Tourism, Development and the Environment - Tourism and Development: Concepts and Issues - page 268

Planning for environmentally sustainable tourism
As suggested above, the conventional approach to environmentally
sustainable tourism development is through statutory planning regula-
tions. According to Green (1995: 93), 'a statutory land use planning system
has the capacity to make a significant contribution to the realisation of
sustainable tourism development' through resource conservation, by
identifying appropriate locations for different activities and by encouraging
developers to adopt appropriate approaches to development. In a British con-
text this approach was exemplified by the former English Tourist Board
(ETB). In response to the government's then national agenda for sustain-
able development This Common Inheritance (DoE, 1990), the ETB produced
a set of principles to reconcile the growth in tourism with environmental
protection (ETB, 1991). Furthermore, these principles were reinforced by
the government's planning advice documentation (produced by the Depar-
tment of the Environment) which stated that regional and local planning
should consider:

• the scale and distribution of tourist activity within the area;

• the identification of areas within the country where there are problems

associated with either the growth or decline of tourism;

• the environmental impact of tourist demand and ways in which any

adverse effects can be moderated;

• the need to protect key tourism assets, including such features as charac-

teristic landscapes . . . unspoilt stretches of undeveloped coastline, areas
of special interest for nature conservation, historic buildings and town-
scapes; and

• ways in which tourism can contribute positively to other objectives such

as economic development, conservation and urban regeneration. (DoE,
1992: 4.1)

Thus, although tourism planning is a discrete activity it should, never-
theless, be an integral part of the land use planning process, accommodating
competing demands for resources and reconciling the interests of all inter-
ested parties. For example, in the context of rural Britain, those interested
parties are often categorised as, on the one hand, conservationists who seek
to protect nature and landscape and, on the other hand, 'commercialists'
who seek to exploit the countryside for financial gain. Their mutual interests
are often served through the established system of designation which confers
specific legislative and institutional control over areas deemed to have signifi-
cant conservation value. National park status, for example, confers protec-
tion to some 10% of the land surface of England and Wales and, as in the US
and elsewhere, the parks were initially established to provide access to
'nature' for the urban population (see Sharpley & Sharpley, 1997: 72-77).