Tourism at historic religious sites requires balancing the needs of historic preservation, the tourist experience, and community use of the site. The sacredness of these places is defined by the behaviors that occur there, the experience of users and visitors, and the meanings associated with the place by various groups. This research examines the tourist experience and perception of sacredness by Western tourists at Thai Buddhist sites. The tourist experience related to perceived authenticity, the aesthetics of the place, and its natural features, and the perceived sacredness related to the continued religious use of the site, presence of religious symbols, and historic preservation. Tourists and tourist-related commercial activities were the main detractors of the tourist experience and perceived sacredness.

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DANIEL LEVI is an environmental psychologist. He is a professor in the Psychology and Human Development Department at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, California. His research areas include the impact of technological change on work and the relationship between technology and environmental issues. SARA KOCHER is a landscape planner and environmental psychologist. She works as a planning consultant with Crawford, Multari, Clark and Mohr in San Luis Obispo, California. Her areas of interest include visual resource assessment, geographical information systems, and public attitude surveys.In the not so distant future, computer technology will allow most people to experience virtual environments. By wearing electronic goggles, headsets, gloves, and shoes, people will be able to experience being in a computergenerated place and perform simulated activities. The use of this technology will allow people a new opportunity for experiencing nature-virtual nature. The potential widespread use of virtual nature raises three important 203

Brownfields have the potential to be reused as nature preserves or recreation areas. This reuse depends on the public's perceptions of risk and their willingness to support the new uses of the sites. This study examines attitudes about the reuse of large coastal brownfields from local and nonlocal students and the public. The sites include the buffer area surrounding a nuclear power plant, an area contaminated by a chemical spill, and a ranch (which was used as a control site). The results show that all the samples are more supportive of the establishment of nature preserves with human access than either nature preserves without access or developed recreation areas. Limits on human access to the sites are more acceptable for the contaminated sites and more acceptable to the nonlocal samples.Natural areas near the coast are being threatened by increasing development for residences and tourism. Brownfields, or contaminated sites, along the coast could be cleaned and used as nature preserves and recreation areas. The potential for using brownfields as recreation areas depends on people's perceptions of risk at these sites. Existing examples show that people are willing to use some types of brownfields as recreation areas.