Proactive Planning for Recreation on Protected Lands-Wildlife Management Areas in New Jersey

Abstract

Individual states in the US protect lands for wildlife conservation and recreation. These state lands, often known as Wildlife Management Areas, have historically been used for consumptive recreational activities such as hunting and fishing. Today, states must consider how to appropriately manage these lands. In the State of New Jersey, we surveyed 4,198 users on-site, at WMAs, to determine their primary recreation activity, their demographics, and their willingness to pay for access to and management of these lands. Our findings indicate that there are more users participating in non-consumptive recreation activities and are willing to pay approximately $15 annually to use these WMA lands. Furthermore, many user groups are underrepresented. We recommend increasing outreach to these populations, developing a non-consumptive fee/donation system similar to existing programs in other states, and considering a management strategy that specifically targets seasonal and site use restrictions to avoid recreation conflicts.

Keywords:

• Human behavior in the environment
• land management practices
• outdoor recreation
• parks and protected areas
• tourism and recreation
• visitor use management

Notes

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge that this manuscript was adapted from the New Jersey Wildlife Management Area User Survey Final Report available at www.nj.gov/dep/fgw/pdf/2018/wma_user_surveyrpt18.pdf. Furthermore, we would like to thank Robert Longcor and David Golden from the DEP for their review of this document. We would also like to acknowledge the many Stockton students and alumni who helped with the extensive data collection on this project. Finally, we thank the associate editor and reviewers for their efforts to improve our manuscript.

Notes

1 Wildlife-related includes consumptive users (fishing, hunting, crabbing, etc.) and non-consumptive users (wildlife observers, interpretation, education). Wildlife related users do not include those that do not have wildlife as a contingent part of their primary activity, such as dog walking and mountain biking.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported with funds provided by the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife and the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program.