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Visit BATCO's Second Visitor Plan Advisory Committee pages for additional information about the process and the plan.
Management Area Challenges
As a primary visitor management strategy for the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks properties, the recent Visitor Plan Advisory Committee proposed a system of management zones with sets of corresponding visitor activity rules and restrictions. .
We believe there is merit in the general concept, but significant challenges in its application.
Boulder County Parks and Open Space has used a similar classification system to help guide the planning process for recently acquired properties. While the classification system has been effective in that context, it is difficult to see how to apply the approach to the existing Open Space and Mountain Parks infrastructure with its diversity of present and historical activities. Although the management zone approach may be useful for newly acquired properties (and older, isolated areas), retrofitting management zones to most of the Mountain Parks properties and much of the older Open Space properties presents many questions. Among them:
How do we designate the zones? What specific criteria do we use? Who gets to draw the boundaries? Do we involve those who are most affected, and if so, how?
How do we deal with existing permitted activities? Do we effectively downzone the area, imposing new regulations and perhaps excluding historical activities, or do we provide some sort of grandfather clauses for existing activities?
Who defines the activities to be allowed or the rules and regulations to be applied within management areas? Again, how do we involve those affected?
The Boulder Area Trails Coalition has attempted to address these questions in this document. We have developed these materials through discussions with other visitor group representatives and are pleased to have the endorsements of the Boulder County Horse Association and the Boulder Off-Road alliance as well as support from other organizations.
Defining Management Areas
Our criteria for defining management areas are based on the Open Space charter purposes, which are listed in the attached Appendix. We characterize Open Space and Mountain Parks properties in terms of their suitability for realizing any or all the charter purposes. We then define management areas in terms of our primary management objectives for the areas.
We have defined four major categories of management areas: Habitat Focus Areas, Recreational Focus Areas, Agricultural Focus Areas, and Multiple Objective Areas. The primary objectives for Habitat Focus Areas are drawn from the first and second charter purposes and emphasize the preservation and restoration of natural areas and water resources. The primary objectives for Recreational Focus Areas are drawn from the third and eighth charter purposes and emphasize the preservation of recreational opportunities. The primary objectives for Agricultural Focus Areas are drawn from the fourth charter purpose and emphasize the preservation of agricultural uses and productivity. Multiple Objective Areas typical represent mosaics of different existing activities and resources that require detailed, site-by-site management to satisfy several different charter purposes. The remaining Open Space charter purposes deal primarily with urban buffers and shaping and can be satisfied by properties within any of the management area categories.
All of these area designations serve to indicate primary management objectives, rather than to exclude others. Whenever feasible we should strive to serve as many charter purposes as possible. In developed visitor areas such as Mountain Parks, the area designations are guidelines for future management emphasis, rather than basis for new rules and restrictions.
Detailed Management Area ground rules/assumptions:
Management Area definitions and objectives are intended to establish guidelines for management decisions and resolving conflicts between charter purposes. Area management decisions should emphasize the primary objective(s) listed, but overlapping objectives and management strategies may occur. Defining a primary management objective does not preclude addressing other charter purposes whenever feasible. Specific examples are trail corridors within habitat focus areas and habitat focus corridors (such as riparian corridors or wildlife travel corridors) within multiple objective or recreational focus areas.
Management tools such as visitor type limitations and access restrictions are separated from area designations. Area designations do not imply the automatic imposition of specific visitor rules and regulations; they do serve to guide the selection of management strategies most appropriate to meet the area management objectives at the location in question. We must have flexibility to deal with reality. Within a given area type there maybe be significantly different categories of resources. For example, habitat focus areas may contain critically sensitive resources that require significant visitor limitations for protection or may consist primarily of large habitat blocks with a low infrastructure density where less restrictive visitor regulations may still meet charter preservation goals. Similarly, recreational focus areas with intense, concentrated visitation patterns may require tighter constraints than recreational areas with more dispersed visitation.
Management Area definitions and objectives are intended to provide guidelines for future management decisions. They are not intended as a framework for imposing extensive new restrictions on existing visitor activities. Management Area definitions are not city zoning ordinances with inflexible rules and regulations, thus our use of the phrase management areas instead of management zones. Superimposing new constraints on an existing infrastructure and activity patterns will backfire. Down-zoning is seldom popular. Existing visitor activity patterns need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis for retention or elimination. If existing visitation does not have significant adverse effects, the visitation should be allowed. In most cases, existing designated trails and activities should be maintained. Off-trail travel restrictions may be applied in some cases (primarily in habitat and some agricultural focus areas), but blanket applications of more restrictive access regulations should not be imposed.
Note that the BATCO area definitions and our ground rules for developing area management strategies differ from the zone management recommendations made in the second Visitor Plan Advisory Committee report. In particular, we have:
We believe this formulation adds clarity and balance to the management approach and provides flexibility that is essential to realistically manage the diversity of Open Space and Mountain Parks properties.
Goals and Criteria for OSMP Visitor Management Areas
Recreational Focus Areas
Setting:
Goals:
Criteria for Inclusion:
Habitat Focus Areas
Setting:
Goals:
Criteria for Inclusion:
Multiple Objective Areas
Setting:
Goals:
Criteria for Inclusion:
Agricultural Focus Areas
Setting:
Goals:
Criteria for Inclusion:
Specific Management Area Recommendations
Recreational Focus Areas
Multiple Objective Areas
We have classified the following areas as Multiple Objective Areas based on their present infrastructures. We believe some of these could be classified as Habitat Focus Areas in the future if additional, acceptable trail corridors are added and/or if off-trail access for equestrians is continued.
Habitat Focus Areas
See also potential Habitat Focus Areas listed under Multiple Objective Areas
Agricultural Focus Areas
These Management Area boundaries are shown on maps available at http://bcn.boulder.co.us/batco/batcovpareasmapindex.htm.
Additional work to be done
Given the relatively short amount of time available, our management area definitions and recommendations certainly require additional attention. There are details to fill in and at least minor corrections to be made. Management strategies for specific areas and for diverse resources within the areas remain to be specified. We have also identified several major topics requiring careful consideration and extended discussion. In particular:
Properties with undeveloped visitor infrastructures
In developing the area definitions and mapping the area boundaries we have attempted to avoid the use of the somewhat ambiguous Multiple Objective Area classification whenever possible. Multiple Objective Areas are the hardest to manage because of the greater number of more complex decisions to be made. One of the goals of an area management strategy is to make the management decision process easier, not harder. We should make the process as simple as possible, but no simpler (and not at the cost of accepting one-size-fits-all solutions). We have identified a number of properties with undeveloped visitor infrastructures that we feel would be candidates for more specific management focus areas once a plan for future visitor infrastructures on the properties was defined. For example, we could create more Habitat Focus Areas in presently under-developed large habitat blocks if the definition of the areas includes provisions for future appropriate visitor accesses (e.g., trail corridors and acceptable off-trail activities). These properties offer opportunities for additional productive discussions. We have made special note of them in our recommendations and have attempted to identify major visitor infrastructure requirements for these Multiple Objective Areas.
Disposition of undesignated trails
A number of undesignated trails have been created as visitors have "voted with their feet". The public has defined these trails as significant by creating them. Some of them are indistinguishable from the designated trails and are often considered by visitors to be part of the official trail system. We need to understand the reasons these trail exist and then take appropriate actions to incorporate them into the designated system (perhaps rerouting them to minimize negative impacts) or to close them (where the impacts are unacceptable and the closure is likely to be successful). Many of these trails correct deficiencies in the designated trail system. We would be wise to use them as guidelines to enhancements. They are often indicators of the alignments we should adopt. When we elect to close an undesignated trail we need to be especially careful to consider the potential consequences. It does more harm than good if we eliminate one undesignated trail only to see another appear in its place.
Within the management areas we have set goals to evaluate and either designate, reroute, or close and restore undesignated trails (with varying emphasis dependent upon the area focus). We have not attempted to itemize all such trails or to make recommendations concerning particular trails. Additional discussions about the trail system are required. We need to reach a mutual understanding of what the present base-line configuration should be and then take a good look at how to deal with undesignated trails. We need to have a plan for the future that goes beyond the present list of requested trails.
Area Management Strategies
Having defined management areas, we need to address management strategies for these areas. The underlying theme of any management strategies we adopt should be developing a sense of public stewardship. The most important task we face is creating the conditions and management practices that will promote public support. We absolutely must have the public's trust and confidence if we are to be successful in meeting the Visitor Plan targets. This is true whatever the specific target may be, whether it's improving the quality of the visitor experience, resolving visitor conflicts, avoiding environmental impacts, or protecting the infrastructure.
We have some general rules to propose before we address specifics:
Management strategies should emphasize positive, rather than negative measures. Thus, for example, public education in the positive results of a "leave no trace" visitation ethic should be preferred over the imposition of a restrictive set of access limitations.
To be successful, strategies that we adopt must be acceptable to most of our visitors. We have far too many visitors to be able to force compliance. We must enlist and rely upon the cooperation of our visitors. We need to involve visitor groups and other members of the public in management area definitions and in management decisions.
Management strategies must recognize that one size does not fit all. Our properties and visitor activities are much too diverse to respond to simplistic solutions. This diversity exists within management areas as well as between them. Management actions must be site- and activity-specific and must allow for a diversity of situations.
Finally, we should always beware of the potential unintended consequences of our actions. For example, limiting an access or restricting an activity may just displace the impact we are trying to alleviate to a more sensitive location.
Management tools
We should develop a hierarchy of management tools that give us a range of alternative responses to shape visitor behaviors. In applying these tools we should have options to take a series of progressively more intrusive actions if the situation requires them, but we should use such actions discreetly, reluctantly, and with public concurrence.
It's important that we avoid unrealistic goals. We often need to apply criteria appropriate to parks and agricultural lands, rather than wilderness environments. Otherwise, the well-intended decisions we make may have negative consequences. If we fail to provide reasonable access to the places our visitors want to go, we may find ourselves trading managed, low impact access for unmanaged, potentially damaging access.
Access options should range from allowing no public access at all to allowing visitors to roam as they please. Boulder County Parks and Open Space visitor studies indicate that the vast majority of the visitors stay on the trail all the time. Only a small percentage of County visitors leave the trail, and they are primarily fishermen. Rock climbers in Mountain Parks may be exceptions to this rule.
Given the willingness of most visitors to stay within designated boundaries, we should apply access limitations as gently as possible. We should begin by encouraging all visitors to stay on the trails to protect the quality of their own experiences and the values of our resources. As resource sensitivities increase we should first request, then require that visitors stay on the trail (here and elsewhere in this document on-trail use is taken to mean on the trail or within a relatively narrow trail corridor), and then physically constrain visitor access. Physical constraints should progress from fencing one side of the trail, to fencing both sides, to complete area closures. Complete closures should be limited to temporary or seasonal closures or to highly sensitive preservation areas.
We should define and apply a similar range of alternatives for the management of various visitor activities. For example, varying dog regulations from voice-and-sight, to on-trail, to on-leash, to no access.
Many visitor activity restriction proposals stem from perceived visitor conflicts, rather than from legitimate concerns over resource impacts. It can be argued that the most restricted of our common visitor activities, bicycling, presents the least resource impacts. To resolve possible visitor conflicts, we again need a range of management tools. We should begin with education about trail ethics and sharing. Appropriate infrastructure designs can be used to minimize the potential for conflicts, as can careful use of activity regulations (e.g. dogs on-leash areas, one-way trail alignments). Where significant conflicts continue we should take actions to disperse visitors from heavily used areas (e.g. by providing and publicizing alternative locations, providing local separate alignments for different visitor activities, and designating specific locations as focus areas for particular activities). We should impose spatial or temporal visitor activity bans only as a last resort. If we must do so, we should endeavor to deal equability with the different visitor groups.
Application of management tools by Management Areas
As we have previously noted, we do not believe associating specific management tools (or visitor limitations) with management area definitions is appropriate. There are some general observations that can be made about management tool applicability to the different management areas and to the various types of resources within the areas. These observations can serve as guidelines for specific management decisions.
Habitat Focus Areas
Within Habitat Focus Areas, our primary management objective is to protect natural and cultural resources. This protection need not preclude visitor access, but we must be careful to minimize potential impacts. We observe that there are at least two major categories within the Habitat Focus Area definition: properties with a high density of environmental or cultural resources, and properties with large habitat blocks that have a low density of trails, roads, or development.
Sensitive areas in the first category are candidates for visitor restrictions such as on-trail limitations and seasonal closures. In these areas we should discourage construction of most new trails and perhaps reroute inappropriately sited existing trails. Here we need to consider the impacts of creating a new alignment and restoring the old vs. allowing the existing configuration. The Visitor Plan Advisory Committee also recommended visitor type restrictions in such areas, excluding equestrians, bikes, and dogs. Given suitable terrain and an effective on-trail program, there is little apparent justification for such restrictions. There are, for example, several studies indicating that equestrians and bicyclists have less impact on wildlife then do hikers. Hikers with dogs may present additional control issues. If we determine that an on-trail restriction is ineffective in a particular area, on-leash or seasonal closures for this visitor activity may be appropriate. We should begin with an on-trail requirement and move to more restrictive measure only if the initial restriction is ineffective. We note that on steep mountain trails an on-leash restriction is unnecessary, impractical, and may actually be dangerous.
Areas in the second category (large habitat blocks with a low density of trails, roads, or development) are often recently acquired Open Space properties without a developed infrastructure. Many of these properties are grasslands, with cattle grazing used as a management tool and to support the charter agricultural purpose. The absence of trails does not, in itself, create valuable habitat, nor does the presence of moderate levels of human visitation destroy it. In these areas we should allow for moderate levels of visitation. In undeveloped areas we should define appropriate new trail corridors to disperse exiting and support future visitor access. In our management area recommendations, we classified a number of such areas as Multiple Objective Areas because of the lack of a defined visitor infrastructure. In areas where cattle grazing is allowed, off-trail equestrian access and hiking should also be permitted. On-trail restrictions for dogs and bikes may be appropriate. In particularly sensitive areas, more restrictive limits may be acceptable (e.g., seasonal on-leash, on-trail restrictions or closures during nesting periods).
Agricultural Focus Areas
Within Agricultural Focus Areas, our primary management objective is the preservation of agricultural uses and productivity. Again this need not preclude all visitor access, but we must be careful to avoid interference with agricultural operations or damages to crops, and we must provide safe visitor opportunities. In these areas we can make provision for regional trail corridors and moderate levels of visitation. In locations with significant safety or crop damage exposures we should restrict visitors to on-trail use, fencing the trail corridors when necessary. In areas where grazing is allowed, off-trail equestrian access should also be permitted.
Recreational Focus Areas
Within Recreational Focus Areas, our primary management objective is to maintain and improve passive recreational opportunities. In doing so we must also protect the resources that make the recreational activities enjoyable. In these areas we should support an extensive trail network and should endeavor to provide venues for all our visitor activities. To disperse locally high visitor concentrations and to make optimal use of the existing infrastructure, we should encourage multi-use trails wherever visitor densities and the terrain permit. Although we should attempt to minimize limitations on visitor access and activities in these areas, in high-density areas we may actually have to apply some of our most restrictive management tools to prevent unacceptable resource impacts or high levels of visitor conflicts. In particular, in high-impact areas such as trailheads and the initial sections of heavily visited trails, we may want to make use of on-trail, on-leash, and/or restricted activity limitations. In these areas we may want to designate presently redundant undesignated trails and assign them to particular visitor activities to reduce congestion and conflicts. Elsewhere we should allow dispersed off-trail travel, voice and sight dog access, and a multiplicity of visitor activities. In short, we should strive to offer maximum visitor flexibility while encouraging responsible visitor behaviors.
Multiple Objective Areas
Multiple Objective Areas contain resources that are significant to several of the charter purposes. They require site-by-site management decisions to determine management objectives and, depending upon the local resources, any of the focus area management approaches (or combinations of them) may be appropriate. These areas may serve as buffers between Recreational and Habitat Focus Areas, particularly in Mountain Parks properties. In their complexity, these areas present many management challenges while offering important opportunities to satisfy multiple charter purposes simultaneously.
It is in the Multiple Objective Areas (including those presently undeveloped properties we have previously identified) where we have the greatest flexibility and opportunity to shape the future of Open Space and Mountain Parks Visitor experiences. In areas with low visitor densities or less sensitive habitat, dispersed off-trail access can provide solitary visitor experiences that may be unavailable in the heavily visited Recreational Focus Areas. In more sensitive areas on-trail limitations, particularly for dogs, may be appropriate. We should introduce a new on-trail, voice and sight dog control alternative to bridge the gap between the present voice and sight and on-leash alternatives. Elsewhere we can make more effective use of our infrastructure and better serve a greater proportion of our visitors by designating some presently undesignated trails and by opening portions of the existing infrastructure to additional visitor activities.
We have summarized these recommendations in following tables:
Management Area Strategies Recommended by Boulder Area Trails Coalition (BATCO), Boulder County Horse Association (BCHA), and Boulder Off-Road Alliance (BOA)
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Recreation Focus Areas |
Multiple Objective Areas |
Habitat Focus Areas |
Agriculture Focus Areas |
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Visitor Activities |
Activities common to all areas: |
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Recreation Focus Areas |
Multiple Objective Areas |
Habitat Focus Areas |
Agriculture Focus Areas |
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Key Manage. Strategies |
Recreation Focus Areas |
Multiple Objective Areas |
Habitat Focus Areas |
Agriculture Focus Areas |
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Visitor Group and Public Involvement
As there has been in the development of the Visitor Management Plan, there should be a continuing process of visitor group and public involvement in the applications of the Visitor Management Plan. We agree with the Visitor Plan Advisory Committee's identification of the need for public participation. We quote from the Visitor Plan Advisory Committee report:
"VPAC sees an important need for more meaningful public discourse, especially since Open Space and Mountain Parks merged. Improved interaction and communication would follow a clear process about how citizens can participate effectively in decision-making that affects visitor use. Currently, individuals and groups can comment very briefly at meetings of the Open Space Board of Trustees or communicate with OSMP staff. This limits communication to specific requests or problems. We urge ongoing opportunities for dialog and meaningful public planning. We believe that public understanding of OSMP organization and operations is limited and that limited public understanding contributes to lack of stewardship and distrust of the public process."
The Visitor Plan Advisory Committee suggested:
We support these recommendations and suggest that the items we have identified as "additional work to be done" are prime candidates to continue the process.
Appendix - Open Space Charter
The Charter of the City of Boulder describes and mandates the purposes of land acquisition as Open Space:
Sec. 176. Open Space purposes-Open Space land. Open Space land shall be acquired, maintained, preserved, retained, and used only for the following purposes:
1. 2003 Visitor Plan Advisory Committee Report, City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks, June 25, 2003 (available at
http://www.ci.boulder.co.us/openspace/visitor_plan/PDF/VPAC-Report03.pdf)2. BATCO Second Visitor Plan Advisory Committee Report Comments, July 7, 2003 (available at
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/batco/batcovpac2c.htm)3. BATCO Current Open Space and Mountain Parks Conditions (available at
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/batco/batcovpac2pres.htm)4. BATCO Strategies to Meet the Visitor Plan Targets (available at
http://bcn.boulder.co.us/batco/batcovpac2strat.htm)