Dr Michael Hughes
B. App.Sc., Grad Dip., MSc., PhD.

My expertise is in the field of environmental management and nature based recreation and tourism.  My background includes environmental biology, natural resource management, protected area management and nature based tourism and recreation policy and management.  My research generally focuses on reconciling policy and management of the natural environment for different values.  I am also interested in natural area visitor experiences and behaviour.  I am very interested in how people and the natural environment interact and how this can be managed for the benefit of both.

I teach units in Environmental Management at the undergraduate and post graduate levels and also make guest appearances in the realms of Environmental Restoration, Environmental Monitoring and Foundations of Environmental Science.

I Coordinate and Teach:

ENV246 – Protected Area Management and Planning

ENV331 – Environmental Management

ENV557 – Environmental Assessment and Management

I also contribute to:

ENV102 – Foundations of the Environment

ENV334 – Environmental Restoration

ENV558  – Environmental Monitoring

• Protected natural area management
• Nature based recreation and tourism management
• Urban green space
• Environmental social science

Some recent research projects include:

Project Title: Golden fish: evaluating and optimising the biological, social and economic returns of small-scale fisheries. This project focuses on social and economic dimensions of key small-scale multisector fisheries and estimates the potential cost and benefits of various release program scenarios.

Project Title: Pilbara Islands visitor survey.  This project helps understand who visits the numerous small, near shore islands along Western Australia’s Pilbara coast between Exmouth and Point Preston. Information gathered includes visitation patterns, perceived benefits of the islands and awareness of how the islands are managed.

• Monica Maharjan (2020 – ) Decarbonization of Road Transport: Implications for Vehicle Importing Countries. (Murdoch University, with Dr Oliver Fritsch), PhD
• Clara Obregon-Lafuente (2017- ) Social dimensions of restocking small-scale recreational and commercial fisheries in south-western Australian estuaries. (Murdoch University, with Dr James Tweedley & Prof Neil Loneragan), PhD
• Megan Jones (2017- ) How much can we expect from the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process? (Edith Cowan University with Prof Angus Morrison Saunders and Dr Jenny Pope), PhD
• Valeria Senigaglia (2017- 2020 ) Ecological and socio-economic aspects of dolphin tourism and food provisioning in Bunbury. (Murdoch University, with Prof Lars Bejder and Dr Frederik Christiansen), PhD
• Tuyet Truong (2017 -2019) Risks, impacts and management of invasive plant species in Vietnam. (Murdoch University with Dr. Margaret Andrew, Prof. Giles Hardy,Prof. Bernie Dell, & Prof. Pham Quang Thu), PhD.
• Mia Pepper (2017 – 2020) The history of mines in care and maintenance in Western Australia. (Murdoch University, with Dr Yvonne Haigh), Masters by Research
• David Brawn (2017-2018) Key Success Factors and Challenges for Landscape-Scale Wildlife Corridor Governance: Informing Good Practice (Murdoch University) Masters Project.
• Sharon Kili (2015-2016) Reconciling elephant and local community wellbeing in Kenya: identifying good practice management. (Murdoch University, with Dr Kate Rodger), Masters Project
• Isaac Middle (2012 – 2016) Planning public parks under resilience theory: a framework for negotiating ecosystem and sporting park services in outer suburbs. (Curtin University, with Prof Dave Hedgecock), PhD
• Min Juan Deng-Westphal (2012 – 2015) Empirical investigation of tourism organisations’ decisions to adopt ecolabels: a mixed methods approach. (La Trobe University, with A/Prof Sue Beeton), PhD
• Anna Lewis (2008 – 2013) Remote camping along the Ningaloo Coast, Western Australia: Relationship between management and the variables of camper preferences, resource use and environmental impacts. (Curtin University, With Prof Roy Jones and Dr Tod Jones), PhD
  

Access my publications at the Murdoch University Library Research Repository:

http://researchrepository.murdoch.edu.au/view/author/Hughes,_Michael.html

Publications

Books

Hughes, M., Pforr, C. & Weaver, D. (eds.) (2015). The practice of sustainable tourism: resolving the paradox. Routledge, UK.

Holmes, K., Hughes, M., Mair, J., & Carlsen, J. (2015). Events and sustainability. Routledge, UK.

Refereed Journal Articles (last 5 years)

Pepper, M., Hughes, M. & Haigh, Y. (in press 2021). Loophole or lifeline? The policy challenges of mines in care and maintenance, The Extractive Industries and Society, in press

Ritchie, A.L, Svejcar, L.N., Ayre, B.M., Bolleter, J., Brace, A., Craig, M.D.,Davis,B., Davis, R.A., Van Etten, E.J.B., Fontaine, J.B., Fowler, W.M., Froend, R.H., Groom, C., Hardy, G.E., Hooper, P. Hopkins, A.J., Hughes, M., Krauss, S.L., Leopold, M., Miller, B.P., Miller, R.G., Cristina E. Ramalho, C.E., Katinka X. Ruthrof, K.X., Shaw, C., Stevens, J.C., Tangney, R., Valentine, L.E., Veneklaas, E.J., Hobbs, R.J. (in press 2021). A threatened ecological community: research advances and priorities for Banksia Woodlands, Australian Journal of Botany, in press.

Le Corre, N., Saint-Pierre, A., Hughes, M., Peuziat, I., Michot, T., & Bernard, N. (2021) Outdoor recreation in French Coastal and Marine Protected Areas. Exploring recreation experience preference as a way for building conservation support. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, 33, 100332. doi 10.1016/j.jort.2020.100332

Lima da Costa Preuss, S., Joaquim da Silva Pereira Cabral, J., Morrison-Saunders, A., Hughes, M., & de Araújo Nunes, A. B. (2020). Understanding community perceptions of an urban stream before and after a discussion of revitalization possibilities using photo-elicitation. Environment, Development and Sustainability. doi:10.1007/s10668-020-00751-9

Obregon, C., Admiraal, R., van Putten, I., Hughes, M., Tweedley, J., & Loneragan, N. (2020). Who you speak to matters: information sharing and the management of a small-scale fishery. Frontiers in Marine Science, , 7(759). doi:/10.3389/fmars.2020.578014

Obregon, C., Hughes, M., Loneragan, N., Poulton, S., Tweedley, J. (2020). A two-phase approach to elicit and measure beliefs on management strategies: fishers supportive and aware of trade-offs associated with stock enhancement. Ambio, 49, 640-649, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-019-01212-y.

Obregon, C., Tweedley, J., Loneragan, N. & Hughes, M. (2020) Different but not opposed: perceptions between fishing sectors on the status and management of a crab fishery. ICES Journal of Marine Science, published online https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsz225

Rosa, J., Geneletti, D., Morrison-Saunders, A., Sanchez, L., & Hughes, M. (2020). To what extent can mine rehabilitation restore recreational use of forest land? Learning from 50 years of practice in southwest Australia. Land Use Policy.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2019.104290

Rosa, J. C. S., Morrison‐Saunders, A., Hughes, M., & Sánchez, L. E. (2020) Planning mine restoration through ecosystem services to enhance community engagement and deliver social benefits. Restoration Ecology, 28(4), 937-946. https://doi-org.libproxy.murdoch.edu.au/10.1111/rec.13162

Senigaglia, V., New, L., & Hughes, M. (2020). Close encounters of the dolphin kind: Contrasting tourist support for feeding based interactions with concern for dolphin welfare. Tourism Management, 77, 104007. published online https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2019.104007

Schmidt, R., Le Corre, N., Hughes, M., & Peuziat, I. (2020). The view from the inside: institutional dimensions of public communication of two coastal and marine protected area networks in France. Coastal Management, 48(3),1-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/08920753.2020.1754088

Morrison-Saunders, A., Hughes, M., Pope, J., Douglas, A. & Wessels, J-A.  (2019) Understanding visitor expectations for responsible tourism in an iconic national park: differences between local and international visitors, Journal of Ecotourism,  published onlinehttps://doi.org/10.1080/14724049.2019.1567740

Pope, J., Wessels, J. A., Douglas, A., Hughes, M., & Morrison-Saunders, A. (2019). The potential contribution of environmental impact assessment (EIA) to responsible tourism: The case of the Kruger National Park. Tourism Management Perspectives, 32, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2019.100557

Boschetti, F., Hughes, M., Jones, C. & Lozano-Montes, H. (2018) on decision makers’ perceptions of what an ecological computer model is and what it does, and its impact on limiting model acceptance. Sustainability, 10(8), 2767.

Hughes, M. & Berengier, V. (2018) Are there conservation implications for kangaroos feeding on sea birds? Pacific Conservation Biology, 24, 98-99. https://doi.org/10.1071/PC17038

Newsome, D. & Hughes, M. (2018) The contemporary conservation reserve visitor phenomenon! Biodiversity Conservation, 27(2), 521-529. DOI 10.1007/s10531-017-1435-4

Newsome, D. & Hughes, M. (2017) Jurassic World as a contemporary wildlife theme park allegory. Current Issues in Tourism. 20(13), 1311-1319. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2016.1161013.

Hughes, M., Tye, M. & Chandler, P. (2016) Eroding the experience: bushwalking on the urban fringe. Society and Natural Resources, 29(11), 1311-1324. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2016.1185554

Hughes, M. and Jones, T.  & Phua, I. (2016) Local community perceptions of the World Heritage nomination process for the Ningaloo Coast region of Western Australia. Coastal Management, 44(2), 139-155.

Jones, T., Jones, R. & Hughes, M. (2016) Heritage designation and scale:  a world heritage case study of the Ningaloo Coast. International Journal of Heritage Studies. 22(3), 242-260.

Lee, S., Phau, I., Hughes, M., Li, YF. & Quintal, V. (2016) Heritage tourism in Singapore Chinatown: a perceived value approach to authenticity and satisfaction. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing. 33(7), 981-998. DOI: 10.1080/10548408.2015.107545.

Book Chapters (last 5 years)

Hughes, M. & Tye, M. (2019) Masking tape, mats and imagination, grounding policy. In R. Creagh & McGann (eds), Visual Spatial Enquiry: diagrams and metaphors for architects and spatial thinkers. Routledge: UK

Hughes, M. & Morrison-Saunders, A. (2018) Whose needs and what is to be sustained? In J. Liburd & D. Edwards, (eds), Collaborations for sustainable tourism development, Goodfellow Publishers, Oxford: UK.

Morrison-Saunders, A. and Hughes, M. (2018). Overcoming sustainability displacement: The challenge of making sustainability accessible in the Here and Now. In: Brueckner, M., Spencer, R. & Paull, M., (eds.) Disciplining the Undisciplined? Springer International Publishing, pp. 39-53.

Hughes, M., Newsome, D. & Rodger, K. (2018). Researching the nexus of protected natural area tourism management: milestones and future directions, in C. Cooper, B. Gartner, N. Scott & S. Volo (eds.), The Sage Handbook of Tourism Management, California, USA: Sage Publications.

Morrison-Saunders, A. & Hughes, M. (2018). Overcoming Sustainability Displacement – The challenge of making sustainability accessible in the here and now, in M. Brueckner, M. Paull & R. Spencer (eds.), Disciplining the undisciplined: Perspectives on responsible citizenship, corporate social responsibility and sustainability, New York: Springer.

Pforr, C., Hughes, M. & Locher, C. (2017). Forschungsevaluierungen im Australischen hochschulsektor – entwicklungen und implikationen [Research evaluation in the Australian higher education sector - developments and implications]. In: Pechlaner H. &  Zehrer, A. (eds.) Tourismus und wissenschaft: Wirtschaftliche, politische und gesellschaftliche Perspektiven, Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin. pp.155-166.

Newsome, D. & Hughes, M. (2016) Understanding the impacts of ecotourism on biodiversity: a multi-scale, cumulative issue influenced by perceptions and politics. In: Geneletti, D. (ed.) Handbook on biodiversity and ecosystem services in impact assessment. Edward Elgar Publishing, UK. pp. 276-298.

Technical Reports (last 5 years)

Hughes, M., Fontaine, J. & Culverhouse, E. (2018) Adopt a Verge survey: summary report for the City of Vincent. Perth, Western Australia

Boschetti F, Lozano-montes H, Stelfox B, Bulman C, Strzeleck J, Hughes M (2017). Knowledge integration and MSE modelling. Final Report of Project 2.2.8 prepared for the Kimberley Marine Research Program, Western Australian Marine Science Institution, Perth, Western Australia,

Hughes, M. & Rodger, K. (2017).  Pilbara islands visitor survey. A report for the WA Parks and Wildlife Service. Perth, Western Australia.

Hughes, M., Smith, A. & Tuffin, M. (2016) Bibbulmun Track user survey. A report for WA Department of Parks and Wildlife and the Bibbulmun Track Foundation, WA.