LIMITS OF ACCEPTABLE CHANGE:
A FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING NATIONAL PROTECTED AREAS:
EXPERIENCES FROM THE UNITED STATES1
Stephen F. McCool
Professor, School of Forestry
The University of Montana
Missoula, Montana 59812 USA
Abstract
The Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) planning system was developed in response to growing
recognition in the U.S. that attempts to define and implement recreational carrying capacities for
national park and wilderness protected areas were both excessively reductionistic and failing.
The carrying capacity concept itself, while useful in a generic way to encourage discussion about
visitor impacts, was based on biological models of the capability of resources to sustain a given
number of animals over a period of time on a particular range or pasture. Such models did not
transfer well into ecosystems being managed for human benefits based primarily on recreational
experiences that were not themselves well understood. LAC was based on the recognition that
(1) specific objectives were needed to identify what it was that management was to protect, (2)
change is always present in nature-dominated systems, (3) any recreational use leads to some
change, (4) management is therefore confronted with the question of how much change is
acceptable, and (5) monitoring of the outcomes of management is needed to determine if actions
were effective. In the U.S., LAC was first implemented in designated Wilderness managed by
the USDA Forest Service. Since that time, additional work has been conducted in other areas,
such as national parks using a derivative system termed the Visitor Experience and Resource
Protection planning process. It has also been tested as system for management of tourism
development.
Keywords: Limits of Acceptable Change - Carrying Capacity - Visitor Impact Management
Introduction
The growing awareness that designation of protected areas does not ensure their preservation has
stimulated an enormous level of discussion globally in recent years. Issues of cross-jurisdictional
relationships, rights of indigenous people, off-site induced impacts and management of
recreational uses have broadened the arena of both scientific and public debate beyond the
biology of these areas. While the biophysical characteristics of many protected areas remain the
fundamental rationale for their initial designation, it has become quite clear that the values for
which these areas were initially protected can be threatened by unmanaged or poorly managed
recreational use.
1
Paper presented at Workshop on Impact Management in Marine Parks, sponsored by Maritime Institute of
Malaysia, August 13-14, 1996, Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA.
1
In the United States, formal recognition of recreational use management questions occurred
during the late 1950s. It was during that period that recreational use of national forests and
national parks grew at unprecedented rate. The rapid growth found managers, who were trained
primarily in forestry, wildlife and range management, unprepared for the resulting demands and
impacts. As a framework for structuring management response, it was only natural that such
managers would turn to carrying capacity as a paradigm or model of visitor management. Such
managers had a strong, biologically based educational background, and generally went into these
professions to avoid working with people, rather than being attracted to the idea of managing
recreational opportunities for the benefits to people they produce. Therefore, it was a relatively
easy conceptual leap to visualizing the management problems induced by the hordes of visitors
coming to such areas as a function of the landscape’s carrying capacity being exceeded.
It was quickly recognized, even by the most biologically oriented managers, however, that
recreational carrying capacity was comprised of at least two components: (1) a biophysical
component concerning impacts of visitors upon the resource, and (2) a social element dealing
with the type and quality of experience visitors received during their visit. This recognition had
the net effect of complicating discussions about carrying capacities because little was known
about visitor experiences and the recreation production process, their interactions with
biophysical processes and conditions, and how establishing a carrying capacity would deal with
such questions.
Never-the-less, many managers experimented with implementing carrying capacities, particularly
on large western U.S. whitewater rivers, where recreational growth during the late 1960s and
early 1970s could only be described as explosive. Such managers implemented carrying
capacities (actually use limit policies) to control the overall level of recreational use in order to
limit both social and biophysical impacts. What is clear from these experiments is that (1)
carrying capacity failed to provide the needed framework for managing recreational use, but (2)
the search for carrying capacity spawned a great deal of research and problem analysis that
eventually resulted in improved management systems, primarily, the Limits of Acceptable
Change planning system.
The Limits of Acceptable Change planning system (Stankey and others 1985) was initially
designed to address visitor management issues in the U.S. National Wilderness Preservation
System and was a product of the spreading realization that carrying capacity failed in achieving
its objectives. While there are many reasons why the carrying capacity paradigm failed, the most
fundamental was that it impelled managers toward the wrong question: “How many is too
many?” Carrying capacity is intrinsically a quantitative term, yet, research was showing that
many problems of recreational use were a function not so much of numbers of people, but their
behavior. LAC, on the other hand, dealt with a significantly different question: “What resource
and social conditions are appropriate (or acceptable), and how do we attain those conditions?”
This question represented a substantially different approach to thinking about recreational use
questions, yet was actually more closely aligned with the principal job of recreation managers-protecting the values for which an area was established--than the carrying capacity paradigm.
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Thus, Limits of Acceptable Change as a planning system was viewed as a way for managers to
confront and resolve the complex issues of managing visitors to not only provide for the
experiences they seek, but to deal with the problems of their social and biophysical impacts. It
has been slightly more than a decade since LAC was first implemented in the U.S. and a great
deal knowledge has been gained that can provide a foundation for how it might be used in other
social and biophysical contexts. The objectives of this paper are to (1) briefly state the visitor
impact principles upon which the LAC process is constructed; (2) review the LAC process itself;
and (3) provide an overview of experiences and issues associated with LAC in the U.S. It should
be noted that national protected areas in the U.S. (particularly designated Wilderness and national
park backcountry) frequently differ in many respects from those outside North America, notably
in land tenure, presence of indigenous people within the area, rights to harvest native plants and
animals, and training of managers. Never-the-less, management problems tend to be similar,
even if institutions for resolving them are different. Thus, while LAC was developed in the U.S.,
the general concepts and principles underlying its development should be applicable in other
areas.
Concepts and Principles
The LAC system is, in effect, built upon eleven principles that have emerged from research on
visitor impacts and growing public interest to be involved in protected area decision-making.
While these principles had not entirely been formally and explicitly articulated when the LAC
process was developed, they are now unmistakably recognized as fundamental components of
any systematic planning system for natural area protection and management. In this section, each
principle will be briefly discussed.2
Principle 1: Appropriate Management Depends Upon Objectives
A clear and consistent theme expressed throughout the literature of visitor management in
protected areas has been the need for explicitly stated objectives (Brown and others 1987;
Manning 1986). Objectives provide definitive statements of the products or outcomes of
recreation or protected area management. Objectives, either as formal statements of legislative
or administrative policy or as explicit assertions in a management plan identify the
appropriateness of management actions and indicate acceptable resource and social conditions.
Formally stated objectives allow protected area managers to determine how successful
management actions may have been in resolving problems. Manning (1986) argues that
Management objectives provide an answer to the question of how much change is
acceptable by deciding what types of recreation experience a particular recreation area
should provide, the feel of naturalness of environmental conditions, the kind of
experience offered, and the intensity of management practices.
While clearly the context for the above concerned management of recreational uses, other uses
and values would benefit from clearly established objectives. Unfortunately, writing good
2
Much of this section is adapted from McCool (1989).
3
objectives is not easy; while people tend to agree about general values and concepts, specific and
explicit objectives are likely to evoke considerable disagreement about what it is to be
accomplished or produced at a recreation site. It should be noted that the process of establishing
objectives is an intrinsically political one, and therefore methods that include interaction with
those affected will help develop objectives upon which a consensus can be developed.
Principle 2: Diversity in Resource and Social Conditions in Protected Areas Is Inevitable and
May be Desirable
Resource and social conditions within any relatively large protected area are not likely to be
uniform. Impacts, use levels, and expectations of appropriate conditions tend to vary (for
example, see Martin and others 1989 concerning variability in acceptable campsite impact
conditions in the periphery vs. the center of a wilderness). Topography, vegetation and access
influence use densities and level of impact. Visitor use is frequently unevenly distributed. This
diversity of conditions is inevitable, and sometimes desirable. For example, in large terrestrial
protected areas, it generally would not be desirable to have developments spread evenly across
the area, leaving no place untouched. The interior areas of protected areas often display fewer
human-induced impacts than the periphery. Managers can identify this diversity and then make
decisions on its desirability, thus separating technical decisions from judgmental ones. Finally,
Haas and others (1987) argue that managing for diversity explicitly through some type of zoning
process is more likely to lead to preservation of protected area values than existing implicit or de
facto zoning.
Principle 3: Management is Directed at Influencing Human-Induced Change
Many protected areas have been established to protect not only unique and valuable natural
features and conditions, but natural processes as well. Management is generally oriented toward
limiting and managing human-induced changes in these. It is human-induced changes that we
find most disturbing in protected areas. Such human-induced changes may lead to conditions
that visitors or managers may feel are unacceptable or inappropriate. Management then concerns
itself with determining what actions will be effective in influencing the amount, type and location
of these changes in addition to determining how much change is acceptable.
Principle 4: Impacts on Resource and Social Conditions Are Inevitable Consequences of Human
Use
A variety of research has shown that relatively small amounts of recreational use lead to
disproportionately large biophysical impacts (Cole 1987). Thus, allowing any level of recreation
in a protected area means that some level of impact will occur. Thus, the principal question that
managers must ask is “how much impact is acceptable in this area?” Once this question has
been addressed, managers must then deal with the appropriateness of various techniques or
actions to manage to this level of impact. In a similar way, social impacts often occur with
relatively small amounts of use. For example, a few people behaving in a rowdy manner may
impact another visitor’s experience far more than many people being more quiet. This principal
extends to types of visitors as well. Lucas (1964) found that canoeists in Minnesota’s Boundary
4
Waters Canoe Area were more sensitive to encountering motorboaters than larger numbers of
canoeists.
Principle 5: Impacts May be Temporally or Spatially Discontinuous
Impacts from visitor use or management activities may occur offsite and may not be visible until
later. For example, a management strategy eliminating camping around a lake may simply
transfer impacts to other, potentially, more sensitive areas. Inefficient water treatment may result
in pollution of water downstream from the outlet. And, impacts, such as dying vegetation, may
not be visible until long after recreationists leave the site. Such tendencies make understanding
and managing impacts significantly more difficult, demand substantial knowledge about useimpact relationships at different scales, and require managers to carefully design appropriate
monitoring strategies.
Principle 6: Many Variables Influence the Use/Impact Relationship
While the level of recreational use is an important consideration in managing protected areas, a
variety of other variables affect the use/impact relationship. For example, it has long been
known that behavior of recreationists influences the amount of impact they cause. In marine
settings, treading water with flippers may stir up sand that may impact coral. Other variables
include travel method, group size, season of use, and a variety of soil and vegetation
characteristics. Similarly, there may be coral settings that are more or less sensitive to
recreational use. What this principle means is that the standard errors around lines depicting
use/impact relationships will be extremely large because of these other factors and that attempts
to control human-induced impacts solely through use limits or carrying capacities may fail.
Education and information programs and regulations aimed at changing visitor behavior may be
more effective.
Principle 7: Many Management Problems Are Not Use Density Dependent
Management problems that relate to the number of people using an area tend to be those that
have relatively simple technological solutions, such as sewage, water supply and parking. Even
for some of these, however, the intensity of the problem may not be linearly related to amount of
use. For example, per capita consumption of water for sewage disposal may be reduced by using
toilets with low water requirements. The lack of a precise linear relationship between use and
biophysical impact implies that management problems are not density dependent.
Similar conclusions can be made with respect to social conditions. For many visitors to
backcountry areas of national protected areas, solitude is not a significant or salient motivation
(Stankey and McCool 1984). Thus, controlling use levels to optimize opportunities for solitude
would be inappropriate.
Principle 8: Limiting Use is Only One of Many Management Options
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One of the problems with the carrying capacity approach is its emphasis on controlling or
limiting the number of visitors as a key to limiting impacts (Stankey and McCool 1991).
Because carrying capacity carries with it the question “how many is too many?”, it tends to view
imposition of use limits as an end in itself. A use limit policy is only one of a number of
potential management actions that are available to address visitor impacts, yet is one of the most
intrusive actions that managers could deploy. Use limit policies have historically carried with
them a host of additional problems, such as choosing appropriate allocation and rationing
techniques. These techniques have been among the most controversial actions protected area
managers in the United States have ever taken (McCool and Ashor 1984).
Principle 9: Monitoring is Essential to Professional Management
Monitoring, in an informal sense, has historically been a component of the protected area
manager’s job. However, monitoring has generally been conducted informally, with little
systematic planning and implementation. Monitoring is defined as the period and systematic
measurement of key indicators of biophysical and social conditions. It performs two major
functions in the LAC process. First, it allows managers to maintain a formal record of resource
and social conditions over time. In serving this function, data points can inform managers of
changes in these conditions rather than relying solely on informal perceptions of changes that
might have occurred. This is particularly important in situations where managers change
frequently or where effects are slow to develop. Second, it helps assess the effectiveness of
management actions. Thus, monitoring helps managers understand, in a relatively objective way,
if the action addressed the problem.
Principle 10: The Decision-Making Process Should Separate Technical Decisions from Value
Judgments
Many decisions confronting protected area managers are simply technical in nature, such as the
number of toilets in a campground, the location of a trail, or the design of a visitor center.
However, many others, including decisions to limit use (and how), reflect judgments about
values—such as objectives for an area, spacing between campsites, types of facilities, or the kind
of recreation opportunities to be provided. It is important in decision-making that these meansends decisions not get confused. Decision processes should separate questions of “what is” from
“what should be”. For example, identifying the range of diversity in resource or social conditions
that exists within a protected area is a different task from determining the preferred range of
diversity. Existing conditions may influence preferred conditions, but the two tasks should be
kept separate.
Principle 11: Consensus among Affected Groups about Proposed Actions is Needed for
Successful Implementation of Protected Area Management Strategies
Managing visitor impacts in national protected areas within the U.S. occurs within a context of
increasing public concern about both environmental quality and participation in government
decision-making. While the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitutions guarantees that citizens
have the right to petition the government for grievances, there are no other explicit and specific
6
constitutional guarantees of citizen involvement in governmental decision processes. Yet,
increasing political polarization and conflict over natural resources indicates that successful
decisions--ones that can be implemented--require not only a systematic and technical problemsolving process but also one that incorporates public participation as well. Within the highly
charged social and political contexts that protected area management frequently occur, technical
planning processes tend to create more in the way of disagreement than agreement because
proposed actions may adversely affect some well-defined value expressed by a group within the
public.
While the LAC system does not specifically require public participation, in its first full
application in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in the state of Montana (McCool and Ashor 1984;
Stankey and others 1984; Stokes 1990) public participation based on John Friedmann’s theory of
transactive planning (1973) was used as a fundamental component of the planning effort. The
lessons from that experience suggest that the legal power to plan and implement is separated
from the power to implement. Individual interest groups have “veto” power over proposed
actions. As Friedmann (1995) most recently argues, planning is political and must proceed
specifically with this acknowledgment. Thus, a consensus (“grudging agreement”) is needed for
protected area agency to implement.
The Limits of Acceptable Change Planning System
The Limits of Acceptable Change planning system was developed over a period of years in the
early 1980s to address the problems of managing recreational use in national protected areas and
as originally articulated (Stankey and others 1985) contained includes four major components:
(1) the specification of acceptable and achievable resource and social conditions, defined
by a series of measurable parameters; (2) an analysis of the relationship between existing
conditions and those judged acceptable; (3) identification of management actions
necessary to achieve these conditions; and (4) a program of monitoring and evaluation
of management effectiveness (Stankey and others 1985).
The four components are then expanded into nine distinct steps for the purpose of improving the
effectiveness of its implementation. For some protected area management agencies, these steps
closely follow existing planning processes, while for others the LAC system may represent a
significant departure. What is important is that planners understand the rationale for each step
and its sequence in the overall process. By clearly understanding the rationale, the steps can be
modified as needed. This section provides a brief overview of each step.3 For greater detail, the
reader is referred to Stankey and others (1985).
(1) Identify area special values, issues, and concerns. Citizens and managers meet to identify
what special features or qualities within the area require attention, what management problems or
concerns have to be dealt with, what issues the public considers important in the area's management, and what role the area plays in both a regional and national context. Scientists also
3
This section adapted from Stankey and McCool (1992).
7
become involved because they may often hold information not readily available. The dialogue
among scientists, managers and public helps unify agreement about important values and issues.
This step encourages a better understanding of the natural resource base, such as the sensitivity
of marine environments to recreation use and tourism development, a general concept of how the
resource could be managed, and a focus on principal management issues. LAC is very much an
issue-driven process; issues identified here will be addressed later.
(2) Identify and describe recreation opportunity classes or zones. Most marine settings of
sufficient size contain a diversity of biophysical features, such as reefs, underwater cliffs, corals,
beaches and evidence of human occupation and use. They may vary significantly in terms of the
amount and type of development. Likewise, social conditions, such as level and type of use, and
types of recreation experiences, vary from place to place. The type of management needed may
vary throughout the area. Opportunity classes describe subdivisions or zones of the natural resource where different social, resource, or managerial conditions will be maintained. For example, deeper reef settings will require SCUBA gear while in shallower areas snorkels may be adequate. The shallower areas may also show more impact from human use, such as effects on
coral, than deeper areas. The classes that are developed represent a way of defining a range of
diverse conditions within the marine setting. And, while diversity is the objective here, it is important to point out that the conditions found in all cases must be consistent with the objectives
laid out in the area's organic legislation or decree. In this step, the number of classes are also
defined as well as their general resource, social, and managerial conditions.
(3) Select indicators of resource and social conditions. Indicators are specific elements of the resource or social setting selected to represent (or be "indicative of") the conditions deemed appropriate and acceptable in each opportunity class. Because it is impossible to measure the condition of and change in every resource or social feature within a protected marine setting, a few
indicators are selected as measures of overall health, just as we relatively frequently monitor our
blood pressure rather than more complete tests of blood chemistry. Indicators should be easy to
measure quantitatively, relate to the conditions specified by the opportunity classes and reflect
changes in recreational use. Indicators are an essential part of the LAC framework because their
state reflects the overall condition found throughout an opportunity class. It is important to understand that an individual indicator might not adequately depict the condition of a particular
area. It is the bundle of indicators that is used to monitor conditions.
(4) Inventory existing resource and social conditions. Inventories can be time-consuming and
expensive components of planning; indeed they usually are. In the LAC process, the inventory is
guided by the indicators selected in step 3. For example, level and type of development, use
density, and human-induced impacts on coral might be measured. Other variables, such as location of different corals, shipwrecks, docks, and mooring spots, can also be inventoried to develop
a better understanding of area constraints and opportunities. And, inventory information will be
helpful later when evaluating the consequences of alternatives. Inventory data are mapped so
both the condition and location of the indicators are known. The inventory also helps managers
establish realistic and attainable standards. By placing the inventory as step 4, planners avoid
unnecessary data collection.
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(5) Specify standards for resource and social conditions in each opportunity class. In this step,
we identify the range of conditions for each indicator considered appropriate and acceptable for
each opportunity class. By defining those conditions in measurable terms, we provide the basis
for establishing a distinctive and diverse range of marine settings. Standards serve to define the
"limits of acceptable change." They are the maximum permissible conditions that will be
allowed in a specific opportunity class. They are not necessarily objectives to be attained. The
inventory data collected in step 4 play an important role in setting standards. We want the standards defining the range of acceptable conditions in each opportunity class to be realistic and attainable; we also want them to do more than mimic existing (unacceptable) conditions.
(6) Identify alternative opportunity class allocations. Most attractive marine settings could be
managed in several different ways. Marine parks often differ significantly in the amount of development, human density (both residents and visitors), and recreational opportunities available.
In this step, we begin to identify some different types of alternatives. Using information from
step 1 (area issues and concerns) and step 4 (inventory of existing conditions), managers and citizens can begin to jointly explore how well different opportunity class allocations address the
various contending interests, concerns, and values.
(7) Identify management actions for each alternative. The alternative allocations proposed in
step 6 are only the first step in the process of developing a preferred alternative. In addition to
the kinds of conditions that would be achieved, both managers and citizens need to know what
management actions will be required to achieve the desired conditions. In a sense, step 7 requires
an analysis of the costs, broadly defined, that will be imposed by each alternative. For example,
many people may find attractive the alternative to protect a specific area from any development,
and restore to pristine condition any impacts that might exist. However, this alternative might require such a huge commitment of funds for acquisition and enforcement that the alternative
might not seem as attractive.
(8) Evaluation and selection of a preferred alternative. With the various costs and benefits of
the several alternatives before them, managers and citizens can proceed to the evaluation stage,
and the managing authority, based on guidance from the public, can select a preferred alternative.
Evaluation must take into consideration many factors, but examples would include the responsiveness of each alternative to the issues identified in step 1, management requirements from step
7, and public preferences. It is important that the factors figuring into the evaluation process and
their relative weight be made explicit and available for public review.
(9) Implement actions and monitor conditions. With an alternative finally selected, and articulated as policy by decision-makers, the necessary management actions (if any) are put into effect and a monitoring program instituted. Often, an implementation plan, detailing actions, costs,
timetable, and responsibilities, will be needed to ensure timely implementation. The monitoring
program focuses on the indicators selected in step 3, and compares their condition with those
identified in the standards. This information can be used to evaluate the success of actions. If
conditions are not improving, the intensity of the management effort might need to be increased
or new actions implemented.
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The LAC process, in summary, provides a framework for thinking about issues of recreation
development and management. It is a framework, we believe, that recognizes the intrinsic complexity of development issues, yet provides the process to competently deal with this complexity
without being excessively reductionistic. By combining the technical expertise of planners and
scientists with valuable personal knowledge held by the local public, LAC can result in more defensible decisions that have greater chances of implementation.
Experience in the United States with Limits of Acceptable Change
The Limits of Acceptable Change planning system was first implemented in its entirety in the
Bob Marshall Wilderness complex in the state of Montana, USA. This protected area is a large,
undeveloped area comprising about 682,000 hectares lying astride the continental divide. It is
characterized as containing a number of mountain ranges, the headwaters of several major rivers,
the presence of nearly all indigenous wildlife species, and relatively low levels of recreational
use. The area contains about 2500 km of designated trails and over 1500 inventoried campsites.
Four national forests manage the three wildernesses comprising the complex (Bob Marshall,
Scapegoat and Great Bear). Under the leadership of the Forest Service, the agency began
implementing the LAC system in 1982. The then staff officer for wilderness on one of the
national forests, proposed that the LAC process be combined with Friedmann’s (1973) theory of
transactive planning (see Stokes 1990 for an historical review). That process took about five
years to complete, but set the standard for wilderness management in the U.S. because the
combination of public participation and LAC was so successful (Ashor 1985; McCool and
Ashor 1984).
Since the initial application of LAC, it has formed the basis for nearly all the protected area
management planning in the U.S. Forest Service. Krumpe and Stokes (1993) report that 75% of
57 national forests six western U.S. states are applying LAC on wildernesses under their
jurisdiction with another 19% anticipating to use it. Other agencies administering protected
areas, such as the Bureau of Land Management have also used LAC as a basis for management
planning. The National Park Service has recently adopted a derivative of LAC, called Visitor
Experience and Resource Protection (National Park Service 1993) to guide General Management
Planning of national parks. Thus, nearly all major national protected area management agencies
in the U.S. have recognized that a systematic process built upon the principles identified earlier is
needed to preserve (or restore where needed) the important values for which these areas were
established.
But, how has the process worked? What barriers has it faced? Has it been effective? How well
does it work with public involvement? What about applying LAC concepts to protected areas
other than designated wilderness? These are important questions because previous experiences
can provide protected area managers in other settings with hints about the challenges they face
and clues to more effective applications. While it has been more than a decade since the
initiation of the first full application, no systematic and rigorously disciplined assessments exist,
with the possible exceptions of McCoy and others (1995) and Parker (n.d.). Thus, the following
evaluation is necessarily impressionistic. There are five major items that we have learned over
10
the last decade. Each will be briefly discussed along with some ideas about how to address the
item.
LAC was originally designed to manage recreational use in wilderness, but its utility extends far
beyond this challenge
The publication of the original statement about Limits of Acceptable Change (Stankey and others
1985) emphasized managing recreational use in designated Wilderness. However, the concepts
and principles forming the foundation for the system can be extended to other resource issues.
For example, McCool (1994) has adapted the process to managing nature dependent tourism
development, and this process is currently being tested in southwestern Oregon in the U.S. to
identify a tourism policy for a local county. LAC has also been used by the Bureau of Land
Management in southeastern Idaho along the South Fork of the Snake River to structure planning
for a sensitive and ecologically significant riparian area. As noted above, the U.S. National Park
Service has adapted LAC and another similar process to address management of visitors in
components of the national park system. This system was initially tested in Arches National Park
in the state of Utah (National Park Service 1995) and is currently forming the basis for several
additional General Management Plans, including that for Glacier National Park in Montana. The
challenge for natural resource and protected area managers is to clearly understand the principles
and concepts underlying the idea of limits of acceptable change and then design the processes
needed to implement an LAC-based planning system in different contexts.
Intimate public participation has become one of the hallmarks of successful LAC-based planning
in the U.S.
As originally conceived and developed, the LAC planning system represented the traditional
rational-comprehensive approach to planning. However, its initial application in the Bob
Marshall Wilderness included an intimate public involvement component. This public
involvement process, based on Friedmann’s theory of transactive planning (1973), lead to not
only ownership by affected publics in the plan, but probably a better plan as well. Many of the
LAC planning efforts for designated Wilderness following the initial effort also included similar
intense public participation. In the assessment reported by McCoy and others (1995), about 43%
of the 23 LAC-based wilderness planning efforts they reviewed included a citizen task force
component. They noted that the LAC planning processes involving the public “did a more
complete job of writing physical, social and managerial attributes ... for their planning area” than
those conducted by the agency alone. Such benefits, including ownership of the plan by those
affected, go a long way in ensuring implementation and enforcement of plan provisions.
There is a lack of understanding of implementation of LAC
While LAC has been viewed as a way of resolving a number of protected area management
problems by upper level management, its implementation is often viewed as additional work by
field level personnel, and therefore, resisted. This feeling is a result of two factors. First, field
level personnel have often been excluded from the LAC planning process, and therefore do not
have any ownership in it. People cannot be expected to support that which they do not
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understand, and they do not understand that in which they have not been involved. Thus, field
personnel may view actions proposed as a result of LAC-based planning as additional work.
Second, LAC was not designed to be implemented as additional work, but to restructure existing
workloads and activities. With the monitoring that is required in the process, field level
personnel may have their daily activities redirected and provided more structure. Thus, the
monitoring that goes with LAC may now be viewed as critical to protection of the area.
Monitoring may then replace other activities which are not directed toward protection. Under an
LAC-based plan, many current activities will be continued, but with potentially different reasons,
some activities will be eliminated or transferred to other staff areas, and still other work activities
may be initiated.
Implementation of LAC will require some change in existing bureaucratic procedures
Limits of Acceptable Change represents a new way of thinking about protected area
management. The change from former approaches to LAC requires consideration of how the
existing bureaucracy will need to be changed to support this approach. Experience in the U.S.
suggests three major changes. First, training managers in LAC though a short course provides an
excellent introduction, but managers need continuing support as they gain experience and begin
to ask new questions. Development and transfer of knowledge is an important requisite to
successful implementation. This expertise can be centered in universities or in the protected area
agencies themselves, but it must exist and be accessible.
Second, personnel transfer policies which lead to short tenures in specific positions mean that
protected area managers may move into positions where LAC has been implemented but they
themselves have little background or experience in the system. The effect of these policies is to
gradually eliminate or dilute the area-oriented learning that occurred with the implementation of
LAC, and a return to former management paradigms in an incremental manner.
A third issue is funding. Implementation of LAC, as with other planning systems represents an
investment. While this may take funds away from other activities initially, its payoff is in
increased protection of important values. Coupled with an active public involvement program as
in the Bob Marshall example, it also results in increased public support for implemented
management actions.
LAC provides a framework guiding policy relevant research
Increasingly, researchers are turning to the Limits of Acceptable Change system to guide
potential research questions and projects. For example, identification of indicators has become a
focus of several recent projects where LAC or VERP has been implemented. Lime and others
(1994) used computerized visual imaging techniques to identify appropriate indicators and
suggest standards of acceptable social conditions for certain areas in Utah’s Arches National
Park. Roggenbuck and others (1993) also examined a similar question for three wilderness areas,
finding that litter, damaged trees and human-induced noise were more important indicators of
social conditions than encounters with other people.
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LAC thus expands its utility by suggesting research questions and issues that will provide useful
information to protected area managers. Such questions relevant indicators, acceptable
conditions, important values, acceptability of management actions can all be informed through
research.
Conclusion
Limits of acceptable change does represent a dramatically different way of conceptualizing
problems compared to the recreational carrying capacity framework. However, in and of itself,
LAC provides only a framework for identifying appropriate management actions. It does not
determine what should be done, by whom, or where. Thus, there is still a need for manager,
public and scientific expertise. What LAC does well is help frame management questions in
ways more effective than the past. While some may complain that the system is too complex,
this complaint originates more from a lack of understanding than the intrinsic concept itself.
Understanding the principles upon which LAC is based leads to a set of possible changes in the
planning system more compatible with specific agency needs and capabilities.
LAC in the U.S. has been frequently associated with detailed public participation programs.
These programs have contributed to its successful implementation because they have enhanced
opportunities for mutual learning, created ownership in the plan by the public, and resulted in
“better” plans. The appropriateness of public participation is a culturally determined decision, so
applicability to Malaysian situations must be assessed. The challenge for protected area
managers is to adapt basic principles of impact management to their situation.
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