Managing Natural Capital for Nature-Based Recreation in the Anthropocene

Nature-based recreation is a popular way for people to interact with the environment that also confers numerous economic and health benefits. It is important that the social-ecological systems (SES) that host nature-based recreation be managed effectively, both to preserve the benefits of this important human-environment interaction, and to avoid the potential negative outcomes of recreational commons. The SES that host nature-based recreation are characterized by complex and dynamic feedbacks that complicate their management. Managing these systems is made more complex by the suite of external, multi-scalar, and anthropogenic forces (e.g., climate change, trans-boundary pollution) that plague them with increasing frequency. This dissertation investigates the importance of accounting for this full range of system feedbacks when managing for nature-based recreation. I begin with a broad discussion of the types of dilemmas faced by managers of nature-based recreation. I create a systems-thinking typology of management dilemmas that apply across different recreation modes and system contexts, and which are characterized as feedbacks within the broader recreational system. My findings in this chapter have important implications for understanding and anticipating how different exogenous and endogenous shocks (including management interventions, themselves) may work through or change the processes in SES that host nature-based recreation. In the following two chapters, I narrow my focus to examine case studies of specific dilemma archetypes and proposed management interventions. First, I perform an ex ante analysis of a prospective policy response to a regulatory spiral of excess recreational fishing effort and abridged fishing seasons in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. I estimate behavioral models of fishers’ responses to a prospective incentive-based intervention, and find evidence that such a policy could improve multiple fishery outcomes. Second, I perform an ex post program evaluation of an invasive species bounty program. My results suggest that the program underperformed because it failed to overcome countervailing incentives. Together, my case study analyses reveal the value of modeling for designing policy for these complex SES and show the importance of accounting for the full set of system feedbacks (including the incentives that drive recreator behaviors and the impacts of those behaviors) when managing nature-based recreation.