The great dilemma for national parks: Serve tourists or conserve wildlife
Managers of cash-strapped national parks feel pressured to put spending on visitor facilities ahead of managing the environment, a Queensland study has found.
Researchers from James Cook University spent years interviewing managers from 41 protected areas around the state and say all are suffering the effects of inadequate, shrinking budgets.
The result has been a trade-off, with biodiversity management losing out to theĀ maintenance of infrastructure including toilets, campsites and walking tracks.
āTypically, managers lack sufficient resources to carry out all the management activities required,ā says study co-author Bob Pressey, a professor of conservation planning.
Managers who took part in a series of workshops reported the focus on visitor facilities was to avoid complaints that might affect support for protected areas.
āIn turn, this led to a shortage of resources for other activities such as those focused on biodiversity protection ā for instance, management of fire, feral animals and weeds, and management of threatened species,ā Prof Pressey says.
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The study looked at the adequacy of funding across 24 management activities common across national parks and nature reserves.
Maintaining visitor infrastructure topped the list, while monitoring biodiversity finished last.
āWhen budgets are constrained, as is almost always the case, the implications of prioritising visitor-related activities over biodiversity-related work are clear: biodiversity will be inadequately protected and managed and, in the long term, more likely to decline.ā
Pressey says managers told of being asked to skew resources to support good visitor experiences.
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āVisitors vote and other species donāt, basically,ā he says.
āYou canāt find emails to say take money out of biodiversity conservation and fund visitor facilities but this is what they were told to do (by) someone up the line.
āThis is what they are saying. They canāt go public, but I can.Ā There has been deliberate denial of the primary purpose of national parks and nature reserves ā¦ which is conserving nature.ā
The study was based on aĀ combination of financial analysis and information provided byĀ Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service managers in face-to-face workshops.
It was conducted over five years, from 2011, but was twice halted when the Newman government was in power, something Pressey blames on political concerns.
He says experienced managers say the problems that existed then remain today but he doubts thereāll be money on the table for similar studies in the future.
āItās about management funding, adequacy of management funding and that just hasnāt been done before,ā he says.
āIād be pleasantly surprised if any parks agency in Australia was willing to take such a project on againĀ because it exposes them for what they are not doing.ā
Queenslandās Department of Environment and Science says it is aware of the report, noting āit is based on 2014 dataā.
āWhile the department has not had the opportunity to assay the report, it ensures funding for protected area management is allocated and utilised to enable DES to meet the requirements for the management and preservation of national parks in Queensland,ā the department said in a statement.
It also pointed to the governmentās recent decision to spend $262.5 million to expand the stateās network of protected areas.
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