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Abstract |
Managers of Canadian Crown lands are beginning to recognize that all values the public associates with forests should be given due consideration in management actions. Arguably, recreation and tourism are the least understood values of the resource and typically receive only secondary consideration in management decisions on an ad-hoc basis. This situation partly results from the lack of a systematic framework for recreation management in Crown lands outside of protected areas at either the provincial or the national level. This presentation discusses the development of a spatial recreation planning framework that uses recreation values to assess the effects of various forestry activities. The framework expands upon traditional planning approaches that are primarily supply driven to directly address core user values rather than traditional user preferences. A spatial GIS model was developed that incorporates interactive data layers of the study area including high resolution orthophoto mosaic, forest resource inventory, recreation facilities locations, ROS type classification, activity participation, spatial trip patterns, and recreation values. These data layers are overlaid on the forest management plan that details the harvesting and silvicultural treatments that are planned for the next 20 years. Operation of the interactive model is based on maintaining recreation portfolios, recreation class consistency, and sets of contextualized recreation values. A process is discussed as to how this new framework will provide managers with a tool to evaluate recreation related impacts a priori to resource management actions, and allow the public to ask “what if” scenarios in an interactive mode. |
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