SOME THOUGHTS AND SUGGESTIONS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF SHOW CAVE RESOURCES
The rapid growth of tourism and recreation activities in the past has created demands and pressures on the environment which pose serious threats to its quality. Since the dawning of the recognition of the fact we have been inundated with a whole variety of propositions concerning tourism and the environment. For example:
Tourists do not create problems.
Failing to admit they exist and failing to provide for tourists, does.
The environment is the indispensable basis, the major attraction for tourism.
The interests of tourism demand the protection of the scenic and historic heritage.-From Tourism and Conservation Working Together. 1976 European Travel Commission / Europa Nostra Conference Proceedings.
More close to home we have such statements as:
Caves and karst landscapes are one example of natural features whose beauty must be adversely affected if they are to be made useful to man.From "Heavy Hand of Modern Man", Australian Natural History, Volume 18: 6, 1975.
Much of the recent discussion of the relation between tourism and conservation has tended to understate the very real conflict that lies between them. Studies in Europe have indicated that many operators of show caves do not even have clear policies and guidelines for managing this important aspect of their operations.
The first thing therefore in discussing the question of show cave resource management is to decide on the overall objectives of management.
The objectives of management may relate to:
- profit
- education/scientific
- recreation/sport
Each depends upon the continued maintenance of the basic resource. All have some valid claims to make on cave resources. But beyond being short-sighted I believe that the central theme of tourist cave management is the maintenance of the quality of the resource so that it can also be enjoyed by future generations for the kind of purposes listed. It is this which is the key function of management. Without this orientation, the value of the resource for the uses listed would decline.
While we can't deny the basic contradiction between use and preservation, successful cave management should attempt to reconcile and minimise this.
The complexity of karst cave systems and processes, their inter-relations, diversity and delicate balance means that management cannot be ad hoc, ill informed and unresponsive. Despite our good intentions our karst show caves have suffered considerable losses in quality because we do not know, for the most part, how karst and people systems interact. As managers with the objective of maintaining our resource, we need a Management Information System that will help us achieve our objective. Information is required on three systems and their interaction:
- Karst natural process systems. For example:
- The hydrological system - any karst cave is in continuous interaction process with water - the recent quality of the cave environment arises from this process and any change to it can result in changes to the quality of the cave overall.
- Chemical systems linked with the decorative aspects of touristic interest.
- Biological systems and,
- Micro-climatological system.
- People systems - including not only the visitors and their needs but also the operating staff, their needs and effects in the site. For example, what do you know about your visitors and the types of changes expected in them that might affect your operations.
- Development systems which are the physical constructions that result from an interaction between karst natural process and people systems. Included are the tourist access to the site, carparks, food and accommodation centres, ticket offices, guide quarters and offices, toilets, cave paths, fences, bridges, electric lighting etc, that are required to provide for the needs of visitors.
An understanding of each of these systems seems essential for successful management but it requires a good deal of cooperation between researchers and managers before such an understanding can be achieved. A need exists for making formal the relationship between karst research and management in Australia.
The first pre-condition to a good management information system is an inventory and evaluation of the karst natural process systems operating in the existing or intended show caves. It is possible with the use of expert judges to do this in a quite detailed and practically useful way using a system developed by Ian McHarg in his book "Design with Nature". For example, during some research at Dan Yr Ogof show caves in Great Britain, I attempted a pilot test of his approach to inventory and evaluation for three of the karst natural process systems operating there. They were the hydrological, physical and chemical systems of the Cathedral Cave. This cave (Figure 4), now developed for tourism, had been extensively documented in the past thus making available a basis for preparing diagrams which assign value to each system at every location in the cave (Figure 5a, b and c). The value assigned depends on the system or its element's importance to the evaluator in natural, scientific or aesthetic terms. Each system was ranked over a three point scale measuring high, medium and low values. This procedure allowed the interaction of the systems inventoried to be examined simply by overlaying the value diagrams constructed for each system in the cave (see Figure 6 (a)). Areas of strong concentration are the 'hot' spots of the cave where value to overall maintenance of quality is high and developments should not trespass into these either directly or indirectly through system interaction. Areas that are relatively lighter are 'cool' spots - see Figure 6 (b) - which represent areas of least value for the processes inventoried and where development would tend to have the least effect on the quality of the cave environment. This procedure then can be used as a management tool for planning the development of a tourist cave in addition to providing a baseline beyond which further deterioration in quality may be measured. The key to the successful use of this procedure is having the requisite expertise to identify and evaluate the natural process systems of the caves in question. Few of us have this expertise and in this we need to consult our karst researchers.
Having outlined the first step of establishing a Management Information System, i.e. a stocktaking and evaluation of the natural process systems which create tourist interest, it is necessary to consider the kinds of information that management requires to meet its objective of resource value maintenance. This information will relate largely to changes within the karst natural process systems operating in the cave.
Here management must seek to install a set of monitoring procedures that give some indication of the degree of change within each major system and the extent to which this change is due to natural or man made causes. Some typical karst natural process systems together with monitoring suggestions are the following:
| The hydrological system: | Monitor of flow, hardness, sediment level, and water quality. |
| The chemical system: | Analysis and impact of foreign deposits on chemical precipitates and drip rates. |
| The climatological system: | Analysis of relative humidity, CO2 and air temperature. |
| The biological system: | Analysis of biological complexes, relative size of populations. Analysis of algal growth and other lampenflora. |
Ideally the monitor in each case should be as continuous as possible so that natural variations in each system can be identified and related to changes induced by people system activities.
Changes within the people system such as an increase in volume at certain times of the year, week, day or even time of day could place pressure on the resource that might cause quality to deteriorate. The Lucas Cave at Jenolan has often been used as a "spill-over" cave when crowding pressures become excessive at certain peak days of the year. The effect over the past several years of this has been extreme loss of quality in terms of the lustre of decorations in this cave. Experience has shown at Jenolan that when closed down, some recovery occurs thereby indicating likely capacity limits to volume of visitors. Carrying capacities are therefore necessary. Other changes in people systems are also important; their needs, for example, will determine the type of developments provided and so it is necessary to understand how these needs arise and change over time.
A monitor here would determine changes in:
- the volume and pattern of visitors
- the characteristics of visitors
- examination of the forces giving rise to visitors and changes in these - so that forecasts can be made.
The type of person visiting the caves is important when planning for the type of interpretation, facilities, services, crowding pressures and capacities at the operation. As far as possible, management should be seeking to meet the visitors' needs, subject always to the principal objective of maintaining resource value. This requires at least once or twice-yearly surveys of visitors together with accurate recording of numbers through the caves and fluctuations between hours, days, weeks and months. Tourist arrival and departure peaks and troughs are also useful planning statistics to collect, and mechanical counters can be used for doing this. For instance, at Jenolan this is done at all holiday periods.
Given a flow of the type of information outlined above, it is possible for management to not only plan the operation of show caves in such a way as to minimise resource value deterioration, but also to apply corrective action when required and before it is too late. A continuous flow of information can provide management with an early warning system that is vitally needed if it is to meet its key objective of maintaining the resource so as to allow future generations the opportunity to enjoy it too.
Figure 4
Figure 5
Figure 6