute. The institute delivers two to four day programs in its own residency outside the main tourist locations. Programs are delivered by experts in their field and have a high subscription rate. Up to half of the participants have been in programs previously. Involvement of university researchers in delivering some of the programs encourages active research with participants to take place. This is even more relevant when the type of research is a priority for the park.

5 Programs such as these are able to run because of a number of factors: 1. Accommodation is located on site 2. The program is located in a high profile Park 3. The park contains high profile species such as bears and wolves 4. There is a large population that can afford the programs relatively located close to the site Programs similar to these can be replicated in pars such as Wilsons Promontory where the above factors are largely available. Recommendations from USA 1. Develop programs in line with existing research programs in the park. Delivery of programs can then be delivered with the key researcher 2. Preferably locate programs in high profile parks that can also provide adequate catering facilities Canada It was in Canada that formal data collection programs have been running for several seasons and that it would be here that there would be the most to learn. Programs operated by Parks Canada were delivered out of the rocky mountains parks such as Banff and Yoho national Parks. As in the USA high profile species were used to raise interest in the program. Here first hand experience would be gained in how the programs were planned, developed, marketed, delivered, evaluated and the data fedback into the park management system. As bookings we being made it was becoming increasingly clear that there were major issues with their programs. Dozens of inquiries were made to book programs with demand seemingly extremely high with still no resolution of me having a place even as I flew out of Melbourne. After three months of travelling and arriving in Canada it became clear that the whole program had collapsed. What appeared to be a disaster for the project became a opportunity as I was able to discuss the factors necessary to make such a program work or in this case fail. There were several key factors that contributed to the Parks Canada programs not being successful. The first and biggest of all were lack of support from the organisation. Parks Canada were scaling back their interpretation and education services dramatically. Research programs such as these were going to be the first to suffer a lack of support. When staff are redeployed to other areas, the impetus soon diminished to a trickle. Staff have other priorities and the program dies a slow death. Secondly, the program was booked through a travel agency rather than the organisation taking control. While there are benefits of outsourcing aspects of a project, the key contact was a travel agent not a park agency. As a result communication about the project, the value of it to the park and to the individual was

6 lost. Discussions with the agency were fruitful as there were high levels of frustration with Parks Canada. Recommendations from Canada 1. Ensure there is support and maintain support from the host organisation 2. Develop and deliver the program within the organisation Conclusion The travelling project has been very successful. Each of the recommendations are achievable with the first target groups being school groups. In particular certain secondary groups will have not only the skills to participate but also the curriculum relevance. focus groups will be: 1. Year 11 & 12 students studying Biology, Geography and Outdoor & Environmental Studies 2. Students participating in the Victorian Youth Development program. Students are generally in the middle years of secondary school with a curriculum focus on parks and their management. Programs can then be developed out of the school based programs. These will be more sophisticated in the content of the programs and also the services provided such a food and accommodation. In closing, I would like to thanks the Churchill Fellowship for their support, encouragement, patience, tolerance and understanding. The depth of understanding that can be gained from having the opportunity to participate in the Churchill Fellowship is immeasurable.

7 Park/reserve/institution name State Province Country Hacienda Baru Dominical Costa Rica Monteverde Cloud Forest Monteverde Costa Rica Children s Eternal Rainforest Monteverde Costa Rica Santa Elana Reserve Monteverde Costa Rica La Selva Biological Station Northern Lowlands Costa Rica Braulio Carrillo NP Northern Lowlands Costa Rica Selva Verde Lodge Northern Lowlands Costa Rica Sequoia NP California USA Yosemite NP California USA Death Valley California USA Grand Canyon NP Arizona USA Grand Canyon Association Arizona USA Bryce Canyon NP Utah USA Mesa Verde NP Colorado USA Rocky Mountain NP Colarado USA Yellowstone NP Wyoming USA Mt St Helens National Mounument Washington USA Washington University Washington USA Nature Conservancy Washington USA Gawaii Haanas NP British Columbia Canada Jasper NP British Columbia Canada Banff NP British Columbia Canada Yoho NP British Columbia Canada Kootenay NP British Columbia Canada Manning Provincial Park British Columbia Canada

Steps in the Management Planning Process

Steps in the Management Planning Process Developing a management plan for Kalamalka Lake Park will follow a multi-stage process. The planning process for this park is currently in the Draft Management