ESTABLISHING MANAGEMENT STANDARDS - SELECTED EXAMPLES OF THE NORMATIVE APPROACH

The importance of developing evaluative standards for judging the acce ptability of impacts caused by recreation is common to all recent natu ral resource management frameworks. A normative model has been advance d as a useful way to conceptualize, collect, and organize empirical da ta representing standards for resource management issues. This article summarizes the findings from social and ecological research to illust rate the utility of the normative approach from a manager's perspectiv e. The social data (e.g., encounter norms, proximity norms, and tolera nces for launch wait times) were obtained from 13 different study site s, while the ecological data (e.g., tolerances for the amount of bare ground, size of fire rings, instream flows, and wildlife management pr actices) were collected at three specific sites and from one statewide survey. Findings from the social research indicated that encounter no rms exist for particular types of contacts with certain types of visit ors at particular places and for certain types of experiences. The rec reationists reported norms for acceptable distances between individual s, encounters with others at campsites or attractions, and waiting tim es to run rapids. These social norm evaluation techniques were also sh own to be transferable to normative evaluations of ecological impacts. The users had opinions about ecological impacts and were willing to e xpress them. In addition, the ecological norms were of moderate to hig h intensity. It is argued that the usefulness of normative approaches lies in their ability to characterize group agreement about appropriat e use conditions or impact levels for a particular recreation experien ce, thus providing the evaluative information needed to establish mana gement standards.