Planning and land management 29has its own somewhat distinct priority goals. To prevent overuse, consider two
useful spatial attributes. Typically people are concentrated outside a protected
area, especially in one direction (Figure2.1). Second, the most valuable resources
are primarily in the central portion of a protected area. Therefore management
concentrates on controlling people, their movements, and their effects near the
boundary on that one side.
Three potentialspatial filtersexist for protected areas (Schonewald-Cox and
Bayless1986,Forman1995). First the zone just outside the administrative bound-
ary may be planned and managed to reduce somewhat the number of people
reaching the boundary. Approaches might include mainly off-limits land uses,
roads parallel rather than perpendicular to the boundary, and the presence of
‘‘ decoy” lands designed to be so appealing and interesting that many people
never get beyond them. Second, the boundary itself can be a filter, such as
stopping for an entrance fee, creating a linear inhospitable wetland, and main-
taining few access points. Third and most useful is to make the edge portion
of the protected area wonderful, so very few people head on into the valuable
central resource area. For instance, edge portions may have most of the accessi-
ble roads, several good loop walking trails, fishing areas, wildlife-viewing towers,
and countless other attractive attributes. In effect, thesemagnets in the edgeare
resources provided to attract the public’s interest and appreciation sufficiently
to remainnear the boundary, thus conserving the center of a protected area
(Forman1995).
Land management also deals with the key resources protected, and often
includes lots of planning, monitoring, and research. Nevertheless, spatial
arrangements and movements of people are the main key to successful land man-
agement (Dale and Haeuber 2001, Karr 2002, Liu and Taylor 2003). Normally it is
much easier and less costly to lock an access-road gate, give a portable commu-
nication device to a ranger, or provide educational information at one strategic
point, than it is, for example, to continually repair eroded-soil areas, artificially
manipulate wildlife populations, or restore overused riparian vegetation.
Let us look more closely at three types of protected lands common in urban
regions, recreation sites, nature reserves, and wetlands. These illustrate some of
thepreceding points plus additional ones.
Recreation sites
The challenge in recreation sites is to encourage large numbers of people
toenjoy a limited set of types of recreation in a finite space without ‘‘loving the
place to death,” i.e., degrading the site and its resources (Knight and Gutzwiller
1995,Liddle1997). Separating intensive recreation from nature-based recreation
is a major principle. Intensive recreation spots, such as ballfields, playgrounds,