Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
areas, which - along with their residents - represent the past and the state of
isolation.
...
Therefore, ecotourism contributes towards the shaping of a particu-
lar perception concerning both the past and the people's present' (Galani-Moutafi,
2002, p. 274).
However, mountain commodification may proceed along more benign and sus-
tainable lines. One such example is energy production, which, in some cases, may
imply the return to older technological solutions to longstanding problems, as in
the form of watermills (Liarikos, 2004). Another example is the development of
local industries, through agri-environmental measures enhancing landscape mul-
tifunctionality and preservation (i.e. through flora and fauna conservation), while
creating and diversifying local employment - including immigrant labour - and
producing high-quality local products (Louloudis
et al.,
2004) in rising demand by
niche economies (dairy products, wine, forest products, etc.). However, no matter
what commodities, amenities or services these new mountain tourism industries
are based on (winter sports, museums of industrial history, agrotourism, geoparks,
etc.), they run the risk of simply sapping the destinations of their resources, leav-
ing them in a condition of environmental degradation, sociocultural deterioration
and economic impoverishment and dependence. In order to prevent such repercus-
sions, paramount are circulation and recycling of tourism benefits and profits back
into local industry and sustainable development; preservation and quality control
of those resources that attracted tourism in the first place, as well as of the whole
tourism setting itself; and - last, but not least - long-term tourism planning, encour-
aging local cooperation initiatives, a broad/democratic basis of decision-making
and proper management of the operation, resources and impacts of tourism on the
local community, culture and environment. In this way, instead of rampant, laissez-
faire tourist development and place consumption and degradation, local mountain
communities may be assured and reassured not only of their place identity, qual-
ity of life, cultural promotion and landscape preservation, but also of sustainable,
equitable and ecologically safe economic development.
7.6 Conclusion
Mountains have never failed to stir human imagination. The most prominent and
seemingly 'durable' of geographical objects, they inspire paradoxical responses:
awe and fear, attraction and repulsion, security and remoteness. They are familiar
landmarks that remain insistently 'other'. A plethora of narratives, practices and
moral attributes has been layered over mountain rocks - variously in different cul-
tural traditions. As this chapter has shown, Mediterranean mountains represent es-
pecially rich palimpsests, as 'almost every place in the Mediterranean world has at
one time or another been pagan, Christian and Muslim' (Horden and Purcell, 2001,
p. 403), yet they are also at the same time fragile ecosystems.
Despite its coastal orientation the Mediterranean remains 'a region of moun-
tains, of complex and fragmented relief' (King, 1997, p. 8). Through the centuries,
Mediterranean mountain geographies attracted pagan priests, biblical prophets and
