Governing Recreational Activities in Ireland: a partnership approach to sustainable tourism

Thomas van Rensburg, Edel Doherty () and Catherine Murray ()
Additional contact information
Edel Doherty: Department of Economics, National University of Ireland, Galway

No 113, Working Papers from National University of Ireland Galway, Department of Economics

Abstract: In Ireland increased public access for recreation presents challenges to policy makers concerned with tourism and rural development. Recreation activities such as mountaineering, walking and cycling can contribute to the regeneration of marginalised rural areas and enhance residents' quality of life. However, de facto access to common and private farm land also generates conflicts between recreationists, landowners and government authorities. Using common pool resource theory we describe the formation and development of two partnerships in the mountains of Mourne (Northern Ireland) and the Wicklow uplands (Republic of Ireland). Our findings indicate that partnerships can reduce recreational conflicts involving complex property rights and diverse stakeholders by re-positioning incentives yet avoid changes in land ownership and property rights. Community based contracts and access agreements between the state, partnerships and landowners has lead to the adoption of new rules by walking associations, regulation enforcement and public-private investment in trail development.

JEL-codes: Q0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006, Revised 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.economics.nuig.ie/resrch/paper.php?pid=120 First version, 2006 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found
http://www.economics.nuig.ie/resrch/paper.php?pid=120 Revised version, 2006 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nig:wpaper:0113

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from National University of Ireland Galway, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Srinivas Raghavendra ().