Nature Trails

The Western Ghats are a world renowned Biodiversity Hotspot with high endemic value and an abundance of natural resources. However, the forest habitats have been severely depleted and fragmented resulting in a degraded system of discrete, disconnected primary forest fragments, set in an agricultural landscape with areas of scrubland and secondary forest growth. The modern era of exploitation can be traced back to the colonial years and has been continued in in recent times as urban development and population growth squeeze natural ecosystems into smaller spaces. It has been noted that throughout this era of exploitation there has been a tendency towards management concentrated on discrete forest patches, which lack data and knowledge regarding their ecological communities. As habitats continue to be degraded there is a need to fill these knowledge gaps and improve habitat management towards catchment and landscape-scale thinking. The research presented here focuses on Avian-floristic relationship, nature education and community exploitation of forest resources. It combines mega flora diversity, tree species assemblage and abundance, density, species richness canopy cover and bird diversity along with surveys of village inhabitants. The aim is to understand the quality of different forest types, specifically primary and secondary forests, work with village communities to understand their need to exploit forest resources, and how this exploitation impacts the ecologies of the forests. Finally, suggestions for improved management of forests are offered placing the forest fragments into the context of landscape-scale conservation management. A bark identification key was developed to assist with identifying tree species divided into 9 bark types. It was shown that
Legumenosae followed by Moraceae are dominant tree species in the forests. While the inventory revealed 61 species of trees and 85 bird species within the forests. The results showed the canopy cover structure and Gap Light Analysis (%Canopy openness and %transmitted gap light) interlinked and how these change season by season. The village surveys highlighted a need to develop awareness raising within local communities. However, it was found that poverty and poor resources forced people to exploit the forests. Thus, poverty was a clear driver for accessing the forests for products such as food, firewood and medicinal plants. This direct forest exploitation was further exacerbated by agricultural encroachment, particularly of livestock grazing.
Bird species displayed a clear preference towards primary forests suggesting a richer habitat in both plant and invertebrate species. This highlighted the need to protect primary forests. At the same time it was felt important to recommend extending forest cover through regeneration of trees in plots adjacent to primary forests. Other conservation measures recommended included better management of riparian zones, increased wildlife corridor cover as well as improved resources for the rural poor who are forced to exploit primary forests despite the negative impacts of such exploitation.

Unidades de Conservação são locais protegidos por legislação que abrigam diversidade e qualidade ambiental, preservando ecossistemas, protegendo fauna e flora, além de outros benefícios à biodiversidade. As trilhas ecológicas têm se mostrado importantes instrumentos de educação ambiental, pois são dinâmicas, propiciam atividade física, conhecimento, conscientização ambiental e o contato direto com a natureza. O objetivo deste trabalho foi elaborar um plano para a implantação de trilha ecológica em unidade de conservação, a fim de estimular o acesso da comunidade ao parque municipal e promover a educação ambiental. Os procedimentos metodológicos adotados foram: o planejamento físico, contendo o levantamento topográfico da trilha, a elaboração de elementos visuais de informação e o planejamento funcional. Como resultados do levantamento topográfico, da pesquisa bibliográfica e das avaliações em campo, identificaram-se as atrações naturais e o que deve ser trabalhado ao longo da trilha e as informações a constarem nas placas de identificação. Foram elaborados mapas, contendo o “Plano de Intervenção”, que apontou os locais necessários para melhorias e o “Plano de Sinalização”, com os locais em que devem ser instaladas as placas. Foi elaborado um modelo de cartilha para possibilitar o acesso autoguiado da trilha, ou seja, sem a presença de guias.

Ever wonder what it would be like to hike 2,174 miles from Georgia to Maine along the world’s longest continuously marked footpath? Join “Marathon” as he provides a humorous autobiographical account of a “real” walk in the woods. Anyone who enjoys travel or adventure will love Marathon’s story. This book is required reading for any outdoor enthusiast and will certainly assist anyone wanting to plan an Appalachian Trail (AT) section or thru-hike. Live vicariously through this entertaining account, which includes over 350 accompanying pictures. This book is the culmination of 34 articles that were written for the author’s hometown newspaper as he thru-hiked the entire AT. All articles were written while still on the trail. Appendices also include the author’s daily mileage and location log, his thru-hike equipment list, a suggested AT readings list, and a comprehensive collection of reflective thoughts and suggestions by another AT thru-hiker, “Bonespur.”

Unidades de Conservação são locais protegidos por legislação que abrigam diversidade e qualidade ambiental, preservando ecossistemas, protegendo fauna e flora, além de outros benefícios à biodiversidade. As trilhas ecológicas têm se mostrado importantes instrumentos de educação ambiental, pois são dinâmicas, propiciam atividade física, conhecimento, conscientização ambiental e o contato direto com a natureza. O objetivo deste trabalho foi elaborar um projeto para a implantação de trilha ecológica em unidade de conservação, a fim de estimular o acesso da comunidade ao parque municipal e promover a educação ambiental. Os procedimentos metodológicos adotados foram: o planejamento físico, contendo o levantamento topográfico da trilha, a elaboração de elementos visuais de informação e o planejamento funcional. Como resultados do levantamento topográfico, da pesquisa bibliográfica e das avaliações em campo, identificaram-se as atrações naturais e o que deve ser trabalhado ao longo da trilha e as informações a constarem nas placas de identificação. Foram elaborados mapas, contendo o “Plano de Intervenção”, que apontou os locais necessários para melhorias e o “Plano de Sinalização”, com os locais em que devem ser instaladas as placas. Foi elaborado um modelo de cartilha para possibilitar o acesso autoguiado da trilha, ou seja, sem a presença de guias. A trilha apresentou várias possibilidades educativas ambientais à serem trabalhadas na comunidade e pode estimular a capacidade de sujeitos educandos desenvolverem atitudes, assumindo assim, uma postura participativa em processos decisórios e no exercício da cidadania.

In this paper, we deal with the question of how the variety of trip opportunities can be modeled in-possibly complex-recreational trail networks (such as hiking paths or cycling ways). In order to quantify the variety of possible loop trips starting from specific trailheads (starting nodes accessible from outside the network) and the variety of connecting trips between specific origin-destination pairs, two novel measures of Loop Trip Variety Index (LTVI) and Connecting Trip Variety Index (CTVI) are proposed preliminarily and informally in [12], respectively, in the frame of assessing the impacts of some recent trail network developments. This paper establishes the formal definitions of improved variants of these measures, shows their well-definedness, presents the algorithms of their computation, investigates on their properties and benefits, and gives reasons of how and to what extent they can be treated as models of trip variety. Possible uses, application areas and future improvements are sketched especially for visitor management planning and profilebased trip recommendation systems.