Few individuals in church history are as popular as Augustine of Hippo. His impressive body of work on diverse subjects, combined with his tremendous influence on Roman Catholics and Protestants, have led believers to imbue Augustine’s writings with great authority. Consequently, he is frequently cited by those seeking support for their particular position on theological matters. This practice is especially observed in the creation versus evolution and age of the earth debates. Young-earth creationists, theistic evolutionists, old-earth creationists, and intelligent design proponents have each claimed Augustine as one of their own and each of these scholars has provided quotations of Augustine which seem to support their view. The famous church father wrote four separate commentaries on the first chapter of Genesis. This paper surveys these works and demonstrates that Augustine was not concerned with the modern controversy. Nevertheless, his purpose for writing each commentary and the varying hermeneutic throughout these works has led to the confusion that exists concerning his beliefs. Modern participants in the age of the earth debate can gain remarkable insight from these commentaries. Biblical creationists have repeatedly warned about the dangers of allegorizing narrative passages and reinterpreting the text based on the science of the day. Since these two practices are exemplified in Augustine’s writings on Genesis, readers will see why the literal historical-grammatical hermeneutic protects one from making egregious interpretive errors.

Protected area managers, tourism providers, and other organisations commonly employ education programmes to address visitation-related impairment of natural and cultural resources, social conditions, and neighbouring communities. These programmes have different names (Leave No Trace, Codes of Conduct, Environmental Guidelines for Tourists) but share common objectives: to sustain opportunities for high quality visitor experiences while avoiding or minimising associated negative impacts to protected area resources, visitor experiences, and park neighbours. Theoretical and empirical research studies in the United States are reviewed to evaluate the efficacy of educational efforts that seek to encourage adoption of low impact behaviours. Findings reveal that most of the visitor education efforts evaluated did effectively alter visitor knowledge, behaviour and/or resource and social conditions in the intended direction. These findings, including discussions of message content, delivery, audience characteristics and theoretical grounding, provide insights for improving the efficacy of future educational efforts. doi: 10.2167/jost593.0