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Ecotourism

Sustainable tourism

Sustainable tourism has been defined by the World Tourist Organization (WTO) as being tourism that "meets the needs of the present tourists and host regions while protecting and enhancing the opportunity for the future. It is envisaged as leading to management of all resources in such a way that economic, social and aesthetic needs can be fulfilled, while maintaining cultural integrity, essential ecological processes, biological diversity and life support systems."

As sustainability implies permanence, sustainable tourism includes aspects such as optimum use of resources, including biological resources, and minimization of ecological, cultural and social impacts, and maximization of benefits.

UNEP has prepared draft Principles on Sustainable Tourism. These cover:

1. Integration of Tourism into Overall Policy for Sustainable Development
2. Development of Sustainable Tourism;
3. Management of Tourism;
4. Conditions for success.

The full text of the UNEP principles

The Convention on Biological Diversity has made a compilation and analysis of existing codes, guidelines, principles and position papers on sustainable tourism particularly in relation to the objectives of the convention. The document which was prepared by the organization Ecological Tourism for Europe is available as a pdf-file. The key conclusions from the analysis undertaken were:
• principles and guidelines on sustainable tourism acknowledge the importance of biodiversity, but guidance so far available is very general, and detailed technical guidance is needed on how to implement and manage tourism in relation to biodiversity;
• guidelines that are formulated specifically on tourism and biodiversity focus mainly on protected areas and the requirements of protected area managers;
• all the principles and guidelines analyzed contain extensive common and complementary elements – no cases were found where one principle or guideline was in conflict with another;
• there are no internationally accepted guidelines currently available that provide a fully integrated approach to the general management of sustainable tourism and biodiversity, and which address the technical issues of implementation of internationally agreed principles in these areas.