Business Models for Protected Areas

management principles in public management of the environment has expanded significantly in the past two decades, innovations in public land management have lagged considerably. The primary innovations have been wide-ranging advances in reserve design, community conservation, ecosystem management, sustainable development, and financing mechanisms (Repetto 1992; The World Bank 1997; Phillips 2000). In concert, much attention has been paid in the scientific community to the specific effects of management decisions on resources at the field level. The result is a focus at either too fine or too large a scale. The functional administrative unit—a park or protected area—has been ignored as the fundamental leverage point for influencing the state of resources in protected areas. In essence, while park managers, particularly in developing countries, have reams of advice for conceptual approaches to various problems (e.g., species and visitor management, water resources, community interaction), there is minimal guidance for developing strategic plans, gaining financing, and identifying priorities for management (Worboys 2001; Thomas 2003). This area of research and scholarship greatly needs expansion. The administration of protected areas, both newly created and wellestablished, usually follows a strict, traditional model, defined by foresters and park managers in the United States in the early 1900s (Adams 1993; Clarke and McCool 1996; Sellars 1997). This is not to say innovation does not exist. In fact, many non-traditional management applications exist outside the U.S. where historical trends do not heavily influence contemporary decision-making. The conservation community is becoming more interested in the development of innovative mechanisms for managing public lands that are moving away from the traditional Yellowstone model of national parks. For example, park managers are experimenting with non-traditional approaches to managing hunting, tourism, and wildlife, including being more and more permissive of indigenous peoples living within park boundaries (Bishop, Green, and Phillips 1998). The problem explored here is a lack of organizational management guidance for park units. This may be due to inadequate funding levels provided by managers at organizational