Using National Parks and Protected Areas for Management Research and Education: experience from Wigry, North-East Poland (original) (raw)
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In Poland, mountain national parks are visited by about 8 million tourists annually. As a result, national parks must have a properly developed infrastructure to accommodate such a large number of people. Tourism development in mountain national parks satisfies the needs of tourist participants and should increase the attractiveness of the area, fit into the cultural concepts of a given region, and promote its development. The research aims to determine the consequences of making mountain national parks available in Poland and determine the factors determining the attractiveness of the protected area and the related tourist burden. Nine mountain national parks located in Poland were selected for the research. An interview was conducted with employees of mountain national parks concerning (a) the tourist burden on the national park, (b) the tourist management of the national park and its surroundings, and (c) the impact of tourist traffic on the natural environment. Parameters charac...
Collaborative Management of National Parks: The Case of Retezat National Park, Romania
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The managers of protected areas now recognize that protected area management needs to take a cooperative and collaborative approach with local stakeholders in order to share the responsibility for management (Lane 2001; Kothari et al. 1996; Leikam et al. 2004; Bramwell & Lane 2000). It is socially and politically unacceptable to exclude from a protected area local stakeholders who live close to or within that protected area without providing them with viable economic alternatives, nor is it acceptable to exclude them from the decision making process (Leikam et al. 2004). The participation of stakeholders in the process of information sharing and decision making is a crucial precondition for tourism planning to evolve with minimum negative impacts (Bramwell & Lane 2000). However, involving a broad range of stakeholders in the planning process is not an easy task. It can be extremely challenging and time-consuming to reach consensus on the many, often incompatible interests of the stakeholders. Nevertheless, stakeholder collaboration can generate many potential benefits such as 'political legitimacy': collaboration processes are more legitimate and equitable than traditional approaches to planning, as the former encourage sharing and participation, in which the beliefs and advice of non-experts (e.g. local community members) are as equally valid as those of 'experts' (Bramwell & Sharman 1999; Hall 1999; Healey 1997). Furthermore, by sharing the ideas, resources and expertise of stakeholders, the group creates "something new and valuable together-a whole that is greater than the sum of its individual parts" (Shannon 1998; Taylor