Tourism in sub-global assessments of ecosystem services

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Ecosystem services
• sub-global assessment
• sustainable tourism

Acknowledgments

The authors are very grateful to Hannah Awcock for initial research assistance in analysing the SGAs and to the anonymous reviewers for their comments. They also acknowledge the colleagues they worked with on the UK National Ecosystem Assessment and the UK National Ecosystem Assessment Follow On project who provided many opportunities to discuss and share ideas.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Church

Andrew Church is a professor in human geography at the University of Brighton where he is also the Director of Research and Development for the Social Sciences. He has long-standing interests on the relationship between tourism, recreation and leisure and the natural environment. Andrew participated in the UK National Ecosystem Assessment, first published in 2011.

Tim Coles

Tim Coles is a professor of management in the Business School at the University of Exeter. His research interests centre on sustainable business practices in travel and tourism organizations, most recently with a focus on innovation and smart solutions.

Rob Fish

Rob Fish is a reader in human ecology in the School of Anthropology and Conservation at the University of Kent, Canterbury. A human geographer and social scientist by training, he has a longstanding interest in the culture and environment of rural areas. Interdisciplinary and policy orientated, this centres primarily on the theory and practice of sustainable land management. Rob participated in the UK National Ecosystem Assessment, first published in 2011.