Addressing stakeholder conflicts in a Canadian mountain park.

While visitors are fundamental to the long-term success and sustainability of the region, the ecological integrity of the park is the basis of the tourism industry and offers that industry a competitive advantage.--Banff National Park Management Plan, 1997

Since the establishment of Yellowstone National Park in 1872, the U.S. National Park system has grown not only in size but in visitor use, to the point where the notion of "loving the parks to death" is almost cliche. This love affair is "a tortured mix of rapture, confusion and contention" (Watkins, 1997), in which the purpose of the parks, as stated in the 1916 National Parks Service Act, is to "conserve the scenery and the natural and historical objects and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

The challenge posed by this mandate to park managers is reflected in the dual responsibilities of (a) conservation and (b) enabling public enjoyment. Furthermore, the role of tourism and recreation remains ambiguous and contestable in both these areas. Joseph Sax, in Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks, points out that the growth in recreation and the increasing mobility of tourists provoke questions about the appropriate use of national parks. Are they to be treated as recreational commodities, responding to demands for urban comforts and development, or "should they be reserved as temples of nature worship, admitting only the faithful?"

In Yellowstone National Park, for instance, the popular winter recreation of snowmobiling generates significant economic benefit to government and businesses. However, other users resent noise and overcrowding, preferring a peaceful visit to Old Faithful. So, aside from conservation, the issue of "What constitutes a national park experience, and who decides, who implements, and who monitors how the parks are to be governed and used?" is raised.

Wildlife biologist Steven Thompson, in dealing with human impacts at Yosemite National Park, believes in "managing the resource as scientists and not basing our actions on the perceptions of the public" (Margolis, 1997). But can the roles of the public and scientists be kept separate in a resource that belongs to the citizens, designated for human recreation as well as preservation? A recent multi-stakeholder roundtable, convened to address interest-based conflicts in Canada's Banff National Park, offers some insight into process issues related to tourism management and sustainability in national parks. The context of the study is outlined below, followed by a number of views and voices of stakeholder interests, plus some learning adapted from the process.

In 1885, with the encouragement of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), whose track-laying crews reached the site two years earlier, the Canadian government reserved an area around the Banff hot springs, which was later expanded into Banff National Park (BNP). The townsite of Banff was laid out in 1886 and, two years later, CPR opened its first hotel in the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the Banff Springs Hotel. Tourism for the wealthy was seen as a means of financing the construction of Canada's transcontinental railway, which was vital to the building of the nation. Thus, the origin of Canada's first national park was intimately linked with economic interests. Indeed, it has been argued that the emphasis on the economic potential of the scenery for tourism has entrenched a system and philosophy of "parks for profit" (Bella, 1987).

Early conservation struggles and growing awareness of the need to protect the natural landscape led Canada to enshrine the protection of national parks in legislation. This signaled the winding down of activities such as mining and logging in national parks. Somewhat similar to the U.S. mandate, Canada's 1930 National Parks Act states that the national parks are dedicated "to the people of Canada for their benefit, education and enjoyment and shall be maintained and made use of so as to leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."

Today, visitation to Banff National Park has grown to around five million annually, up from 459,000 in 1950, and could reach 10 to 19 million by the year 2020, depending on projected growth rates (BBVS, 1996). Thus, the future of BNP, as is the case with many other parks, continues to be influenced as much by tourism as by any desire to preserve a legacy of natural heritage. Ecological problems in the park are exacerbated by the location of the town of Banff, the national transportation corridor, and other infrastructure and services, which are situated in the Bow Valley. Hence, this valley area is hotly contested, being both economically and environmentally important.

It includes most of the park's montane ecoregion, which is the smallest but richest in biodiversity, and suffers from a range of environmental impacts due to development and growth (both visitation and population related.) Yet the tourism industry is often uncritically viewed as the economic sector most compatible with the management of protected areas, while the complex interdependence between the natural and the social remains largely unacknowledged or poorly addressed.

Banff Bow Valley Study and Round Table

The value-laden nature of the relationship between the natural and the social is evidenced in the long-standing public controversy and entrenched positions of the stakeholders of Banff National Park. The need to address the persistent conflict between the "environmentalists" and "developers" in the park led the federal government to initiate the two-year-long Banff Bow Valley Study (BBVS) in 1994, at a cost of more than 82 million. The task force, appointed by the Minister of Canadian Heritage, used multiple approaches to generate public input into the study, including a high-profile, multi-sectoral roundtable facilitated by a formally appointed mediator. Fourteen sectors, representing a number of interest groups and individuals, participated in the Banff Bow Valley Study's Round Table (BBVRT), with two sectors dropping out.

The purpose of the study was to "integrate environmental, social and economic considerations in order to develop management and land-use strategies that are sustainable and meet the objectives of the National Parks Act." This clearly appeals to the notion of sustainable development, which can be regarded as a philosophy, a process, a plan, and a product (Wall, 1997). Similarly, the concept of sustainable tourism development, as related to tourists and host regions, "is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity, and life-support systems" (WTO). These holistic approaches to local and global sustainability highlight the importance of understanding the relationships between human societies and the natural world.

Hence, in light of the several million tourists who visit the park, in which the town of Banff is the most frequented destination, tourism marketing becomes an important social concern. What destination image is projected, which tourist segments are attracted, and what impacts and pressures do these create for the valley's human communities and natural environments? In other words, how well does tourism marketing consider this interdependence of hosts, guests, and natural park environment? As the following Banff resident-participant explained, a "value-based" marketing strategy is needed:

We need to be tackling the broader implications of tourism. It's linking business practices to the environment. It's linking our lives to the environment. It's linking our whole lifestyle, consumption patterns to understanding the consequences of what we're doing.

This also suggests that guests and tourism marketers, as well as hosts, need to be aware of their impacts on the environment. The BBVS and roundtable process contributed to the development of a heritage tourism strategy for the tourism stakeholders of the park. In addition, the roundtable participants formulated a joint vision for the park and participated in a range of activities including goal-setting (e.g., ecological goals). Aspects of the vision statement and other results were subsequently incorporated into the new [1997] Park Management Plan. The BBVRT multi-stakeholder process, which brought together environmental, political, economic, social, and cultural interests to address tourism and ecological-related concerns in the park, presents some useful insights for managers and stakeholders addressing park-based tourism conflicts.

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What We've Learned From the BBVRT

1. Jurisdictional challenges

The presence of local, provincial, and federal interests in the problem domain created specific challenges to participation in the BBVRT. A number of public sector stakeholders were concerned about the implications of a multi-sectoral consensus-based collaboration on their jurisdictional authority. While the provincial government of Alberta chose to abstain from the decision-making, a number of participants felt that the province should have been represented as more than an "observer" in the process. Hence, the role of public sector participants needs to be carefully addressed in the process. How much can a government representative participate in consensus-based decisions, and what are the constraints faced in terms of timing, commitment to decisions, and legal and jurisdictional considerations? (See Susskind and Cruikshank, 1987, for more on this aspect.)

2. Flexibility in planning and structure

The number of stakeholders, the diversity of their positions, and the complexity of their often interdependent, substantive issues have a number of implications. For instance, process managers need to ensure that the process remains flexible enough to enable participants' concerns and issues to emerge and be addressed in a meaningful way. In this sense, the planning of a roundtable process becomes very much an "anticipatory" activity, as one process manager of the BBVRT said. Consequently, it is important to ensure that time and other resources are not under-estimated in such fluid and dynamic processes (See Cormick et al., 1996, for more on this). The role and responsibilities of the mediator/facilitator are also very important considerations in roundtables convened to address complex, conflict-based environmental and social issues.

3. Power and the democracy of the process

Although a collaborative consensus process offers the potential of a legitimate, equitable mechanism for public input, the same process structures may still allow power differentials to persist at the table. Moreover, the voices of participants may be subtly constrained by contextual factors. An environmental group member who participated in the BBVRT provides an example of this dynamic:

It's not a career-enhancing thing for a Parks Canada employee to do, to be associated too closely with us. And obviously, people who work in the tourist industry who may support us, as well, are not in a very good position to show that profile. We think we live in a democracy, but we find that in subtle ways, democratic freedoms are severely constrained.

It should also be remembered that decision-making takes place not only in full view of the designated roundtable meetings and activities. Being able to access influential stakeholders outside of scheduled events can play an important role in influencing process direction and outcomes. For instance, it was critical for the environmental sectors' participation that they felt the process was independent of Parks Canada administrators who had been "saying the right thing forever." There was a distinct "space between saying and doing it," explained an environmental participant, who also wondered if they were being kept busy while larger tourism interests (not directly present at the table) were perhaps approaching political powers in Ottawa. Still, he felt that the process offered an opportunity to constructively explore differences rather than have "people with different values shooting at each other through the media and never really understanding each other."

However, an underlying conundrum reflecting society's struggle to balance the greater good and will with individual rights is the question of whose voices are most heard in national park issues -- the most directly affected local populace or the national citizenry, an entity not easily represented?

The above issues of democracy and power show that care in process design and enactment is required to ensure that less influential (e.g., without political or financial clout), yet legitimate, participants are included in the decision-making. Visioning exercises, joint development of objectives, land-base maps and models, as well as informal meetings and activities (e.g., field trips) outside of the regular meeting place, may be helpful tools in facilitating dialogue.

This, in turn, can produce some concrete outcomes in terms of issue identification, direction setting, and relationship building. Moreover, while effort should be made to get stakeholders into the process as early as possible, such activities may also help to identify other potential participants along the way.

4. Identifying goals and interests

Also related to power and meaningful input is the identity and formation of interest groups and sectors. While labeling groups as "environmental," "cultural," "social," "business," or "tourist" may help to identify interests, it tends to set up artificial barriers between them. This is especially pertinent when it is realized that interests are not necessarily static, objective "things" that are "out there" to be picked up and assumed.

The "Park Users" sector in the BBVRT, for example, was comprised of diverse and geographically distinct groups of recreation users. This was a challenge to effective participation of the sector's constituents in the roundtable, as well as in past national park public-input processes. Hence, this sector was concerned that mechanisms be established for improved, ongoing communication between park managers and stakeholders, subsequent to the BBVS. It also wished to be informed and involved during the implementation and monitoring of decisions resulting from the study. For this "Park Users" sector, developing a sectoral interest statement (an exercise recommended by the mediator to the roundtable) was a helpful activity, in which their interest statement evolved dynamically over time.

In processes like the BBVRT, interest groups may be brought together within newly formed sectors, with newly designated sector chairs who may not be familiar with the various groups' philosophies and priorities. Therefore, it is critical to expend adequate time, effort, and other resources to ensure that sector and group representatives, as well as their constituents, meet to identify and work out issues and interests they wish to bring to the negotiation table. Further more, participants' perceptions of stakeholder interests or issues influence the legitimacy of any individual sector's involvement in the process. A number of participants in the BBVRT, for instance, felt that the tourist sector purported to stand for tourists, but was instead representing larger tourism business interests.

5. The role of science and the general public

Processes involving the need to examine both natural and social science information, especially by the participating public, face a couple of challenges related to (a) dissemination of the information and (b) availability of data. The establishment of a common information base (which should be updated regularly) of ecological, economic, social, cultural, and political data is necessary to facilitate informed decision-making. It is critical that all sectors have adequate access to the information and the resources required to interpret and evaluate it.

The relative availability of data greatly influences how issues are raised and addressed. A business representative in the BBVRT perceived the lack of park-related human use and other social science data to be detrimental to his sector's interests, especially in light of the environmental sector's strong presentation of many years of ecological research. Not surprisingly, the majority of the roundtable's time was spent discussing ecological issues.

What, then, is the relationship between science and the public in dealing with national park issues? Science should provide information that stakeholders and the general public can draw upon in order to make decisions.

Hence, what the science "means," what actions should be taken, and what the directions of scientific research in the national parks should be are not the purview of scientists alone m the public needs to be involved when decisions are being made that affect it.

Responsible Stewardship

As the need for constraining tourism growth and improving visitor management strategies intensifies in parks, contestable and ethical issues abound. Who gets to visit? At what cost? For what purpose? And who decides?

The 1988 amendment to Canada's National Parks Act makes ecological integrity the first priority in national parks, placing emphasis on society's growing need and desire for ecosystem preservation. While it appears to imply that tourism development is secondary, the pressure for parks to pay for themselves and their conservation needs tends to encourage further tourism expansion. Although tourism may be a more socially acceptable activity in national parks (compared to activities like gambling, mining, or logging), what often matters in environmental impact is the scale and intensity of the activity. There is much evidence to support that we are "loving our parks to death," both through visitor numbers and types of activities. It would seem, therefore, that environmental protection and visitor management issues must be dealt with. However, in a democratic and pluralistic society, where established orders are increasingly called into question, the pressing issue may not be what to do, but rather how to make decisions and set standards and policies to ensure the stewardship and sustainable "enjoyment" of our national parks by present and future generations.

In addition to political and business interests (for a positive destination image and healthy park-based tourism revenues), there are a multitude of other stakeholders in national parks, such as community residents in or around the parks, recreation seekers, tourists, environmental groups, and scientists. Where do their voices fit in the decision-making regarding how national parks are governed and what constitutes appropriate activities in a national park?

Multi-stakeholder roundtables offer one route for addressing conflict among stakeholders and enabling public input into decision-making. However, great care and attention must be paid to ensure that participation is meaningful and that mechanisms are set up for implementing and monitoring the decisions of the process.

References

Bella, Leslie. 1987. Parks for Profit. Montreal, Canada: Harvest House.

BBVS (Banff Bow Valley Study). 1996. Banff Bow Valley: At the Crossroads. Summary Report of the Banff Bow Valley Task Force.

BBVS. 1996. Banff Bow Valley: At the Crossroads. Summary Report of the Banff Bow Valley Task Force.

Cormick, Gerald; Dale, Norman; Edmond, Paul; Sigurdson, S. Glenn and Stuart, Barry D. 1996. Building Consensus for a Sustainable Future: Putting Principles into Practice. Ottawa, Ontario: National Round Table on the Environment end the Economy.

Margolis, Jon. 1997. "With Solitude for All." Audubon, July-Aug.

Sax, Joseph. 1988. Mountains Without Handrails: Reflections on the National Parks. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Wall, Geoffrey. 1997. "Is Ecotourism Sustainable?" Environmental Management, 21 (4): 483-491.

Watkins, T.H. 1997. "National Parks, National Paradox." Audubon, July-Aug.

WTO. 1997. Agenda 21 for the Travel and Tourism Industry. Published by the World Tourism Organization (WTO), the World Travel and Tourism Council, and the Earth Council: p. 30.