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Tourism in sub-global assessments of ecosystem services

Church, Andrew, Coles, Tim, Fish, R (2017) Tourism in sub-global assessments of ecosystem services. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 25 (11). pp. 1529-1546. ISSN 0966-9582. (doi:10.1080/09669582.2017.1291649) (KAR id:61007)

Abstract

Published in 2005, the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) stressed that influencing governments, businesses and communities to address the supra-national challenge of limiting biodiversity loss and ecosystem degradation requires a fuller understanding of the range of values and benefits people derive from ecosystems, including tourism. The MA was informed by, and has shaped, several conceptually and methodologically distinctive sub-global assessments (SGAs) of ecosystem services. Through content analysis, this paper is the first detailed examination of how tourism features in 14 extant SGAs identified in a database held by a major supra-national environmental organization. Although the SGAs should have incorporated the widest range of specialist subject expertise, tourism scholars played only peripheral roles in producing them even for territories where tourism is a significant land use. The SGAs examined did not benefit from the extensive body of knowledge relating to sustainable tourism. Limited portrayals of tourism restrict the capacity of SGAs in their current format as management solutions. It is also contradictory to the ethos, principles and purpose of ecosystem assessments. With the ecosystem services perspective set to become more important to policy and decision making, the paper argues for greater incorporation of recent progress in sustainable tourism in ecosystem assessment.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1080/09669582.2017.1291649
Uncontrolled keywords: Ecosystem services, sub-global assessment, sustainable tourism
Subjects: Q Science > QH Natural history > QH541 Ecology
Q Science > QH Natural history > QH75 Conservation (Biology)
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Anthropology and Conservation
Depositing User: Robert Fish
Date Deposited: 23 Mar 2017 09:45 UTC
Last Modified: 04 Mar 2024 19:05 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/61007 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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