Testing Communication Strategies for Reducing Toilet Waste in a Norwegian Protected Area

Challenges with human waste management in protected areas are growing globally as nature-based tourism continues to rise. Protected areas, especially core areas, are often characterized by lack of infrastructure, including toilets. This contributes to a growing issue of accumulating toilet waste, spread of disease, and pollution of local water bodies and soil (in cases of high volume). We examined visitors’ values, beliefs and attitudes concerning toilet waste in nature. We subsequently used these to create different communication strategies to encourage the use of individual bags to pack-out human feces and reduce the amount of toilet waste in line with Leave No Trace (LNT) Principles. Our study was carried out in 2022–23 in Lofotodden National Park in Northern Norway. We applied both passive (signage) and active (personal contact) communication strategies together with free toilet waste bags (i.e., Biffy bags) provided at trailheads. Our study design followed a before after control impact (BACI) design where we, before and after the different treatments counted toilet waste deposits. We also took water samples of streams to assess drinking water quality due to the prevalence of toilet waste along the streams and observations of visitors consuming the water. Our results showed a substantial reduction of toilet waste and a drop in E.coli levels (from 88 to 33 cfu/ml). We conclude with management recommendations, including a coordinated effort among stakeholders to educate incoming visitors in human waste disposal as this norm develops. We acknowledge that reliance of Biffy bags also has environmental impact as it generates waste. We thus urge Norwegian environmental authorities to rethink Nordic nature-based tourism as being dispersed in nature and low impact. Working toward establishing Leave No Trace and related Principles in Norway could alleviate some of these challenges and moreover, provide protected areas with resources for monitoring and managing the impacts of mass nature-based tourism.