Debating Sustainability in Tourism Development: Resilience, Traditional Knowledge and Community: A Post-disaster Perspective

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes resilience as a foundation for sustainability, and sustainable tourism development, identifying that resilience relates to place-based knowledge and senses originating from human–land interaction over a long period of time. A specific case drawn here is the post-disaster recovery phase in rural communities, following the devastation that overwhelmed the northern east coast of Japan on 11 March 2011. Disaster-resilience, although stated as a priority in many of the governmental reconstruction visions, is not easily defined or facilitated. This paper attempts to locate disaster-resilience in the context of sustainable tourism development, through cases of coastal communities in Iwate Prefecture on the Sanriku Coast in their early phase of recovery. With social sustainability-oriented tourism concepts and resilience planning as a framework, the paper argues that the tourism development in the early recovery is vital in assisting communities maintain their connection with their places, which is argued to be the core of resilience. Such resilience is closely related to traditional ecological knowledge found in personal stories, monuments, folktales, literature and arts. This, it is proposed, lays a foundation for a sustainable recovery and reconstruction, in which tourism can play a vital role. This in return asserts tourism’s responsibility in advocating sustainability.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainability resilience
• traditional ecological knowledge
• disaster recovery
• community
• 3.11

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Kumi Kato http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1783-8155

Notes

1 Personal communication (20 December 2013).

2 Japan’s earliest record of earthquake is the one on 22 August 416 in Nara region as described in Japan’s first Chronology Nishonshoki (c.720), which also refers to an earthquake in northern region (National Astrological Centre, Chronological Scientific Table, 2011 http://www.rikanenpyo.jp/.

3 Sanriku (lit. three coastlands) today refers to the coastlines of Miyagi, Iwate and Aomori. A major toll was recorded in each sanriku earthquake: Keicho-sanriku (1783), Meiji-Sanriku (22,000) and Showa-Sanriku (3,064).

4 Personal communication, 24 August 2011.

5 An existing national park, prefectural park and two other protected areas were restructured to this national park. Another park was included in March, 2015, and further extension plan is in place.

6 As of 2014, 36 locations in the Japan Geopark Network, seven of which are also listed in the Global Network of National Geoparks. Geoparks feature locally distinct culture and industry associated with the geophysical characteristics of the area and grassroots initiatives such as local guides with story-telling and interpretative skills.

7 Named as “Miraculous Pine Tree”. It however deteriorated significantly, and cut down and replaced with a concrete replica in 2013. The act was controversial.

8 The Tsukue-hama originates from an indigenous Ainu word Tsuku-etsu, meaning a cape of small hill. In Northern Tohoku, like Hokkaido, many place names originate in Ainu language.

9 Available at http://www.gyokou.or.jp/100sen/index.html.

10 Personal communication, 25 August 2011.

11 Personal communication, 25 August 2011. Sumita Emission ZERO, 2000 (Suminta Town Office, 2000).

12 Personal communication, 25 August 2011.

13 Umahito (horse people) HP http://umahito.com/#.

14 Personal communications, 24 August 2011.