Wolfgang Haider

Dr. Wolfgang Haider, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of JORT, died on August 24, 2015, at the age of 62 following a bicycle accident in Austria.

Wolfgang was born in Eisenstadt, Austria, in 1953. His education in Europe and Canada—he had a M.Sc. degree in geography and history from the University of Vienna, a M.A. degree in geography from the Carleton University and a Ph.D. in geography from the McGill University (supervised by Dr. Gordon Ewing)—laid the foundation for his international career and wide-ranging achievements.

Wolfgang’s main research interest was the application of social science in resource management to facilitate the integration of societal needs in sustainable development. Adapting recent developments from marketing and transportation research and bringing stated-preference choice modelling to the world of tourism and outdoor recreation research, his innovative Ph.D. research represented a milestone for improving the understanding of the inherent trade-offs underlying natural resource management questions. Through dozens of projects including many national and international collaborations, he helped to redefine and apply the choice-modelling approach to a wide array of resource management topics. He was not only an innovator, but over the years, he became a highly respected leader in the field of trade-off based decision modelling. Examples of these models were also published in JORT.

Wolfgang’s scientific curiosity, his diverse research interests and strong interpersonal and project management skills are exemplified by nearly 100 peer reviewed publications, which he co-authored with over 90 collaborators. Over the coming months, many more articles will be published, further emphasizing his broad research involvements. Equally impressive is the diversity of his body of research, which includes outdoor recreation, nature-based tourism, transportation, health and safety, risk management, water resources, forestry, endangered species, climate change, recreational fisheries and human–wildlife conflicts. Wolfgang’s gift was to support experts in these fields with his exceptional skills in conceptualizing and framing research questions and his expertise on research design, methods, implementation and analysis. His extensive networks in the European and the North American research and resource management communities also made him a highly valued contributor and organizer of international conferences, including the International Conference on Monitoring and Management of Visitors in Recreational and Protected Areas (MMV), the International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM) in Vancouver in 2006 and Vienna in 2009, among many others.

Moreover, Wolfgang was known to be strongly devoted to his students, making himself available to them at all times, including evenings and weekends. He introduced his students to academic writing, which helped them to publish their work and make it available to the wider scientific community. His unwavering support during their studies enabled them to succeed both in academia and resource management across North America and Europe.

Drawing from his extensive publishing experience, Wolfgang became aware that despite the increasing societal relevance of recreation and nature-based tourism, this research field was lacking a home in the publishing world. While outdoor recreation studies were published in peer-reviewed journals in forestry, geography, landscape planning, biology and conservation, sociology, psychology, sport science, tourism, and economics, these studies were often at the peripheries of these fields and, as a whole, lacked the exposure they deserved. With JORT, Wolfgang tried to refocus outdoor recreation research publications by providing a home that fosters exchange among researchers worldwide. Furthermore, his international background motivated him to make JORT an inclusive journal and to help authors whose first language is not English to express their ideas and share them internationally. He invested more time in this challenging task than most editors. Excellent examples of Wolfgang’s achievements in this area are the interdisciplinary and international special issues on ecosystem services, health and well-being (2015), outdoor recreation and climate change (2015) and risk in outdoor recreation and nature-based tourism, which is currently in preparation for publication in 2016.

It is our hope that this journal will continue as a lasting legacy of Wolfgang’s pioneering work in outdoor recreation studies.

To further commemorate Wolfgang’s dedication to his students and his lasting contributions to the field of natural resource management, his children, Jamila and Emanuel, and his colleagues at REM have established the Wolfgang Haider Fellowship Trust to provide scholarship support to students in the School of Resource and Environmental Management at the Simon Fraser University. For more information on donating to this trust, please contact Christine Harris.

Ulrike Pröbstl-Haider, Len Hunt, Pascal Haegeli, Ben Breadmore, Robert Arlinghaus on behalf of the whole editorial board, colleagues and friends