Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights 3 (2022) 100072 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights journal homepage: www.sciencedirect.com/journal/annals-of-tourism-research-empirical-insights Anthropization in buffer zones of protected areas Michael Moya Calderón a, *, Enzo Barrientos Ávila b, Allan Loría Chaves b, Eduardo Carrillo Jiménez c, Carlos Barriocanal Lozano a a Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Barcelona 08193, Spain b Programa de Posgrado en Desarrollo Sostenible, Universidad de Costa Rica, San Ramón, 111–4250, Costa Rica c Instituto Internacional en Conservación y Manejo de Vida Silvestre, Heredia a 1350–3000, Costa Rica A R T I C L E I N F O Editor: Kirilova Ksenia Keywords: Costa Rica Buffer zone Anthropization National park Land cover 1. Introduction Ferri, 2022). There is a paradox because the national park was created to protect Worldwide, protected areas represent one of the main attractions for nature, but at the same time, it became a popular tourist attraction, national and international visitors (Bushell, 2003). Since the end of the which stimulated an unplanned tourism growth in the buffer zone, 20th century, tourism growth has created different pressures on natural generating impacts through the negative land cover change on the spaces, mainly caused by changes in land use (Boavida-Portugal, Rocha, biophysical environment (Koens, Dieperink, & Miranda, 2009). & Ferreira, 2016). The modification of an ecosystem through anthro­ There is a research gap in examining the influence of popular pro­ pogenic effects is known as anthropization (Martínez, 2010). One of the tected areas on the anthropization of the surrounding landscape. This factors that enhances this problem is the attraction of the coastal terri­ study aims to determine the changes in the landscape in the buffer zone tories for the sun and beach tourism (García-Ayllón, 2018). Through the of Manuel Antonio National Park through an anthropization index. The increase in urbanized areas, greater traffic flow, consumption of natural results are analyzed by considering visitors statistics to the protected resources, increased pollution, and pressure on natural spaces, beach area, location of the tourist infrastructure, and literature review. and coastal tourism pose severe threats to the ecosystem (Kim, Lee, & Kim, 2019). Despite this well-known direct impact of tourism on the 2. Methodology environment, when it is not clear what is driving the forces (pressures) or the interconnections between factors, anthropization is categorized as The study area comprises the North sector of the Manuel Antonio diffuse and is generally examined from a global or general perspective National Park buffer zone. The analysis covered thirty years period (by (Rova, Pranovi, & Müller, 2015). decade 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 to observe more notable changes in In Costa Rica, the creation of Manuel Antonio National Park in 1972, the anthropization dynamics). The decade of 1990 is considered the combined with access facilities and the expansion of tourism investment “boom” of tourism in Costa Rica and was considered as a good starting in the buffer zone, has made this region one of the most visited in the point. The impact on a landscape scale was conducted by determining country (Broadbent et al., 2012). In the case of famous tourist destina­ the degree of anthropization using the Relative Integrated Anthropiza­ tions, the literature coincides that excess visitation impact the envi­ tion Index. This conceptual and technical method was proposed by ronmental and social level (Burbano, Valdivieso, Izurieta, Meredith, & Martínez (2010) to study in a systematic way the anthropogenic * Corresponding author. E-mail address: Michael.Moya@autonoma.cat (M.M. Calderón). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annale.2022.100072 Received 7 September 2021; Received in revised form 14 September 2022; Accepted 15 September 2022 Available online 24 September 2022 2666-9579/© 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by- nc-nd/4.0/). M.M. Calderón et al. Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights 3 (2022) 100072 Fig. 1. Units and subunits of analysis in the buffer zone of Manuel Antonio National Park (Costa Rica). modification of ecosystems at the landscape scale. 3. Results To apply this methodology, the study area was divided into 18 units of analysis of 1km2. In turn, each unit was divided into 25 regular sub- One of the most relevant findings is that according to the units of units of analysis of 0.04 km2 (Fig. 1). The land cover of each sub-unit was analysis, comparison between the years 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020 determined using Landsat 4, 5, and 8 satellite images through an un­ there was an increase in the anthropization index (52.63%), while only supervised classification using the K-means method in ENVI 5.3. After 31.57% showed some decrease (Fig. 2). that, a revision and reclassification of each subunit was performed using The existence of the National Park and its visitation levels motivated orthophotos, to obtain the following coverage categories: undisturbed the establishment of a great number of tourist enterprises in the north­ coverage, crops, pastures, and urban areas. To each category a degree of west sector of the buffer zone (SINAC (Sistema Nacional de Áreas de anthropization value between 1 and 0 was assigned as follows: undis­ Conservación), 2013). According to the number of visitors to the pro­ turbed coverage (value = 0), crops (value = 0.50), pastures (value = tected area, increased in the ‘80s, the construction of hotels and res­ 0.75) and urban areas (value = 1). Once the anthropization values of taurants begin to expand (Mundis, 1997). In 1988 the hotel capacity was each sub-unit of analysis have been determined, the relative degree of 192 rooms, and in just three years it increased to 394 (ICT (Instituto anthropization per unit of analysis is estimated through the following Costarricense de Turismo), 1992). By 2010, 98 hotels and cabins were formula (Eq. (1)). identified with a high percentage of foreign ownership (ICT (Instituto ∑ Costarricense de Turismo), 2010; Takeda, 2012). In 2015 the number of Sub − units of analysis Anthropization index = × 100 (1) micros, small, and medium tourism companies installed in the area n amounted to 173 (Cooprena, 2015). The annual visitation growth rate to Where: the Manuel Antonio National Park between 1979 and 2019 is 1704.36%, ΣSub-units of analysis ¼ is the sum of the partial anthropization and in the period under study (1990–2019) this growth reached value of all the sub-units of analysis and n ¼ numbers of sub-units of 291.77%, becoming the most visited protected area in Costa Rica. These analysis. The interpretation of the results ranges from 0 to 100, where values are accompanied by a similar trend in the dynamics of anthrop­ 0 represents null and 100 high anthropization in the respective unit of ization (138% growth rate between 1990 and 2020) (Table 1). analysis. The highest concentration of tourist infrastructure occurs mainly in The results of anthropization with the tourist use were related those subunits of value = 1 and units with a high value of anthropization through the location of the tourist infrastructure for the year 2020, the index. In 2020, 501 different types of tourism or vacation-related determination of the annual visitation growth rate to the Manuel infrastructure were identified. There is a high concentration in UA Antonio National Park, and a bibliographic analysis of 15 technical and number 12 (25.35%) and 8 (13.77%) conforming the biggest touristic scientific sources to support the results. 2 M.M. Calderón et al. Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights 3 (2022) 100072 Fig. 2. Degree of anthropization and anthropization index in the buffer zone of Manuel Antonio National Park (1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020). 3 M.M. Calderón et al. Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights 3 (2022) 100072 Table 1 Tourism and anthropization process (1990–2019). Year National Park entries National Park entries growth rate (%) Anthropization Anthropization index growth rate (%) index (%) (mean) 1990 131,011 11.02 1992 165,584 26.39 1994 128,023 − 22.68 1996 104,807 − 18.13 1998 131,448 25.42 2000 147,759 19.74 15.37 39.47 2002 167,034 13.04 2004 166,189 − 0.51 2006 229,461 38.07 2008 307,867 34.17 2010 273,660 − 11.11 22.61 47.10 2012 359,564 49.91 2014 379,608 5.57 2016 437,430 15.23 2018 524,835 19.98 2019 513,268 − 2.20 2020 224762* − 56.21 25.69 13.6 Note: *Year influenced by COVID-19. cluster (Fig. 3). Much of the infrastructure dedicated to tourism is 4. Discussion and conclusions located near to the main route (route 618), approximately 7 km of road between Quepos and Manuel Antonio. Due to the extension of the units The dynamics of and land cover is the result of intricated socio­ of analysis, the number 18 involved part of the public use zone of ecological interactions (Gallant et al., 2004). For that reason, one of the Manuel Antonio National Park, where it is possible to observe that there limitations of this study was the difficulty in establishing a clear cause- are four subunits with high anthropization values, which correspond to effect relationship. However, through the analysis of the results of tourist infrastructure (trails). anthropization, location of tourism infrastructure, visitation statistics and triangulated with documentary review in the period 1990–2000, the tourism industry was identified as one of the primary forces of landscape Fig. 3. Tourist infrastructure between Manuel Antonio and Quepos, and units and subunits of analysis with the highest anthropization value, 2020. 4 M.M. Calderón et al. Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights 3 (2022) 100072 modification. A trend of increased anthropization was identified in the Burbano, D. V., Valdivieso, J. C., Izurieta, J. C., Meredith, T. C., & Ferri, D. Q. (2022). “Rethink and reset” tourism in the Galapagos Islands: Stakeholders’ views on the buffer zone, especially in the touristic zones. The identification of tem­ sustainability of tourism development. Annals of Tourism Research Empirical Insights, poral and spatial patterns of anthropization in this research is an input in 3(2), Article 100057. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annale.2022.100057 the generation of conservation strategies through the protection and Bushell. (2003). Balancing conservation and visitation in protected areas. In R. Buckley, restoration of ecosystems which is the basis of ecotourism. C. Pickering, & D. Weaver (Eds.), Nature-based tourism, environment and land management (pp. 97–208). UK: CABI Publishing. For conservation purposes, it is essential to have biological corridors Cooprena, R. L. (2015). Diagnóstico de la situación turística de los actores locales y las and improve the quality of the surface water of the buffer zone that flow comunidades aledañas al Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. http://www.sinac.go.cr into the national park. /ES/transprncia/Planificacin%20y%20Gestin%20BID/Gesti%C3%B3n%20Sosten ible%20del%20Turismo%20Sector%20Privado/Zona%20de%20Influencia%20PN% The results offer some clues to determine new lines of research: 1) the 20Manuel%20Antonio/ANALISIS%20PN%20MANUEL%20ANTONIO%20Y%20 role of attractive coastal protected areas to influence the impact on the COMUNIDADES%20DE%20INFLUENCIA%20FINAL.pdf. landscape, 2) the pressures in the coastal protected areas related to the Gallant, A., Loveland, T., Sohl, T., & Napton, D. (2004). Using an ecoregion framework to analyze land-cover and land-use dynamics. Environmental Management, 34, S89. increased offer of tourist services, and 3) the socio-ecological effects of https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-003-0145-3 anthropization close to protected areas. García-Ayllón, S. (2018). GIS assessment of mass tourism anthropization in sensitive Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi. coastal environments: Application to a case study in the Mar Menor Area. Sustainability, 10(5). https://doi.org/10.3390/su10051344 org/10.1016/j.annale.2022.100072. ICT (Instituto Costarricense de Turismo). (1992). Listado de servicios de hospedaje en Quepos y Manuel Antonio. Disclosure statement ICT (Instituto Costarricense de Turismo). (2010). Compendio de estadísticas turísticas. Kim, Y., Lee, D., & Kim, C. (2019). Spatial tradeoff between biodiversity and nature- based tourism: Considering mobile phone-driven visitation pattern. Global Ecology No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). and Conservation, 21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2019.e00899 Koens, J. F., Dieperink, C., & Miranda, M. (2009). Ecotourism as a development strategy: Declaration of Competing Interest Experiences from Costa Rica. Environment, Development and Sustainability, 11(6), 1225–1237. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-009-9214-3 Martínez, W. A. (2010). INRA–relative integrated anthropization index: A conceptual The authors declare that they have no known competing financial technical proposal and its application. Revista Intropica, 5, 45–54. https://dialnet. interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=3794116. Mundis, E. D. (1997). From united fruit company to Palma Tica: The transformation of a the work reported in this paper. (Banana) company town into a tourist resort, tourism, and its consequences. Summer Ethnographic Field School, 2. 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