A profile of outdoor recreation in Akatarawa Forest

Abstract

An understanding of recreational resource users and their needs is fundamental to providing opportunities for high quality recreation experiences. A study of the recreational users of Akatarawa Forest was undertaken to identify: (1) personal characteristics of Forest visitors; (2) their behaviour while in the Forest; (3) the types of recreational experiences they seek; and (4) factors which interfere with their enjoyment. Akatarawa Forest is a highly significant recreation destination in the context of the Wellington region. It offers a unique set of recreation experiences and has a unique visitor profile. Visitors within each activity group were attracted to the Forest by a wide range of setting, environmental and experiential attributes. There was strong similarity between the attributes valued by different activity groups, which suggests that the experiences sought by participants in different activities are broadly similar. Significant variation occurred, however, between the preferences and resource requirements of different specialisation classes within activity groups. The most significant problems encountered by visitors involved inter-user conflict, usually the result of incompatible subgroups sharing recreation resources. Forest management needs to take account of differences between activity subgroups. It is suggested that the Recreation Specialisation model is an appropriate basis for managing recreation opportunities.