Maintained by

Issues in recreation and tourism

The main potential adverse impacts of tourism on the environment include:

• greater pressure on natural resources,
• urbanization of the coastline,
• sand mining,
• beach and sand dune erosion, and
• soil erosion.
• all of which leads to degradation and loss of wildlife habitats.

Tourism development can be intensive. For example, three-quarters of the sand dunes on the Mediterranean coastline from Spain to Sicily have disappeared mainly as a result of urbanization linked to tourism development.

Because of island characteristics and limitations of resources, adverse environmental effects from tourism may have more immediate repercussions than elsewhere, as highlighted by the Conference on "Sustainable Tourism in Small Island Developing States and Other Islands, organised in October 1998 by UNEP and WTO in Lanzarote, Canary Islands, Spain.