Coordinator: Dr. Diane Kuehn

This minor provides students with the opportunity to combine visitor management with protected area management. Understanding the need to balance the opportunity for visitor experiences with protecting and stewarding protected areas provides professional insight into planning and managing those areas for limited visitor access. Understanding the motivations, preferences, and behavior of recreational users is necessary to integrate the human dimensions into protected area management with consideration of the social and environmental factors related to such management. Protected area managers need to be able to manage both the resource itself as well as a wide variety of users, such as campers, hikers, bird watchers, boaters, nature photographers and others who enjoy nature-based experiences in extensive protected area environments owned by public agencies, private landowners, or NGOs.

Students from all programs at ESF are eligible for this minor if they have completed a general ecology course and have a cumulative grade point average of 2.70 or better in their major program of study after one semester at ESF (or as a transfer student with same standing). Overlap between the minor and both one required course and one directed elective for a student’s major is permitted; other courses taken for the minor can not overlap with the major.

This interdisciplinary minor requires 15 credits and includes the following courses taught at ESF in the Departments of Forest and Natural Resources Management and Environmental and Forest Biology:

Required Courses (9 credits)

• EFB 312 Introduction to Personal Environmental Interpretation Methods (3)
• FOR 372 Fundamentals of Outdoor Recreation (3)
• FOR 475 Human Behavior and Recreation Visitor Management (3)

Required independent study or internship (3 credits)

• FOR 498 Section 20, OR FOR 499 Section 20

One of the following management/protected area courses (3 credits)

• EFB 413 Introduction to Conservation Biology (3)
• FOR 476 Ecotourism and Nature Tourism (3)
• FOR 478 Wilderness and Wildlands Management (3)
• FOR 523 Tropical Ecology (3)