Biodiversity attracts visitors to national parks

Abstract

To cope with the funding constraints of biodiversity protection, nature-based tourism, which is regarded as an important ecosystem service, is considered as an option for creating revenues for biodiversity conservation. Here we show that Finnish national parks (NPs) with high biodiversity values are more attractive for visitors than parks with lower biodiversity values, providing evidence on the direct linkage between biodiversity protection and the provisioning of ecosystem services in protected areas. We found that the number of visits NPs received annually, i.e., their attractiveness, was positively associated with the number of Natura2000 habitat types and occurrences of species considered threatened in Finland according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List Categories and Criteria. Interestingly, recreational use also overlapped spatially with areas containing high biodiversity values: the number of occurrences of threatened species and Natura2000 habitat types were on average higher close to recreational routes than among randomly picked control areas within NPs. Our results emphasise the need for careful planning and park management in protecting biodiversity in NPs. However, these connections between biodiversity and recreational use of Communicated by

Recreational Use of the Countryside: No Evidence that High Nature Value Enhances a Key Ecosystem Service

“…Conservation importance may not strengthen the broader cultural service of recreational opportunities obtained from ecosystems if this is not recognised or sought by most recreationists or the general public. Whilst biodiversity is an important factor for nature tourists visiting national parks in Finland [8] and protected areas in Uganda [7] this is based on a self-selected sample of nature enthusiasts. Similarly, nature-watching is a popular recreation in the UK [39].…”

“…Interacting with nature benefits physical health (reducing stress levels and mortality), cognitive performance (reducing mental fatigue) and well-being (elevated mood and self-esteem) [5,6]. On a global scale, visits to protected natural areas (PAs) are on the increase [4] and there is evidence that PAs holding greater levels of biodiversity are preferentially visited by nature-based tourists [7,8]. In the UK, statutory conservation policies increasingly emphasise societal benefits of connection to nature [3,9].…”

Combining geodiversity with climate and topography to account for threatened species richness

“…There was no bias in relation to the number of species occurrences and proximity to recreational routes (this was examined for vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, and fungi by Siikamäki et al. []).…”

Economic Value of Parks via Human Mental Health: An Analytical Framework

“…Data on use and visitation for parks and reserves are available for some countries only (Balmford et al, 2009(Balmford et al, , 2015, and the degree of detail differs greatly between and within nations. Park use varies with attractions, notably biodiversity (Stevens et al, 2014;Siikamäki et al, 2015; proximity and access (Bancroft et al, 2015;Rossi et al, 2015), and wealth (Poudyal et al, 2013). Use of greenspace varies with many local factors (Jones et al, 2009;Lin et al, 2014;McCormack et al, 2014;Veitch et al, 2015).…”