Connection Ecology

Connection Ecology offers a constructive alternative to environmental protection efforts based on "separation ecology" principles that are increasingly denying humans access to natural areas. By contrast Connection Ecology promotes environmentally responsible access and, with it, human quality of life.

About the Connection Ecology Blog

This Connection Ecology blog, which is a successor to the earlier ConnectionEcology.org website, is the product of a half century spent in wild places of the American West. It reflects my deep belief that current, environmental efforts to protect the environment by increasingly limiting human visitation is a great mistake. This is leading to the progressive erosion in of the quality of the experiences that people have in wild places. This, in turn, undermines human quality of life in ways which threaten the long-term sustainability of a broad range of environmental protection measures by removing much of the stake that people have an environmental protection. This site contains a broad array of materials that I've written over the years to combat this trend and promote what I call "connection ecology" – a strategy which simultaneously pursues environmental protection and human quality- of-life objectives. In addition to materials designed to address wildland management issues, I have also included information about great hikes and tips about how to get the most out of your wilderness excursions.

Guy Burgess

Nature Recreation Declining Sharply

Nature recreation worldwide — from camping, hunting and fishing to park visitation — has declined sharply since the 1980s, and the negative consequences for nature and conservation could soon be profound, says a new study sponsored by The Nature Conservancy.

The study examines data from the United States, Japan and Spain on everything from backpacking to duck hunting. It builds upon earlier Conservancy-funded studies by Oliver Pergams of the University of Illinois-Chicago and Patricia Zaradic of the Environmental Leadership Program that correlated a decline in visits to U.S. National Parks with an increase in television, video game and Internet use.

Nature.org talked with Pergams and Zaradic about their latest study — and whether their findings mean that people no longer care about nature.

Nature.org: Has the trend away from nature recreation been accelerating worldwide since it began in 1981, or has it been a steady decline?

Oliver Pergams and Patricia Zaradic: The decline in some nature use seems to be accelerating, such as U.S. state park and national forest visits, as well as fishing. Others show a more steady decline, such as U.S. and Japanese national park visits and U.S. Bureau of Public Lands visits.

Most reliable long-term per capita visitation measures of nature recreation peaked between 1981 and 1991. They've declined about 1.2 percent per year since then, and have declined a total of between 18 percent and 25 percent.

Nature.org: Hunting, camping and fishing activity all declined during this period — but hiking and backpacking went up. So can't we just say that people are switching to daytrips for their natural encounters?

Pergams and Zaradic: No, the increase in hiking is just a very small countertrend. The average person went from hiking once every 12½ years to hiking once every 10 years.

On the other hand, the average U.S. person visits a state park two or three times every single year. The large decreases in more popular activities like state park visits far outweigh the small increase in hiking.

http://www.nature.org/tncscience/misc/art23800.html