Public awareness of national parks : A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Resource Studies with Honours at Lincoln University

Abstract

In New Zealand, a national park is a large area of land, set aside for preservation and use reasons. One of the purposes of doing so, under New Zealand statute, is for the benefit of the public. This dissertation investigates public awareness of national parks in New Zealand, with the premise that to gain any benefits from national parks, the public must be aware of them.

Literature on the nature of awareness reveals that differing levels of awareness exist. It was surmised that to gain benefit from national parks, the public must know firstly that they exist, and secondly have knowledge of them. A theoretical framework was developed for this research structured by these two stages of awareness, termed Existence Awareness and Knowledge Awareness. Research objectives investigated public awareness of national parks in terms of both existence and knowledge. Additionally, the role of information in public awareness was explored.

The research was designed to enable comparison with previous studies of national park awareness. Public awareness measures utilised in Booth's (1986) investigation of public awareness of national parks in New Zealand were employed to enable longitudinal comparison, while Parks Canada (2002) provided a contemporary international example of national park awareness assessment.

Information from a sample survey of Christchurch residents was utilised to investigate public awareness of national parks in New Zealand. The approach involved developing and administering a face-to-face questionnaire survey to a sample of 200 people. Central Location Interviewing was employed based in shopping malls, and respondents were selected using convenience sampling on a next to pass basis.

This study reveals that the majority of respondents are aware of national parks in New Zealand at a level adequate to gain benefit. While respondents illustrate an inability to name national parks in New Zealand, they could generally identify a purpose of national parks, the Department of Conservation as the national park governing body, and were aware of the opportunities for use and prohibitions associated with national parks.

However, a small faction of the public have never heard of national parks. Additionally, some respondents indicated that they were aware of the existence of national parks, but were found to have no knowledge of, or an incorrect perception of what a national park is.

The identification of these respondents signals that the public benefit purpose of national parks is not universally being realised. This suggests that there is a need to increase public awareness of national parks amongst New Zealanders in order to fulfil the statutory role of these areas.