TRENDS IN PROTECTED AREAS - Sustainable Tourism CRC

TRENDS IN PROTECTED AREAS
Biodiversity Resources and Climate Consequences
Chapter one outlined the potential trends likely to affect tourism in protected areas as a result of global climate
change. The world’s international travel will be strongly affected by decreasing supplies of oil and gas and large
increases in energy cost in the second decade of the 21 st century. The emerging trend of climate change will
further affect travel costs internationally and could result in decreased visitation by international visitors. This
suggests that visitation by domestic visitors may increase significantly.
As discussed previously, global climate change will affect biodiversity and parks resources but also the
potential of these protected areas to provide for recreational opportunities. Global climate change will be one of
the most important environmental issues affecting parks and tourism particularly in alpine and mountains in the
21 st century. The climate change consequences pose a serious threat to human wellbeing and protected areas but
it is unknown how well the parks and protected area agencies are prepared to respond to the changing social
needs and environmental conditions.
Becken and Hay (2007) stated that climate change is anticipated to lead to a new pattern of favoured and
disadvantaged ski tourism regions in the alpine Europe. Similar trends are expected in the Australian Alps. This
has the potential to significantly change the visitation patterns and recreational activities but more information is
needed to predict the future trends. The emerging trend of impacts of climate change in protected areas and
buffering nature against climate change should also be focus of future research efforts.
Research Outputs to Outcomes
A wide range of case studies commissioned by the STCRC (Table 5), provide area specific findings that are
useful for protected area managers. However, they appear to be poorly disseminated academic works and it is
unknown to what extent the various protected area management agencies have integrated and incorporated the
research outputs for the improvement of park management effectiveness. Previous studies have identified
internationally practised and well tested visitor impact and monitoring tools, frameworks and processes such as
ROS, LAC, VIM, VAMP, VERP and TOMM but there is a need to assess how well they are practised by the
parks authorities in Australia.
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