Moments in Tim with Dave Van Cleve: Have you ever VERPed in Public?
David Van Cleve has many ties to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and Anza-Borrego Foundation. In the 1980s, he was an environmental scientist in the San Diego regional office, where he collaborated with park staff on many significant natural resource projects. In 1989, he was selected to serve as the superintendent of the state park. In 1994, his responsibilities were expanded to include management of six other state parks (Mt. San Jacinto, Cuyamaca Rancho, Palomar Mountain, Salton Sea, Picacho, and Indio Hills) in addition to Anza-Borrego. After retiring from state service, he worked for The Nature Conservancy as Ecoregional Director for the South Coast Ecoregion and added over 1,000 acres to the park. Each month, Dave will fill in some important issues in the history Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, which often dove-tail with the history of ABF. We are grateful for his wealth of knowledge of the Park and willingness to share with us!
Excuse me, before I answer that question, what is that? VERP stands for Visitor Experience and Resource Protection. Developed by the National Park Service in the 1990s, it is an attempt to answer a very basic, important, yet elusive, park management question. How many people can visit a park or a defined section of the park at any given time without damaging the resources for which the park was founded, while providing visitors with an excellent park experience? VERP is not merely intended to protect resources. As the acronym is set up, it also protects the visitor experience – wedding the two goals by recognizing that the density of use can directly impact natural resources and compromise the visitor’s experience of those resources. Of course, these resources are often the assets that draw visitors to the park.
Jim Whitehead, a legendary California State Parks leader, is well remembered for his passion for protecting park resources. Yet he also advocated making the park experience excellent for visitors. From the park entrance sign to the first staff contact at the entrance station, to the spotless restroom, to the restorative power of the natural world, to a deeper understanding of historic events and cultures, visitors form an opinion of their park experience. Park supporters are crucial to the long-term sustainability of the Park Service. Whitehead’s focus on the visitor’s park experience was not idle talk; every state park pickup truck had the words, “Parks are for People” painted on its tailgate.
To answer these questions, park managers wanted to know at what point the number of visitors in a particular section of the park is optimal. As expected, a large number of visitors did not lead to high visitor satisfaction. Surprisingly, once the VERP process was tested in the field, managers also learned when the number of visitors was too low!
Let’s back up. 50 years ago, park managers tried to deal with this conundrum with a concept called “carrying capacity.” Carrying capacity was developed in the cattle industry and implemented by the federal agencies that managed cattle leases on public lands, most often the Bureau of Land Management or the US Forest Service, through grazing contracts. Cattle owners typically sought to maximize profits, while land managers sought to ensure that the resource – the land and the forage it provided – was used sustainably. They wanted to prevent the overgrazing of land. This would be a win for all parties.
With cattle, it wasn’t that difficult. And the results were numbers that could be used to build capacity to achieve maximum profit with minimal damage over a sustainable period. Formulas were developed and refined through the years. How many acres, how much forage per acre, the timing of cattle presence, and soil erosion were among the factors used. People knew how much a cow ate; the rest was pretty easy. They also used these data to rotate herds. Particularly in drier climates, the land would need a break from cattle to return to a productive condition.
At some point, park managers wondered if carrying capacity could be translated to the human experience on public lands. But what are the reliable measurements – soil compaction, presence (and absence) of wildlife, damage to flora? And here is the most significant problem – humans are not as predictable as cattle. I guess that’s good.
Let’s take a nature trail in a redwood park. On Sunday, you have 1,000 visitors take the nature trail. They read the interpretive signs, stay inside the trail boundary, pick up their trash, and obey all the rules.
The next day, only one person is on the trail. He takes advantage of that condition to take out his saw and cut off 20 redwood burls, which he throws into his backpack and takes home to polish and sell. Obviously, pure numbers were not the answer.
Next was LAC – Limits of Acceptable Change. Set up baseline measurement points for monitoring change. Again, the physical measurements were too variable due to human behavior.
In the State Park System, the movement in the ‘90s focused on gathering data through surveys. Measure the human experience over time and respond in ways that lead to greater visitor satisfaction. Parks would have surveys for everything. Was the restroom clean enough? Was the park staff friendly enough? Did the campsite reservation system meet your needs? And later, how was the park’s website and WiFi?
The trouble was that it was very time-consuming. To be useful, you had to measure the same answers repeatedly over time to analyze trends. Are we doing better or worse on measured factors? While valuable, certain variables could not be controlled. Are the people who fill out surveys more apt to respond to a negative experience? Respondents are not selected randomly, which means your data are not necessarily statistically reliable.
In my own experience, carrying capacities were often set by park facilities – usually parking lots. At Torrey Pines, my first ranger assignment in the early ‘70s, the parking lots would fill up, and we would turn cars away until more parking became available. No attempts were made to measure how many people entered the park by walking or bicycling in. It seemed to work well. The park did not feel crowded, even when parking lots were full. Since I worked there, the parking at the bottom of Torrey Pines grade has been enlarged to accommodate higher demand. The result, as one would suspect, is that many more people now visit the sensitive parts of the reserve.
At Mount Jacinto State Park, an aerial tramway capable of disgorging thousands of visitors per day looms above the Coachella Valley. While many of the riders visit the gift shop at the mountain station, eat a hot dog, and take the next tram down, a fair number walk down a steep ramp to walk through the beautiful forest and along the stream.
For serious hikers and backpackers, the tramway is a gift. It does 6,000 feet of elevation gain for you, and a hike to the nearest wilderness campground, Round Valley, is a gentle two miles. In the mid ‘70s, park managers decided something needed to be done to preserve the “wilderness experience” for all. The park implemented a permit system for all who ventured into its designated wilderness. There is no limit on the number of day-hikers, but there is on campers. Day users need a permit so that rangers can be reasonably sure visitors have a map and a copy of the park regulations.
The “campsites” at Round Valley campground were spread out across the campground. Rangers placed camping spots where seeing and hearing other campers was at a minimum. The campsites were also moved away from the edges of a beautiful meadow to foster a sense of solitude. Again, there was no scientifically gathered data to support these decisions. Still, we heard from almost all visitors that we had improved their wilderness experience. The park signs at Mt. San Jacinto – “May the Peace of the Wilderness Be With You” reflect the desire for an easy, peaceful feeling. People don’t go to the wilderness to feel crowded or listen to the neighboring camper’s music.
Finally, the National Park Service, responding to the needs of park managers and to legislation, tried VERP. Here’s how it worked. Let’s say we are the park superintendent at Arches National Park. We want to know if our most popular trail, the lovely hike to Delicate Arch – the arch on the Utah state license plate – is providing a good visitor experience.
National Park staff set up a table at the trailhead and randomly selected park visitors to take a short survey. They were shown five photographs of the trail to Delicate Arch. You can see the entire trail from the parking lot. The photographs were exactly the same, except the staff photo-shopped (added electronically) hikers into the photos. The first photo had no visitors; the second, 10; the third, 100; the fourth, 500; and the fifth, 1,000. The selected visitors ranked their favorite scenario.
Not surprisingly, 1,000 people on the trail was the least favorite, by far. But the second least favorite was zero people. When asked why that was unpopular, they said zero usage meant danger. Something bad is about to happen. When asked where they lived, the group was largely urban. Where they come from, you don’t go into areas without other people around. Lesson learned: know your audience.
A common analogy for the social carrying capacity concept is a cocktail party. If the party is too crowded, it’s hard to converse, and the line at the bar is way too long. Not a good experience. On the other hand, if only two or three other people are there, it’s not that much fun, and everyone soon leaves.
During the General Plan process for Anza-Borrego, the planning team conducted similar surveys at several key trailheads throughout the Park. Through those surveys, the team gained an idea of visitors’ general expectations regarding solitude. In contrast with Arches National Park, where people expect high visitation at a world-renowned site, visitors to Anza-Borrego demonstrated a lower tolerance for crowds; solitude was highly valued. “A Visitor Study for ABDSP” conducted by the University of Montana, indicated that park visitors will accept low to moderate levels of intrusion, i.e., land disturbance and crowding.
Hard to believe, but it’s already 25 years since VERP was used as a planning tool at Anza-Borrego during the development of the Park’s general plan. Ideally, for VERP and other planning tools, monitoring is key to long-term success. Conducting VERP is not a one-off; we need to establish “desired conditions” for each park management area and monitor changes over time to determine whether those conditions are being realized. If not, a “feedback loop” should be utilized to update the planning models. Now that dark sky and quiet zones principles have been adopted by the Park, it is even more important to determine whether the Park is meeting expectations.