Papers by Eick von Ruschkowski
Journal of park and recreation administration, 2013
ABSTRACT Nature-based recreational activities continue to be a management challenge in many parks... more ABSTRACT Nature-based recreational activities continue to be a management challenge in many parks and protected areas worldwide. Although this challenge is widely recognized within the academic community, the transfer of research into daily management practice is at different levels among countries. This research was designed to focus on the values of park managers that influence the prioritization of management strategies and actions in a crosscultural context. This study surveyed 28 park and protected area managers responsible for recreation planning and management in Austria, Germany and the United States using a Delphi study. The objective was to identify differences and similarities in their values and daily management practices and priorities. Differences in the value systems were identified. The planning approaches in the three countries varied largely, with the European countries putting an emphasis on mitigating the human impacts on natural resources caused by recreational activities; whereas in the United States, social issues such as carrying capacity, visitor satisfaction and crowding seem to be dominant in the field of recreation management. The differences identified can help planners and managers in the three countries to improve their management tools and techniques in order to address the complex challenge of recreation management, as well as for a better integration of ecological and social issues.
Society & Natural Resources, Mar 27, 2017
Researchers often measure human-place bonds via place attachment scales across a variety of setti... more Researchers often measure human-place bonds via place attachment scales across a variety of settings. However, scale use does not always include an evaluation of the scales' psychometric properties, especially in multisite studies. Failure to consider a place attachment scale's measurement properties makes both validity and reliability assumptions and may lead to improper data interpretation. Hence, this investigation assessed a place attachment scale across three sites via data collected on site in natural resource protected areas in Colorado, Minnesota, and Germany. A series of confirmatory factor analyses assessed the hypothesized two-dimensional (i.e., place identity and place dependence) model, Cronbach's alphas calculated a measure of internal consistency, and a multigroup procedure cross-validated the scale. Some items did not load on the hypothesized dimension and the pattern of factor loadings was not equivalent across settings, suggesting assessment of place attachment scales may be necessary when used in new contexts.
Im Zuge des Managements von Großschutzgebieten spielen die Fragen der Akzeptanz des Schutzgebiete... more Im Zuge des Managements von Großschutzgebieten spielen die Fragen der Akzeptanz des Schutzgebietes an sich und der Umgang mit Konflikten, die aus dem Schutzgebietsregime heraus resultieren können, eine wichtige Rolle. Der Beitrag untersucht zunächst die unterschiedliche Rolle der Akzeptanzforschung von Großschutzgebieten im deutsch- und englischsprachigen Raum. Anhand der verschiedenen Aufgaben und Handlungsfelder von Nationalparken und Biosphärenreservaten wird dann die Vielfalt möglicher Konfliktpotenziale aufgezeigt, die am Beispiel von vier Fallstudien näher beschrieben werden. Eine Medienanalyse und vertiefende Experteninterviews dienen als Grundlage für die detailliertere Untersuchung der vier Fallstudien: der Nationalpark Berchtesgaden mit einem latenten Konfliktpotenzial bei unvorhergesehenen Naturereignissen sowie die potenzielle Nationalparkregion Senne-Teutoburger Wald-Eggegebirge mit ihrem hohen Anteil an Privatwaldbesitzern und der Problematik der Zonierung, die Biosphä...
Conflicts of interest between conservation objectives and the continuation of conventional land u... more Conflicts of interest between conservation objectives and the continuation of conventional land uses have accompanied national parks in Germany since the first park's designation in 1970. This is not surprising as most of Central Europe is densely populated and landscapes have been used intensively for agriculture, forestry, resource extraction, and recreational purposes over several centuries. Hence, unaltered landscapes and unimpaired wilderness hardly exist. These combined features distinguish German national parks from their counterparts in the Americas, Africa or Asia. Against this background, parks-people relationships have occupied researchers in Germany for more than twenty years. Whereas international research has focused mostly on testing various social theories to explain resistance among locals, research in Germany has for many years focused on a more practitioner-oriented approach in order to solve most pressing conflicts that arose after national park designations....
Sustainability, 2021
Questions about park–people relationships and the understanding and handling of the conflicts tha... more Questions about park–people relationships and the understanding and handling of the conflicts that may result from the creation and management of national parks in the surrounding area are prerequisites for both successful park management and sustainable rural tourism development. This paper analyzes the roles that research may play in relation to park–people relationships in the context of the two oldest German national parks located in Bavaria. The different fields of action of national parks are used to identify the potential for conflict, using detailed case studies from the Bavarian Forest and Berchtesgaden National Parks using quantitative population surveys carried out in 2018. The overall attitude towards both national parks is overwhelmingly positive, with trust towards park administrations and the perceived economic benefits from rural tourism being the attitudes most strongly correlated to the overall level of park–people relationships. Nevertheless, some points of conten...
Environmental Management, 2020
The importance of place in landscape management and outdoor recreation has been prominent in the ... more The importance of place in landscape management and outdoor recreation has been prominent in the literature since the 1970s. As such, calls to incorporate place into the management of parks, forests, and other protected areas exist. However, little work explores how place attachment may complement existing management frameworks. Hence, the purpose of this investigation was to explore levels of visitors’ place attachment intensity across the six classes of the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS). Survey data collected in North America and Europe indicated there was more similarity in place attachment intensities among areas classified toward the less developed end of the ROS, while greater variation existed among the more developed sites. Observing place attachment across all six ROS classes allowed for a deeper understanding of the correlation between place and the management framework.
Forest Science, 2019
Bark beetle outbreak impacts are occurring at reportedly unprecedented levels. Despite previous r... more Bark beetle outbreak impacts are occurring at reportedly unprecedented levels. Despite previous research on the aesthetic and economic impacts of terrestrial pest infestations, minimal visitor behavioral response research exists. As beetle infestation progresses, both tree appearance and landscape change can negatively impact visitation and visitor revenue. Given the multiple-use mandate of most forests, this lack of research is surprising. To meet this gap, this study simulated impacts of varied beetle outbreak levels, management approaches, and visitor characteristics on interference with forest visitors’ experience and intended displacement. Visitors at two forested US state park study sites, one with significant bark beetle impact and the other with much less, responded to onsite questionnaires with digitally calibrated photos depicting a variety of beetle-impacted forest scenarios. Up to 80 percent of visitors indicated forest scenarios with significant bark beetle impact would...
Environmental management, Feb 1, 2018
Extensive outbreaks of tree-killing insects are increasing across forests in Europe and North Ame... more Extensive outbreaks of tree-killing insects are increasing across forests in Europe and North America due to climate change and other factors. Yet, little recent research examines visitor response to visual changes in conifer forest recreation settings resulting from forest insect infestations, how visitors weigh trade-offs between physical and social forest environment factors, or how visitor preferences might differ by nationality. This study explored forest visitor preferences with a discrete choice experiment that photographically simulated conifer forest stands with varying levels of bark beetle outbreaks, forest and visitor management practices, and visitor use levels and compositions. On-site surveys were conducted with visitors to State Forest State Park in Colorado (n = 200), Lake Bemidji State Park in Minnesota (n = 228), and Harz National Park in Germany (n = 208). Results revealed that the condition of the immediate forest surrounding was the most important variable infl...
Society & Natural Resources, 2017
Researchers often measure human-place bonds via place attachment scales across a variety of setti... more Researchers often measure human-place bonds via place attachment scales across a variety of settings. However, scale use does not always include an evaluation of the scales' psychometric properties, especially in multisite studies. Failure to consider a place attachment scale's measurement properties makes both validity and reliability assumptions and may lead to improper data interpretation. Hence, this investigation assessed a place attachment scale across three sites via data collected on site in natural resource protected areas in Colorado, Minnesota, and Germany. A series of confirmatory factor analyses assessed the hypothesized two-dimensional (i.e., place identity and place dependence) model, Cronbach's alphas calculated a measure of internal consistency, and a multigroup procedure cross-validated the scale. Some items did not load on the hypothesized dimension and the pattern of factor loadings was not equivalent across settings, suggesting assessment of place attachment scales may be necessary when used in new contexts.
Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning, 2016
Land-use systems and biodiversity in Germany can be investigated using the network of protected a... more Land-use systems and biodiversity in Germany can be investigated using the network of protected areas. This issue focuses on nature parks, national parks and biosphere reserves that are confronted with various problems related to competition for land and acceptance. The working group “Biodiversity and sustainable land use in protected areas” of the Academy for Spatial Research and Planning (ARL) has tackled this topic. This paper reviews the research questions that are debated in this special issue of “Raumforschung und Raumordnung”. These questions include the influence of different land-use systems on the state of ecosystem services, how the different types of protected areas should be evaluated in terms of their individual contributions to the conservation and development of biodiversity, the role played specifically by woods and forestry management with regard to biodiversity and sustainable land use, and the patterns of conflict that exist due to competing land uses. Attention ...
Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Research and Planning, 2016
Local acceptance and the resolution of conflicts that arise from conservation objectives are impo... more Local acceptance and the resolution of conflicts that arise from conservation objectives are important tasks for the successful management of large protected areas. This paper focuses on the distinct genesis of acceptance research for German large protected areas compared to the global context where the comprehensive term “park-people relationships” prevails. Using multiple tasks and roles assigned to national parks and biosphere reserves, we illustrate the overall diversity of conflict potential. Four explorative case studies, based on media analysis and selected expert interviews, are used to elaborate on the individual local conditions that foster conflict or co-existence in Germany. Berchtesgaden National Park is currently mainly free of conflicts, but unforeseen events such as barkbeetle infestations could unsettle the situation. On the contrary, private land ownership and conflicts over zoning in the Senne-Teutoburger Wald-Eggegebirge region have halted plans to establish a na...
The production of biomass for energy has emerged into a new, important market for agriculture in ... more The production of biomass for energy has emerged into a new, important market for agriculture in Germany. As climate protection remains the main objective for renewable energy production, the assessment and reduction of its environmental impacts are becoming increasingly important. This assessment requires the development and application of specific indicators to enable comparisons between different production methods. As long as primary crops remain the same as those being used for food production, the exact impacts of bioenergy production do not clearly differ from other agricultural production. A case-study carried out in Lower Saxony shows that additional impacts arise only when either new production methods are applied or new crops are being taken into production. In general, the production of biomass needs to be subject to the same standards that are being applied for food production or other commodities to ensure that biomass production does not serve as a scapegoat for all environmental problems associated with agriculture. Those standards should be defined by good farming practice or cross-compliance regulations. A consistent implementation and execution of existing standards would already result in major improvements, therefore pointing out another important priority for agricultural policy.
Profound knowledge about visitor numbers to a protected area, combined with those visitors’ demog... more Profound knowledge about visitor numbers to a protected area, combined with those visitors’ demographics and their recreational preferences, can be considered the most important baseline data in order to enable protected area administrations to manage visitor impacts and the quality of the recreational experience (Kajala et al. 2007; Eagles et al. 2002). In spite of this knowledge, visitor monitoring can be considered the stepchild of protected area management in Germany as the majority of its 14 national parks (and the other protected areas as well) lack sophisticated efforts to establish visitor management systems based on valid visitor numbers (see Burns et al. 2010).
Menschliches Handeln hat vielfach negative Auswirkungen auf Natur und Umwelt. Der Naturschutz ver... more Menschliches Handeln hat vielfach negative Auswirkungen auf Natur und Umwelt. Der Naturschutz versucht diese Auswirkungen zu minimieren. Nicht zuletzt beim Schutz bedrohter Arten konnten dabei in den letzten Jahrzehnten einige Erfolge verzeichnet werden. Der vorliegende Beitrag umreißt exemplarisch an den Beispielen Wanderfalke und Wolf die unterschiedlichen Voraussetzungen für deren „Comeback“, benennt aber ebenso die aktuellen Verlierer intensiven menschlichen Wirtschaftens.
Uploads
Papers by Eick von Ruschkowski