Tourism, Development and the Environment - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 260

the World Conservation Strategy (WCS), published in 1980. The WCS was
essentially biocentric. Development, defined as 'the modification of the bio-
sphere and the application of human, financial, living and non-living resou-
rces to satisfy human needs and improve the quality of human life' (IUCN,
1980: Section 1.3), was regarded primarily as a vehicle for ensuring protec-
tion of the global biosphere. For the first time, the term 'sustainable develop-
ment' was adopted and defined as 'the integration of conservation and
development to ensure that modifications to the planet do indeed secure the
survival and well-being of all people' (IUCN, 1980: Section 1.2). The WCS
adopted both a utilitarian and moral ethic for conservation, the former artic-
ulated in terms of the economic benefits conservation could yield to govern-
ments and local communities, the latter summed up by the claim that 'we
have not inherited the earth from our parents, we have borrowed it from our
children' (IUCN, 1980: Section 1.5). The document also maintained the
rhetoric of 1970s global environmentalism by, for example, emphasising that
'human beings, in their quest for economic development and enjoyment of
the riches of nature, must come to terms with the reality of resource limita-
tion and the carrying capacities of ecosystems' (IUCN, 1980: i ).
The WCS has attracted criticism on a number of grounds. It has been
described as 'repackaged 1970s environmentalism' with its emphasis on
'limits' (Adams, 1992) and it brought sceptical responses from development
pragmatists because of its rekindled emphasis on environmental ethics and
morality. Perhaps the most serious limitation of the WCS, however, was its
complete failure to take into account social and political obstacles to develop-
ment - factors which also militate against sustainable tourism development
(Sharpley, 2000a, 2009b) - and consequently it has been described as being
both ideological and 'disastrously naïve' (Adams, 1992). As Redclift (1984:
50) argues, 'despite its diagnostic value, the World Conservation Strategy
does not even begin to examine the social and political changes that would
be necessary to meet conservation goals'.
Shortly after publication of the WCS, the Brandt Commission (1983)
published its first report, North-South: A Programme for Survival (ICIDI, 1980),
followed three years later by a second: Common Crisis . North-South declared
that 'no concept of development can be accepted which continues to con-
demn hundreds of millions of people to starvation and despair' (ICIDI, 1980:
50), thereby questioning the main precept of modernism, that faster eco-
nomic growth provided a panacea for poverty in the South. The message was
that too little concern had been given to the quality of growth in the past:
'world development is not merely an economic process . . . statistical mea-
surements of growth exclude the crucial element of social welfare, of indi-
vidual rights, of values not measured by money' (ICIDI, 1980: 49). Yet,
economic growth remained the essential prerequisite for the alleviation of
poverty and the protection of the planet's natural resources. The problems
experienced in the developing world were considered not to be related to