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positivist approach to environmental managerialism of course runs counter
to the philosophy and practice of land use planning.
The reorientation of ecology has also cast doubt over the conventional
understanding of environmental fragility - again particularly in the semi-arid
rangelands. Hierarchical relationships within and between interdependent
ecological communities promote a much greater degree of resilience than con-
ventionally thought. Biodiversity is now regarded as a critical element of an
ecosystem's ability to resist disturbance, whether natural or anthropogenic,
and is thus seen as an essential prerequisite for achieving sustainability
(Holling et al. , 1995). Maintaining ecological diversity is also recognised as a
widely employed customary natural resource management strategy. The resil-
ience of ecosystems depends upon many interrelated factors. Resilience is
closely related to environmental maturity, so that complex and diverse eco-
logical systems are more stable and capable of absorbing 'shocks', such as
those associated with tourism.
Debate over the relevance of conventional ecology and the concept of
carrying capacity within tourism literature is nothing new. Butler's (1991)
analysis of environment and tourism development utilises the concepts of
environmental limits and the notion of definable carrying capacities, and
reconciles the lifecycle of tourism from development to stagnation and
eventual decline. It espouses the principles of self-regulation and the endog-
enous environmental feedbacks which limit environmental capacity to sus-
tain resource consumption above a set level (Hunter, 1995). The model
engages traditional ecological principles, which state that as a species popu-
lation increases it will eventually approximate to the environmental deter-
mined limits. Due to time lags, the population may temporarily overshoot
carrying capacity, but will oscillate around a set limit until a state of
dynamic equilibrium is reached. As Hunter (1995: 56) suggests, 'such a pat-
tern could be regarded as sustainable over time, and could be taken to rep-
resent sustainable tourism development over time, at least in terms of an
individual destination area'. He continues to reflect on the popularity of the
carrying capacity model as a basis for sustainable tourism: 'an inherently
attractive concept for those concerned with the environmental impacts of
tourism and for those seeking a rationale for interventionist management'
(Hunter, 1995: 66). However, a disjuncture evidently exists between the
new and emerging paradigm of environmental management and post-
positivist ecological theory (based upon notions of non-linearity), and the
essentially positivist approach to environmental control implicit in land
use planning. Emerging understandings of ecological dynamics underscore
'the uncertainty of scientific knowledge and its predictive capabilities
. . . [and] . . . call into question any human attempts to “manage” eco -
logical systems' (Sneddon, 2000: 531).
To O'Reilly (1986), the value of the carrying capacity concept lies in its
ability to foster environmental consideration in tourism planning while
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