A set of articles in a previous issue of Parks Stewardship Forum (volume 37, number 1, 2021) focused on how to implement the 2019 Chitwan Declaration of the 9th World Ranger Congress covering issues such as rangers’ role in conservation, relationships with communities, and challenges to professionalize the career. Here I build on those articles by collaborating with four Latin American rangers so that they can tell their stories of how they became rangers and what they face. The four represent different park systems, habitat types, educational levels, gender issues, community relationships, and major duties, among other aspects. Their stories lend a human face to the earlier general discussions.

Freeman Tilden argues in his Fifth Principle of Interpretation the importance of interpreting wholes for whole people. Yet his examples reveal that in demonstrating wholeness in the form of an interpretive theme, he uses but one perspective for each of his interpreted objects (i.e., birds and places). Based on the premise that every object is enacted through one of multiple possible perspectives, to interpret from a single perspective then must be partial because it reveals only a part of an object, thus falling short of wholeness. This multiplicity of perspectives results in a wholeness interpretation spectrum from a single to a near infinite number of perspectives along which all interpreters fall. This article posits four levels on this scale from pre-interpretation whereby no real interpretation occurs to a post-interpretive enactment whereby the interpreter integrates multiple non-consensus perspectives for a much richer or more whole—holistic—interpretation.

Abstract Simplistic thinking in terms of problem definition and solution development has so far plagued overtourism, and therefore a holistic approach is proposed. Some factors that influence overtourism and some strategies to confront overtourism are identified along two interior and two exterior dimensions across individual and collective realms.

should not been seen as an opposing influence to those already presented in the tourism literature, but as a supporting aspect that complements and solidifies the stated motivations for volunteer tourism (2013, p. 178). The case study took a qualitative approach, in the form of a narrative inquiry (2013, p. 178) and while the limitations of such a method are acknowledged, the study revealed how the tourist’s religious beliefs are integrated into their experience of volunteer tourism. Wearing et al. (2013, p. 184) found that aspects of religiosity can influence a participant’s world view, and as a consequence this personal world view establishes motivations for participating in volunteer tourism. The research also reveals that the discourse on volunteer tourism has moved beyond the neo-colonial attitudes embedded in neoliberal market tourism, and that volunteer tourism can be regarded as a model for peace with further research. This book contributes to the research on tourism and leisure studies, but it goes significantly deeper than the usual tourist/tourism studies because of the emphasis on peace. It is refreshing to read research that engages with ways where social justice and international citizenship can be encouraged and developed, and while there is still further research to be done, this collection demonstrates that tourism can be a catalyst for peace in developing nations.

Organizers of the third annual international conference of the European Association for Heritage Interpretation, based in Germany, selected a town to host the conference that not only reduced costs but oozed with interpretive possibility. Sigtuna is Sweden’s oldest city and considers itself an outdoor museum with historic downtown, large lake, ancient ruins, and runes. They housed the conference in an off-season high school that kept most participants in close proximity and glowed with educational purpose as well as midsummer energy in a country otherwise cursed by long, dark winters. Off site, the local conference partner, the Swedish Center for Nature Interpretation, coordinated a grand variety of provocative sites for study trips and post-trip excursions including Skansen, the world’s first open air museum, located in Stockholm’s heart; the Birka World Heritage Site, which contains the largest and most complete archaeological remains of a Viking community; Vasa Museum, Sweden’s most popular museum built around a seventeenth century warship that sank 30 minutes after its launch from Stockholm; Tyresta National Park, the closest park to the capital, is the gateway to Sweden’s protected areas; among others. While payment was a bit of a hassle for some foreigners since organizers did not accept credit card payments, the food was good; programming unfolded with precision, and at least from a participant’s view, the conference went off without noticeable bumps. The printed programme radiated professionalism due to its clean, attractive look and useful contents, belying the young association’s nary three years of existence. The theme — Sharing Our Natural and Cultural Heritage: Interpretation Can Make Us Citizens of the World — proved particularly apt given the impressive diversity of international representation. Delegates arrived from over 30 countries, not just within Europe. Korea had a delegation of more than 20 people, Costa Rica had six (baby included), as well as representatives from Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, USA, Russia, Mexico, and across Europe, notably from the UK and Sweden. Despite the theme’s appropriateness and given this author’s belief that an interpretive crowd j. of community arch. and heritage, Vol. 1 No. 1, February, 2014, 100–102

Dentro de nuestro campo de trabajo, es tentador guardar la idea de que la interpretacion evoluciona y cambia de acuerdo a las acciones de nuestros pensadores y programas propios, independientes de las trayectorias en las que otros campos como la educacion ambiental, la silvicultura, la sociologia, o incluso el estilo de cabello podrian seguir. Pero un instante fuera de nuestra forma convencional de pensar podria revelar que toda la sociedad evoluciona en una espiral mas grande, un gran camino historico que guia el futuro. Para divisar esta transformacion se requiere que seamos conscientes de la dimension universal de la evolucion, mas alla de Darwin. Entonces, podemos entender de donde ha venido y hacia donde marcha la interpretacion. Y, con suerte, podremos ayudar a que llegue lo antes posible.

Antes de que el joven Tim Merriman se convirtiera en director ejecutivo de la Asociacion Nacional de Interpretacion (NAI), hace 30 anos fue interprete en los parques de Illinois y uno de cuatro supervivientes. Ocurrio un recorte presupuestario y 18 de los 22 interpretes a tiempo completo y 55 trabajadores temporales perdieron sus trabajos. El director asociado deseaba abolir la interpretacion en los 77 sitios pero dejo en paz al programa de Merriman. Temi cortarlo, temi la reaccion local, dice el director. El programa habia hecho mucho por la comunidad. Los recortes presupuestarios periodicamente afectan a las agencias publicas y los interpretes son victimas de ello, porque no se les considera prioritarios. Si no los recortan de inmediato, no se les toma en cuenta cuando se deben tomar decisiones administrativas, o devengan salarios menores que los de sus semejantes en areas comparables. Asi, pues, no sorprende que a los interpretes se les falte el respeto, porque los administradores de parques ven la interpretacion del patrimonio como un entretenimiento que no empata con sus objetivos mas basicos. Este problema ha existido durante decadas y ahora hay otros factores que tambien ejercen presion para que los interpretes justifiquen su presencia.

This chapter argues the distinction between environmental interpretation and education, which matters for conservation. More specifically, the chapter shows that environmental interpretation, rather than environmental education, is the more appropriate strategy for connecting ecotourism with conservation in protected areas. Also, it shows that in a public-use planning context, education can be explicitly tied to conservation.

A principal function of heritage interpretation should be to link people and places in order to conserve those places. The motive to conserve does not arise only from within the interpretation field. Due to increasing urgency of biological and cultural heritage loss, the wider resource management field requires participation of all conservation-related tools, interpretation included. Any conceptual model concerned with integrating interpretation into conservation programs, then, must explain how interpretation's central elements of place meanings and audiences directly contribute to conservation. This paper, then, presents a conceptual interpretive planning model that involves audiences in place conservation by leveraging culturally constructed place meanings (in an interpretive framework) to promote desirable actions that meet conservation objectives found in a place's policy framework. It further describes how interpretive planning can facilitate people's natural process of constructing meaning, that when combined with appropriate place-based cultural narratives, interpretive media, and conservation knowledge, can result in audiences’ increased likelihood to participate in conservation.

This chapter argues that an expanded definition of an ecotour guide's quality should include conservation success, but this is only achievable if ecotourism programme managers and operators use systems thinking. A case study is presented of one international conservation organization (RARE Center for Tropical Conservation) that transformed its guide training programme from a reductionist to a more holistic approach.

Unexpected barriers often emerge to frustrate implementation of strategic park plans. Park managers, donors and planning consultants unwittingly create many of these barriers during the planning process. Barriers grow out of the assumptions that these players hold about the park planning process, the nature of park plans, the format of plans and the role of consultants and learning in the process. If park planning proponents examine their own mental models for planning, then they can make many of these barriers visible and manageable. Unexpected barriers then become expected challenges during the planning process. A new mental model about park planning assumes that plan implementation depends on the park’s capacity to use and regard plans as sophisticated management tools. In order to build such technical management capacity, managers, donors and facilitators must integrate systemic learning as a necessary process for the development of capacity. This article illustrates with causal loop diagrams both the traditional and new mental models and identifies barriers to plan implementation, their underlying assumptions and response strategies to them. Ultimately for a new mental model to emerge, park planners must overthrow assumptions not only fundamental to planning but fundamental to western civilization.

Environmental interpretation has its roots in conservation. Today most interpreters recognize its importance in conserving natural and cultural resources. Nonetheless the field has invested little in contemplating how interpretation can be a mechanism for conservation. Meanwhile in the biological conservation field, the Conservation Measures Partnership has been designing guidelines for the development and management of effective conservation programs. A principal step in designing interpretation-based conservation programs is to conceptualize relationships of conservation strategies using interpretation. This article presents four major strategies and recommends ways in which the interpretation field can continue to improve interpretation's effectiveness as a conservation strategy. [interpretation, conservation, Conservation Measures Partnership, preservation, stewardship, concept model, environmental education]