Use of visitors? perception in urban reserves in the Buenos Aires metropolis

PATRICIA PERELMAN; JUERGEN BREUSTE; NORA MADANES; CHRISTINE GROPPER; ELIANA MELIGNANI; ANA FAGGI

URBAN ECOSYST

Springer

Año: 2012 p. 1 - 11

1573-1642

Abstract Urban nature reserves (UR?s) fulfill unique functions for society and are irreplaceable,satisfying human needs particularly in urban and periurban areas. The aim of thispaper was to use a perception based approach to analyze whether the urban nature reservesin the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires, Argentina were principally used by visitorsaccording to their main conservation mission. Five hundred written surveys designed toevaluate users? profile and their perceptions of the selected reserves were conducted duringthe summer of 2009 to visitors selected at random. Collected data was analyzed bymultivariate analyses. The results discriminated two groups (1 and 2) of reserves showingthat people chose to visit a nature reserve for two contrasting motivations: the contemplationof nature (group 1) or active recreation (group 2). Both groups of reserves, the respondentsparticipated in environmental programs. All respondents knew about plants whereas knowledgeof the fauna was related to the visitors? level of education. In all reserves respondentsconsidered that nature enhance the quality of human life in the first place, and valuedbiodiversity en second place. Visitors in group 1 considered nature as very important, whilerespondents in group 2 thought that is important as a place for having fun. Our findings canpotentially assist administrators to understand better how visitors perceive the reserves.