Dnp Case Study

Method
Questionnaire
“One man’s wilderness is another’s roadside picnic ground” (Nash, 1982)
There has been much debate on a definitive definition of what wildness is in terms of the UK, as it has no true wilderness areas. The Scottish Natural Heritage define it as “the wild character of the landscape, its related recreational value and potential for nature are such that these areas should be safeguarded against inappropriate development or land-use change” (SNH, July 2002). However, little work has been done to define it in England, where population density is much higher and land more intensively used. Therefore, a questionnaire was created to specifically target DNP to understand the perception of wildness is within the park. This will
be used alongside previous studies and questionnaires undertaken elsewhere in the U.K to create a relative wildness map of DNP.
Location
4 locations were used to disperse the questionnaire to try and capture the different users of Dartmoor National Park as well as those that would potentially be affected. The first location was Chudleigh, a small town 2 miles outside of the national park, where people are aware of Dartmoor and regularly use it for recreational reasons but will not be directly affected due to any changes to the landscape, which rewilding could potentially cause. The second location was Bovey Tracey which is within DNP, with much of its trade coming from tourists entering through the town due to good road connections. Changes to the landscape could directly affect the people who live here as well as indirectly as they may feel that tourists may not want to visit the area of the moor around it if
it is not the wide-open moorland it is famed for. The third location was a car park on Haytor, known as a honey pot, where many coaches and travel tours stop to get a look at Dartmoor. It will gather a wide variety of perspectives as many people would have never seen the area before and not be used to the landscape, whereas others use the area for recreational reasons on a regular basis and so will, potentially, be more aware of what the park is and what they feel it stands for. The fourth location was Hound Tor, famed for its setting in Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novels, and so will see both tourists and regular users. It is more remote and so sees less coach tours than Haytor. The aim for the 4 locations was to try and get as a diverse view as possible on the users of the national park as well as those that live in it and rely on its appeal and resources to make a living.
Sampling
When sampling within Chudleigh and Bovey Tracey questionnaires where put through letter boxes with the recipient told that, once completed, put it outside the front door to be collected in two days’ time.
If there was no response a letter was posted through the letter box kindly reminding them of how important the questionnaire is for my University degree. Of the 100 handed out 51 were returned giving a response rate of 51%. When sampling on Haytor and Hound Tor, the sampling method was asking every person coming off the moor into the car park no matter age or nationality. This was firstly to get as many completed questionnaires as possible but also taking out any bias due to oneself asking every person returning. This was done on two days over the summer holidays. The first was on a Wednesday when the weather was cold and grey which saw few tourists with mainly walkers. The second sampling day was on a Sunday during a bank holiday weekend which saw large numbers of different people from different backgrounds. Over the two days 4 declined to answer giving a response rate of 98%. Frustratingly, all 4 that did not want to complete the survey were either German or Dutch whose views may have been very different to that of British individuals, with rewilding being very popular in the Netherlands, and wolves recently starting to colonise
Germany.

Design of the Questionnaire Approach The questionnaire was 3 pages split into 3 sections to allow to recipient to understand fully each topic being asked about. All but 4 questions required a tick or a number to make it as quick and easy for people as possible to increase the response rate but still getting the information needed (Bryman, 2012). The first two sections of the questionnaire were based on a similar survey undertaken by SNH to identify individuals’ perceptions on what they felt was wild and what influenced this opinion as well as gathering some background information to try and gather what influences their perceptions and opinions. The 3rd section is related to the rewilding section of the project and was based on rewilding Britain’s and Trees for Life’s ideas on what they feel is suitable to the UK especially in terms of reintroductions. Questionnaire Components The first 4 and last question were used to get a sense of what could influence people’s opinion so if further analysis looking at reasons for varying viewpoints was required (e.g age, where people live, perceived knowledge of natural environment) this could be done (Phelps, 2017; Mohamad, 2017). The next section looked at whether the feeling of wildness was important to people and DNP, what influenced these feelings and what artefacts decreased this feeling. This was used to help create an accurate wildness map of Dartmoor and to see if there were any disagreements with academic research, on which I am basing the research on. This included the question; Rank these categories 1-4 in what you feel increases Dartmoor's wildness with 1 having the most impact on what makes an area wild