Reviewing tourism and natural resource research in the Arctic: towards a local understanding of sustainable tourism in the case of South Greenland

ABSTRACT

Tourism and natural resources are rapidly changing in the Arctic. Human activities and climate change are transforming natural landscapes and affecting populations of wildlife, while remote Arctic destinations that were previously regarded as inaccessible and unattractive are being engulfed by the global increase in tourism. In parallel with these developments, the concept and practice of “sustainable tourism” is gaining weight. Connecting these two trends raises multiple questions, including how tourism affects natural resources in the Arctic and whether sustainable Arctic tourism is possible. We conduct a systematic review of scientific publications connecting tourism and natural resources in the Arctic in order to shed light on the environmental dimensions of sustainable tourism. Based on our review, we highlight the multidirectional relationship between tourism and natural resources, and we use southern Greenland as a concrete example of an Arctic destination to which we tie our discussion of “sustainable tourism” in both theory and practice. We conclude that framing sustainable tourism as a relative and comparative concept specific to the time, place and type of tourism activity, rather than as a set of general and ideal criteria, might be more applicable and meaningful in research and as a development strategy for tourism destinations.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable tourism
• natural resources
• local-global disconnection
• cruise tourism
• climate change
• greenland

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Geocenter Copenhagen under Grant 7-2018. We thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for their constructive comments and helpful suggestions

Disclosure statement

We have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Notes

1. At the end of April 2019, a “maintenance weekend” was arranged by the Faroe Islands for visitors to help preserve local nature (Politiken, 2019).

2. Werfenweng in Austria, a model community for Gentle Mobility https://www.biospheretourism.com/en/blog/17-sustainable-tourism-examples-for-this-2017/2 . Accessed 3 April 2020

3. https://traveltrade.visitgreenland.com/da/seneste-nyt/baeredygtig-turisme-vinder-frem-i-gronland/. Accessed 3 April 2020

4. This could, however, also stem from a methodological bias, since the literature review did not explicitly target “ecotourism”, which can be regarded as a more sustainable form of tourism (see Bickford et al., 2017), and even as a neo-liberal “green grab” (Fairhead et al., 2012).

5. In light of the recent coronavirus outbreak and the problems with it on board cruise ships, these projections are highly uncertain and unpredictable, at least in the short term.

6. Ilulissat Icefjord in 2004, based on its outstanding “combination of a huge ice sheet and a fast moving glacial ice-stream calving into a fjord covered by icebergs” (UNESCO, 2004); Aasivissuit – Nipisat in 2018, awarded as an “Inuit hunting ground between ice and sea” (UNESCO, 2018); and Kujataa in southern Greenland the year before (UNESCO, 2017a).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Geocenter Copenhagen [Grant 7-2018].