Death by a thousand cuts: governance and environmental trade-offs in ecotourism development at Kangaroo Island, South Australia
Date
2011
Authors
Higgins Desbiolles, F.
Editors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type:
Journal article
Citation
Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 2011; 19(4-5):553-570
Statement of Responsibility
Conference Name
Abstract
In the wake of the Brundtland Report’s articulation of the concept of sustainable development (1987), ecotourism has been promoted as an optimumway to achieve sustainable development in the tourism sphere. Ecotourism, as a subset of sustainable tourism, is touted as a win-win endeavour – a high-yield, low-volume strategy is often pursued in the hope of achieving good economic returns for local communities while simultaneously creating fewer negative environmental impacts than other economic development options. However, the concept of sustainable development contains the tensions of an oxymoron as the conservation implied in “sustainability” conflicts with the growth and resource use implied in “development”.
In an era where market imperatives dominate, this results in “trade-offs” between requirements for environmental conservation and demands for greater economic growth through tourism. This paper narrates the story of governance and the development approval process for an ecolodge on Kangaroo Island (KI) in order to explore the nature of such trade-offs. Evidence suggests that the requirements of environmental protection are “traded off” in the pursuit of tourism development and the income and employment it provides. Is sustainability possible when such incremental development, in fact, results in “death by a thousand cuts”?
School/Discipline
Dissertation Note
Provenance
Description
Access Status
Rights
Copyright 2011 Taylor & Francis