Jim Macbeth

This chapter explores the complexities of hosting motorised events in green spaces, highlighting the conflicting values involved. It uses social capital theory and environmental science to examine the social, political, and ecological impacts of these events. The chapter emphasises the need for a nuanced understanding of value conflicts and the importance of adopting sustainable event planning practices. It calls for a more critical approach to evaluating the benefits and drawbacks of motorised events in protected areas, considering issues of diversity, equity, and environmental sustainability.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature World Parks Congress in 2014 reported that the quality of management of protected areas is crucial in halting the loss of the world’s biodiversity and meeting global environmental challenges. However, increasingly high-impact activities, including motorized recreation are occurring in protected areas such as national parks, creating an ongoing clash of values and further compromising protected area management. This paper discusses the values of protected areas in the context of increasingly high-impact motorized usage, the impact of divergent values placed on green spaces such as national parks, and perceptions about these spaces. Given the changing global context of this millennium, and increasing populations requiring space for high-impact activities including motorized recreation, rethinking recreation in protected areas is needed. A protected area classification to accommodate high-impact activities away from vulnerable natural areas may assist in maintaining protected area quality.

A four-tiered approach to understanding motorised recreation in natural and protected areas is introduced, using examples of motor events from Australia to demonstrate each conceptual level. The aim is to increase understanding of motorsport and motorised recreation phenomena that impact natural and, in particular, protected areas and other users of the natural environment. An illustrative study approach shows the interrelatedness of multi-level motorised recreation and its governance, from local community motor clubs and amateur motor racing competition through to international hallmark motor racing events and how their sociocultural significance influences protected area management. The illustrative examples show user groups engaged in governance and policy issues of motorised recreation in natural and protected areas. These groups include both motor clubs involved with environmental management of natural and protected areas, as well as professional and community groups opposed to motorised recreation in protected areas. An agenda for further research is identified, including policy and governance of motorsport, large-scale events and protected area management and impacts of motorised recreation and events on the environment and the community including those who access the natural environment for more contemplative and quiet leisure pursuits.

This story is about protected area managers and commercial tour operators and how they interact with each other in the Shark Bay World Heritage area in Western Australia. The focus of this case study is to illustrate the role power plays between these two parties with both offering nature-based tourism activities in the area. This story is the respondents’ story, as portrayed by them, and is formed around their views, perceptions and opinions.

Camping in natural areas such as national parks is an important social activity and provides a way of reconnecting with nature to achieve personal, social, and health benefits. Experience and meanings are not well understood regarding camping in natural areas, and recent research is limited. The aim of this qualitative study was to examine the motivations, experiences, and higher-order meanings of camping in two national parks in Western Australia, with a particular focus on the last of these. Important associated motivations included the “push” factor of addressing feelings of disconnection from nature, others, and self; and the “pull” factor of experiencing nature. Re-creation, reconnection and reaffirmation were key higher-order meanings. A deeper understanding of the camping experience highlights the importance of the people-natural environment relationship and shows how camping can benefit individuals and society.

From Thursday through Sunday this week the Australian Grand Prix will take over Melbourne’s Albert Park, bringing with it the glamour of fast cars, grid girls and Formula One drivers Raikkonen, Alonso, Hamilton, Webber and … noise and vibration. Which is strange, because public spaces such as national and urban parks, marine parks and coastal areas have traditionally been understood as an escape from the noise and pressure of urban life, used for appreciative recreation, tranquillity and conservation of the environment. While authors on The Conversation have suggested a need for more people in parks, the research of my co-authors and I indicates a problem with the rising tide of events that see a concentration of users who are motorised, on mountain bikes or part of running events. Does the impact of these activities on our environment and community outweigh the benefits?

This report presents the findings of an interview--‐based study undertaken of campers’ experiences in two Western Australian national parks: Warren National Park and Karijini National Park. The overall aim of the study was to describe and analyse the desired and realised experiences of these campers and explore the meanings that campers attributed to these experiences. This report also describes the characteristics of these camping visitors, their perceptions of management and their opinions regarding camping in national parks compared with caravan parks.

The purpose of this Research Probe is to address a simple or, on reflection, perhaps simplistic question. As the editor of this journal originally asked when inviting contributions and rejoinders, is tourism a ‘sinner’ or is it unjustly ‘sinned against’? In other words, since the late nineteenth century, modem tourism has attracted criticism in one form or another, initially in the form of social comment, subsequently in both academic and journalistic circles. Indeed, significant attention has been paid by tourism scholars and others to the negative consequences of tourism (and, of course, means of mitigating such consequences), to the extent that it might be assumed that tourism inevitably ‘sins’ against the places and peoples where it occurs. So, the question is posed—it is appropriate to view tourism as such, as the harbinger of social, cultural and environmental problems, or is this unjust criticism? That is, is tourism' sinned against' by those who focus, on occasion in apocalyptic terms, on the problems that are to a lesser or greater extent the inevitable outcome of the development of tourism, and is it timely to rebalance the debate, to consider whether an assessment of tourism deserves a more supportive or positive foundation? Given the complexity of tourism, the enormously variable forms it takes and contexts within which it occurs and, of course, the multiplicity of perspectives from which it can be considered, there are no simple answers or ways of answering the question. Thus, the lead piece is purposefully written to stimulate debate, to be deliberately provocative. And as the three rejoinders by Noel Scott, Jim Macbeth and Peter Smith demonstrate, it is a question that is worth pursuing.

Hallmark events are deemed to be exceptional and to have dramatic impacts for the communities involved with them. Whereas studies abound that examine their more immediate effects, there are few that re-visit a community to evaluate the long-term or enduring effects. This paper presents a discussion of the impact of the America's Cup defence that hit Fremantle in Western Australia like a tsunami when Alan Bond's Australia II wrested the Cup from the New York Yacht Club in 1983, some twenty-nine years ago. This discussion takes the form of two distinct perspectives. One views the America's Cup as the catalyst of mythological proportions that changed the city's direction from a sleepy, rundown heritage port into a major tourist destination. The other views the Cup as just another wave, surfing along on the underlying global swells of changing technology and gentrification. This ethnographic paper looks back to before the Cup win in 1983 (and its loss again in 1987) and at Fremantle post-Cup to explore these two versions of Fremantle's genesis as a tourist city.