Scoping Recreational Disturbance of Shorebirds to Inform the Agenda for Research and Management in Tropical Asia

Abstract

In addition to scoping the impacts of the four most reported sources of recreational disturbance on shorebirds, this study also advances the concept of Tropical Asia (TA) to collectively describe tourist destinations in the ecologically and geopolitically diverse part of the planet that incorporates the tourism megaregion of South and Southeast Asia. At a time of growing global concern about the rapid decline of shorebird populations, many governments in TA are embracing and capitalising on the exponential growth in demand for coastal recreation and tourism across the region. This political response is partly driven by efforts to deliver economic development, aligned to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, in order to secure the livelihoods of people living in less developed coastal areas. However, the rapid increase in visitor numbers and the development of infrastructure to support the booming demand for coastal tourism destinations in TA are further exacerbating the pressures on shorebird populations across the region. Despite these growing pressures and the wealth of research reporting on shorebird populations across the Asian flyways, this scoping study identified surprisingly little research that reports on the recreational disturbance (RD) of shorebirds in TA. While undertaken to inform future research, this study also provides a synthesis of management strategies reported in the global literature into a set of management recommendations for coastal destinations in TA.

Assessing the Suitability of Habitats for Porphyrio porphyrio indicus and Amaurornis phoenicurus in Urban Wetlands of Peninsular Malaysia

“…It depicted the roles of anthropogenic activities (the driver of LULC), forage availability, and vegetation cover in the occurrence and distribution of Amaurornis phoenicurus. Van Niekerk (2010), Mundava et al (2012), Tanalgo et al (2015), Catford et al (2017) and Marasinghe et al (2020) opined that anthropogenic pressure poses a threat to the population growth and habitat suitability of waterbirds. Hence, our findings support the findings made by Rajpar and Zakaria (2014) and Jahanbakhsh et al (2017) that vegetation covers affected habitat selection, distribution and diversity of waterbirds in Putrajaya wetland, Malaysia and Parishan International wetland, Iran.…”

Impact of human disturbance on the abundance of non‐breeding shorebirds in a subtropical wetland

“…Survival during the non‐breeding season limits many shorebird populations (Fernández & Lank, 2008). However, most information on effects of human disturbance on shorebirds comes from breeding and stopover sites in the Nearctic Region (Kimberly & Otis, 2007; Mengak & Dayer, 2020; Pfister et al, 1992; Yasué, 2006) and tropical Asia (Marasinghe et al, 2020). In contrast, little research on impacts of disturbance on shorebird abundance exists from Neotropical non‐breeding habitats in developing countries with increasing human activities in high‐value shorebird areas.…”

Effects of Recreational Camping on the Environmental Values of National Parks in Sri Lanka

“…The use of natural areas for recreation is a growing global tourism phenomenon ( Fredman & Tyrväinen 2010 ; Newsome et al . 2013 ; Margaryan & Fredman 2017 ; Marasinghe et al . 2020 ).…”

“…This evolving trend places natural area tourism in a strategic position to positively support biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of protected areas, especially in the biodiversity-rich tropics ( Perera et al . 2015 ; Marasinghe et al . 2020 ).…”

“…Only a few studies thus far have attempted to assess the biophysical impacts of camping in the Asian tropics ( Rahman & Vacik 2009 ). As the majority of published recreation ecology research is from the U.S. and Australia, protected area managers and researchers in Tropical Asia (after Marasinghe et al . 2020 ) have frequently had to rely on findings drawn from research conducted in alpine or temperate settings.…”