Among project opponents, it was taken for granted that an oil refinery would pollute the island’s environment—particularly the air but also potentially land and water as well. More than that, however, opponents felt that an oil refinery was inconsistent, incongruous, and quite simply incompatible with Dominica’s nature island identity and the nature-based tourism products that had been built on that identity. It was argued that even the possibility of constructing a refinery would irreparably damage Dominica’s international reputation and that the tourists who had been drawn to the island’s unique environment would no longer visit. This argument was supported by blogs and online chats where international contributors claimed that they would, indeed, go somewhere else if the refinery was built. It proved to be a powerful argument. The following year, the government postponed the project indefinitely.
Discussion topic: Identify an island tourism destination that has an oil refinery. Do you think that these two things are incompatible? What factors would allow or prevent tourism and industry from coexisting?
Tourism on the web: Discover Dominica Authority, “Discover Dominica, the Nature Island,” at http://www.dominica.dm
Figure 10.2. Dominica is characterized by rugged terrain, steep cliffs, and black volcanic sand beaches. Although the island lacks the resources for mass 3S tourism development that characterize other Caribbean islands, it clearly possesses a different set of tourism resources that are particularly well suited to nature-based tourism products. (Source: Velvet Nelson)
Sources
Nelson, Velvet. “‘R.I.P. Nature Island’: The Threat of a Proposed Oil Refinery on Dominica’s Identity.” Social & Cultural Geography 11, no. 8 (2010): 903–19.
In other cases, the public sector takes a leading role in the landscape preservation and resource protection that is needed to create the foundation for tourism. Local and/or national governments may invest in or subsidize preservation, and at the same time, income generated from operator licenses or visitor fees can help finance site maintenance, resource protection from developers or poachers, and additional preservation. There are many categories of protected areas. The Convention on Biological Diversity’s definition of a protected area, accepted by 187 countries, is “a geographically defined area which is designated or regulated and managed to achieve specific conservation objectives.”4 The six overarching categories represent different levels of protection and allow for different types of activities. Category I includes strict nature reserves and wilderness areas. These areas are typically considered to be the most ecologically fragile, and therefore activities within them are the most restricted. The strict nature reserves are generally limited to scientific study (e.g., Snares Island Nature Reserve, New Zealand); wilderness areas preserve largely uninhabited and unmodified lands but may be managed to allow some visitation (e.g., Red Rock–Secret Mountain Wilderness, United States). Category II consists of national parks, which are perhaps the most commonly recognized protected areas. These are typically areas with unique natural and/or scenic qualities that are intended to preserve natural heritage and may be managed for scientific, educational, and/or recreational use (e.g., Galápagos National Park, Ecuador).
Box 10.2. Experience: Twenty Years in the National Parks
There are 397 areas in the National Park System, including everything from national parks to historical parks, battlefields, monuments, recreation areas, seashores, and more. I have been to 290 of them. The “Passport to Your National Parks” program was started in 1986, where you can purchase a “passport” book that includes information about all of the areas in the park system and a space for your book to get stamped at each park you visit. It’s a fun way of recording where you’ve been. I began visiting parks shortly after the program was started, and now I’m on my fifth book.
I think it’s neat that we, as a country, have understood that our heritage is important and worth preserving. I’m glad that we have protected our many unique and diverse environments and that I have had the opportunity to experience them. There are so many simply wonderful parks, including places that few people know exist. I enjoy visiting all categories of parks, but I really love the big, wide-open backcountry parks in the West. These are the ones I will visit year after year.
Yellowstone National Park is one of my favorites. I’ve been there twelve times in the past twenty years. I usually go for about a week and either camp in the park or stay in a lodge. I get up early to see the sunrise, and then I spend my days hiking on some of the backcountry trails. The landscape is so unique, with great opportunities to view wildlife, especially if you’re willing to get off the main road. Some people think that they can see the whole park from the loop road, and they want to know when the animals will “come out.” In all of my years visiting and exploring the trails—including some old trails that are no longer maintained or published—I know I haven’t seen the entire park. But I’ve seen lots of animals, including mountain goats, bighorn sheep, deer, antelope, elk, moose, buffalo, and bears. In fact, one of the most amazing (and a little scary) moments was when we witnessed a herd of buffalo charging because they were being chased by a bear!
I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years. Some changes are cyclical, and you can definitely tell when there’s money being spent on the parks and when there isn’t. I’ve seen the infrastructure get run down and facilities closed, but then a few years later, things will be open and repaired again. Other changes reflect the development of new—and often better—policies. My mother has some pictures of Yellowstone from the 1960s where bears are being fed out of car windows. They had been allowed to feed out of the park’s trash dumps since the nineteenth century, and this was considered a tourist attraction. It wasn’t until the 1970s that Yellowstone implemented new policies that kept people from feeding the bears and required visitors to properly store and dispose of food in the park. Today they are very careful, and everything is recycled that can be. This both cuts down on waste in the park and generates a small amount of income.
Some trails that could once be driven are now closed to cars. I think there are more areas that are open for easy access, but more of the backcountry areas have been closed off to the general public. You have to have a permit to go into the backcountry, which makes sense. It keeps the casual person from going into areas that they really shouldn’t be in, and it makes sure the park rangers know where people are in case anything happens. I also like the fact they get updates from rangers in the backcountry, so when I check in before a hike, I get some additional information about what’s going on in that area. Of course, some of these trails are closed during parts of the year as well, based on the condition of the trail or on the wildlife in that area. For example, I know that the Pelican Creek Trail is closed to hikers during the bears’ mating season to prevent any interference or disruption of mating patterns. I think they’ve also done a good job at keeping these trails in good condition. On one of my last trips, we actually met one of the backcountry rangers on a trail and hiked with him for a while. He told us that he now spends a couple months of the year in the backcountry to do maintenance.
I appreciate the ability to go into the backcountry. I am most interested in getting “off the beaten path,” hiking, and experiencing the quiet of nature. That’s just me and my personality; I have to find my own way. However, there are places for everyone in the park; you just have to know where to go. At the big, easily accessible camping sites, you’ll find lots of people and the big, luxury RVs. At the more primitive, remote sites, you’ll find just a handful of hard-core campers. At the major entry points and scenic spots, you’ll find tour buses unloading people from all over the world, but get a mile off the main road on a hiking trail, and you might be the only one out there.
—Kim
Category III is designated for natural monuments, which are intended to conserve specific features that have unique natural or cultural value (e.g., Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and Zambia). Category IV includes habitat and specie
s management areas protected to prevent loss of biodiversity directly or indirectly due to the loss of habitat (e.g., Haleji Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, Pakistan). Category V comprises protected landscapes and/or seascapes and is intended to maintain the quality of human-environment interactions in that landscape that often take place in the form of tourism and recreation (e.g., Logarska Dolina Landscape Park, Slovenia). Finally, Category VI, managed resource protection areas, represents the least amount of restrictions. These areas need to be managed to allow for multiple uses that might combine sustainable resource harvesting with recreation activities (e.g., Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo Communal Reserve, Peru).
Each of these potential benefits—improvement, maintenance, and preservation—is just that: potential. Concerted efforts must be undertaken to recognize the value of the physical resources for tourism and to ensure the existence of a high-quality environment for tourism. Although this may be considered a necessary prerequisite for tourism, these efforts require knowledge, planning, and financial resources that destinations don’t always have. Thus, it is important to carefully consider what efforts are being undertaken at a destination and how they weigh against the negative effects—or environmental costs—of tourism.
Environmental Costs of Tourism
The majority of research on the environmental effects of tourism has focused on costs, as the interactions between tourists and the environments of the places they visit are far more likely to have negative consequences. This includes resource consumption, pollution, and possibly even landscape destruction.
Resource Consumption
Tourism—particularly large-scale mass tourism—can place a heavy demand on local resources. These demands are likely to be in competition with other local economic activities and/or residential uses. In many cases, tourism as an economic activity is given priority, which means that these resources will be unavailable for other uses. In the worst-case scenario, the high demand for resources from tourism activities depletes that resource, not only to the detriment of future tourism but to the detriment of all activities undertaken in that environment. This can include land, construction resources, water, fuel, and/or power supplies, among others.
Land is a resource that is needed for tourism infrastructure, which can be extensive, including airports, roads, accommodation facilities, entertainment venues, and more. While this extent of infrastructure may not necessarily be a prerequisite for tourism, it accompanies tourism development and facilitates tourism activities. As a result, local people may be displaced and other economic activities supplanted in prime tourism development land. Competition for land between tourism and local uses is typically most intense in small island destinations, such as those in the Caribbean or the South Pacific, where land is a scarce resource. This is something that may be taken for granted by the tourists who visit that destination and do not consider how that land was used before tourism or how it might otherwise be used. Yet, as an economic activity, tourism must create enough jobs to compensate for the lost agricultural jobs. These jobs must provide sufficient wages for local people to purchase from external suppliers the food that they need to support their families to compensate for the loss of the food they once produced for themselves.
Additionally, various types of construction resources are consumed in the development of tourism infrastructure. Local lumber resources may be used in hotel/resort construction. As such, this resource is no longer available for local construction or other uses (e.g., as a source of fuel). Sand may be mined from beaches to make concrete, for building construction, or for construction of roads and airport runways. In both cases, trees and sand may additionally have the potential to serve as a tourism resource. If they are removed from the environment to be used as a construction resource, this also means that they will no longer contribute to the tourism base.
Water is another resource that is used in high quantities in tourism. The accommodation sector accounts for some of the greatest water demands at tourism destinations. Water may be used on the hotel/resort property in decorative fountains and to maintain green vegetation and flower gardens, even at destinations that have a dry climate. Likewise, water may be used in swimming pools and spa facilities. Guests account for a proportion of accommodations’ water usage. Western tourists, in particular, have reportedly high water uses with baths, long showers, and in some case multiple showers per day. Guest services also constitute a source of water consumption. This includes kitchen and restaurant facilities but is primarily accounted for with laundry facilities, as the guests’ sheets and towels are typically washed daily. In addition, tourism attractions and activities utilize varying quantities of water resources, including water parks, golf courses, botanical gardens, and ski resorts that rely on snowmakers. Again, given the economic importance of tourism, these activities may receive priority access to water resources. This means that less water will be available for other economic activities, such as agriculture or industry, as well as local residential uses.
The situation is similar for local fuel and/or energy resources. Accommodations and tourism attractions may require high electricity consumption to power their operations. This can put a strain on the destination’s electricity-generating capacity. To prevent shortages that would affect tourists and tourism activities, thereby creating dissatisfaction with the destination experience, power may be cut to local business and/or residential customers at peak times.
In cases where tourism is already developed, local resources may be exploited for tourists’ consumption. Economically, a high demand for locally made souvenirs would be considered a positive. However, to meet this demand, local residents may mine coral to make craft items and jewelry or remove bamboo forests to make boxes, baskets, and mats, and so on.
Pollution
Although tourism is described as a “smokeless industry,” it can either contribute to or directly result in all types of pollution at both the local and global scales. Water and air pollution are considered the most severe problems, but other types of pollution—such as noise or visual pollution—can also be a concern for tourism destinations.
Because so many tourism activities are located in coastal areas or on lakes and rivers, water pollution is one of the most significant types of pollution associated with tourism. Untreated sewage is typically the largest source of water pollution from tourism. This is generally attributed to the fact that many international destinations around the world have either no sewage treatment and therefore discharge the sewage directly into the water supply, or an inadequate system and only a portion of sewage gets treated. Tourism growth may take place at a faster rate than infrastructure growth; consequently, existing systems cannot keep up with the seasonal increases in population. Cruise ships also constitute a significant source of tourism-related water pollution. Again, sewage is the main source but others include fuel leakages and the illegal dumping of solid waste and chemicals from onboard activities. Other sources include fuels from recreational boats, chemical fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides used on resort properties and golf courses that leach into the groundwater or run off into water supplies, and even lotions and oils on the skin of tourists swimming in the water.
As discussed earlier, poor-quality water can increase the risk of waterborne diseases for both the local and tourist populations. Likewise, water pollution can contaminate the food supply. More than just an aesthetic detraction, it can also have a negative impact on the tourism resources for the destination. For example, the discharge of untreated sewage into water causes eutrophication, which is a process of nutrient enrichment. This stimulates algae growth which can be unattractive, have an unpleasant odor, and cause ecosystem damage, such as the suffocation of coral reefs.
Air pollution is the type that currently receives the greatest attention due to the issue of global climate change (see box 10.3). However, air pollution may also be a localized problem with distinct consequences for destinations. In particular, one of the fundamental components of touris
m is travel, which is dependent on the transportation that is available based on present technology. Where there is a dense concentration of vehicles for tourism, vehicle exhaust contributes to poor air quality. Interestingly, urban areas may be less likely to see a direct correlation between tourism and air pollution. These areas may already experience high numbers of vehicles, and they may have higher restrictions on cars (e.g., emission controls) and traffic (e.g., taxes or permits for vehicles in inner-city zones or traffic-free zones). In addition, there may be strong incentives for tourists to use public transportation systems, such as buses or trains, to get around in urban destinations (e.g., limited parking areas, high parking fees, or confusing traffic patterns). In contrast, places like the U.S. National Parks have experienced increasing problems with pollution during high seasons. Tourists need personal cars to reach and get around at these destinations. In recent years, new policies have been put into place to limit traffic congestion in the parks. Visitors may be required to park in designated areas and use buses for transport within the park. Moreover, parks such as Yosemite have replaced traditional diesel buses with lower emission biodiesel and hybrid buses.
An Introduction to the Geography of Tourism Page 30