Preliminary Results

Our community mapping survey asked local residents along the East Coast of Tasmania, to map the places they value, including terrestrial, coastal and marine places that are meaningful to them. This information would help us better understand what important connections people have to east coast places and will inform planning and management decisions to help protect these places. To this end, we also asked residents to map the places they perceive to be at risk from a number of different anthropogenic and environmental impacts. The images below show our preliminary findings. Figure A shows the distribution of landscape value (such as aesthetic, recreation, economic and biological values) hotspots and hotspots of special places. Figure B shows the distribution of perceived risks along the study region, risks included biodiversity loss, bushfire, impacts from human activities, etc.

Our analysis found that landscape values, risks and special places were most likely to be found within protected areas, close to major towns and near the coastline. This means that individuals assigned highest value to places that were close to where they lived and close to beaches and other coastal areas, and in major national parks and other protected areas. It was these places that they perceived most at risk from environmental and human impacts. Another key finding is that aesthetic, recreational and biological values were especially important to our survey respondents and were an important consideration when it came to mapping what places were most special to them.