Managing Sustainable Use on Community Conservation Lands

This workshop is designed to assist communities and resource managers in the evaluation of planning processes, to design site specific tools to ensure that planning use designs integrate considerations for sustainability. The emphasis is on what actions can be taken to ensure that visitor use on conservation lands sustain or enhance the ecology, economy, local aesthetic, history, and sense of place of the resource. A brief background of planning for sustainability will set the stage for contemporary application. The workshop will share models of visitor management that have been developed and implemented by the Global Sustainable Tourism Council, international tourism boards, and by the National Geographic Society, with links to web-based systems that integrate local knowledge and authenticity of place. Participants will hear of community engagement events that demonstrate the practice of integrating the 4 pillars of sustainability, the quadruple bottom line: social values, environmental values, economic values, and future generation needs. Discussions will include considerations for the balance of local v. promoted visitor use on natural and cultural heritage landscapes. In 2014 San Juan County became the first in the United States to self-identify as a Leave No Trace county, integrating principals of conservation, protection and restoration to all visitor designs. This came about through an education initiative of the San Juan Islands Terrestrial Managers Group, hosts of this workshop. Partners of this group and Canadian colleagues will share examples of programs that have occurred in the islands with these goals in mind. The final component of the workshop will be the crafting of a hypothetical sustainability measurement tool that can be used to facilitate consensus building to planning processes. Participants will reflect on values and concepts that resonate for their regions, and integrate reflection of future needs for best outcomes