Citation
Miller, Marc L.; Carter, R. W. (Bill); Walsh, Stephen J.; & Peake, Sheila (2014). A Conceptual Framework for Studying Global Change, Tourism, and the Sustainability of Iconic National Parks. The George Wright Forum, 31(3), 256-269.Abstract
Conservation has a long history of protected area experimentation in Europe, Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. The theme that the biotic and abiotic environment has value for its naturalness and therefore ought to be spared urbanization, industrialization, and other measures of economic development has found expression in the creation of national parks, forest reserves, wilderness reserves, scenic reserves, national monuments, and heritage sites. While the basic idea of national parks has been around for centuries, the formative years of the modern national park movement span the 1850–1950 period (Sheail 2010: 2). The first national park, so-named and federally managed, traces to Progressive Era legislation and the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1872 (Sheail 2010: 19–20; cf. Meringolo 2012: 37–42). Yellowstone illustrates a double commitment to the goals of protecting nature and fostering responsible human visitation. The national park experience can be a sacred one for the preservation of the natural environment and the enhancement of human intellect and well-being. Yet it is increasingly evident that humanity and its diverse technologies have great influence, both positive and negative, on the natural environment and on multicultural society. Physical, chemical, and ecological processes, which are affected by human technologies, are potent drivers of change even in protected areas such as national parks. Since the publication of the Brundtland Report, sustainable development has gained international acceptance as an ideal that emphasizes the responsibility of people to act ethically (WCED 1987; Kates et al. 2005). Good governance has also emerged as an ideal the United Nations and the World Bank deem worthy of adopting, despite difficulties in its application (CEPA 2008; World Bank Group 2009). In the national park context, governance options in management models have been usefully examined by Eagles (2009). This article presents a conceptual framework for examining how iconic national parks with human, natural, and artifactual components are influenced by the internal dynamics of tourism and the external influence of several categories of global processes. As will be seen in the other contributions to this special issue, applications of the conceptual framework take a variety of forms, depending on the focus of researchers and the selection of dependent and independent variables of interest. The parks discussed may be described as iconic for the way in which they have captured the imagination of national and international communities, and attracted visitors and scientists. Simply, we take iconic national parks to be those parks that have high rates of visitation, and features and amenities that are particularly valued as well as salient in the public and scientific imaginations.URL
www.georgewright.org/313miller.pdfReference Type
Journal ArticleYear Published
2014Journal Title
The George Wright ForumAuthor(s)
Miller, Marc L.Carter, R. W. (Bill)
Walsh, Stephen J.
Peake, Sheila