Michael Hughes

This chapter examines the social impacts of hosting sporting events in natural areas, focusing on the potential conflicts between environmental conservation and recreational use. It discusses the challenges of balancing the economic benefits of such events with the need to protect natural landscapes and biodiversity. The chapter calls for more comprehensive planning and management strategies to ensure that sporting events do not compromise the ecological integrity of natural areas. It highlights the importance of stakeholder engagement and sustainable tourism practices to address these issues.

This chapter is an explanation of scale based on my research with Roy Jones and Michael Hughes on the Ningaloo Coast in Western Australia. Scale is a crucial tool as it reveals how contests, politics and ethics shape flows of resources, and so become inseparable from the physical forms of heritage phenomena and demonstrates the links between the physical, human and non-human forces that shape heritage.

Human dimensions are increasingly recognized as a key element of fisheries globally. Information on human dimensions, particularly in the context of governance and social justice, is often lacking. Social justice includes the principles of fairness and equal opportunity, and is central for the governance of natural resources such as fisheries. Currently, no information on social justice has been collected for any Australian fishery. The blue swimmer crab (Portunus armatus) fishery is multisector and iconic, particularly in southwestern Australia, where an estimated 100,000 recreational fishers target this species but only seven small-scale commercial operators are active. This study used face-to-face and online surveys to explore commercial fishers’ concerns through the lens of the three orders of social justice (see Chap. 2 of this volume). Results indicate concerns regarding: (i) a lack of local community support for commercial fisheries and marginalization by the numerically dominant recreational sector (first order); (ii) the inequity of regulations processes that influenced fisheries management (second order) which were seen as promoting recreational over commercial fishing; (iii) a contrast between the prioritization of purchasing local seafood and the lack of support for the local commercial fishing sector (third order). This suggests that recreational fishers miss the link between the values and norms associated with purchasing local seafood products and support for the local fishing industry extracting them. Small-scale commercial fishers are concerned about the future of their industry as they feel pressured from the larger recreational sector and feel that the broader community does not acknowledge the value of their fishery.

This chapter applies a spatial approach to discussion regarding policy relationships between different government agencies with different priorities. Government policy is traditionally dealt with in the abstract form of ideas, graphics and text in formal boardroom settings. Discussing abstract policy in a formal setting limits the capacity for creativity and adaptation of ideas and may also foster defensive behaviour by its proponents. An abstract and defensive debate can stymie progress toward a mutual understanding that is exacerbated when policies cross agency jurisdictions. To overcome the abstract nature of government policy debate and the limitations of formal settings, a spatial workshop exercise was developed to test the effectiveness of a spatial approach to understanding policy relationships between different agencies. A range of senior government agents participated, each with responsibility for land use but with different, overlapping priorities. The researchers found that using a physical spatial representation of policy generated a sense of fun while also encouraging positive discussion and understanding. Participants commented positively on the spatial approach that enabled new and clear understandings of policy. This study demonstrates that a spatial approach to policy discussion facilitated positive and productive interactions between government agencies.

This chapter explores sustainable tourism development and collaboration in relation to the needs of tourists and of host communities. It is a collaboration of two academics operating in parallel, although occasionally intersecting, fields of study: tourism, and sustainability assessment. Through combining our knowledge and pursuits in each field, we work towards a shared goal that hopefully transcends what could be accomplished alone. Our approach is to explore the notion of human needs as it is expressed in the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) (1987) definition of sustainable development and the UN World Tourism Organisation (WTO) appropriation of the definition for sustainable tourism development. Our starting point is thus to unpack the key terms employed in these definitions prior to drilling down more specifically into analysing needs in the context of sustainable tourism development and collaboration. In so doing, many inter-related facets of sustainability thinking and of tourism understanding are revealed. Our method is principally a literature review amounting to a theoretical exploration of concepts, illustrated with published examples from practice. Our analysis leads us to propose an alternative definition of sustainable tourism development that emphasises the priority of ‘host community’ needs that better aligns with the spirit of the WCED definition.

Sustainability displacement is the idea that the achievement of sustainability is shifted to some other place and future time rather than being delivered in the here and now. The growing use of environmental offsets is a key example of this phenomenon that is explored in this chapter. Sustainability displacement through use of environmental offsets is problematic because limitations, unknowns and complications mean there is no guarantee of achieving the desired goal. Based on a literature review and illustrative case studies, we present both theoretical and practical examples highlighting the problems with operationalizing sustainability in the context of individual development activities. We introduce a sustainability framework that includes the dimensions of ‘here and now’ and ‘there and then’ to make explicit the trade-offs in time and space. We conclude with reflections on the issues with sustainability displacement and the advantage of conceptualising sustainability in a simple but integrated and holistic fashion that provides a useful foundation for university teaching and research in sustainability.

In this chapter, we explore the complex character of ecotourism as a phenomenon and how this relates to understanding the potential impacts on biodiversity. We consider the importance of biodiversity in identifying natural places as ecotourism attractions and the role ecotourism plays in the conservation of biodiversity. Ecotourism, however, is not without risks in regard to disturbing wildlife and damaging the environment. Positive and negative impacts are therefore identified but the nature of these impacts varies according to the type of ecotourism activities and how the tourism operators meet the tourists’ expectations. We will take the view that ecotourism is a specific type of tourism and that, perhaps unlike many other forms of tourism, has an overall positive impact on biodiversity. This is despite that fact that there may be real and recognizable deleterious impacts occurring as a result of tourism development and activities. We are, however, of the view that in comparison to many of the existing threats to biodiversity, ecotourism has the potential for positive outcomes. The type and severity of environmental impacts are also influenced by political and socio-economic factors that apply in the areas in which the biodiversity occurs. Protected areas, such as national parks, play a vital role in conserving biodiversity and tourism is considered an encouragement for public engagement with conservation that is regarded as central to the role of parks themselves. Protected area managers have an active role to play in understanding what ecotourism is and in promoting sustainable tourism. This is achieved according to the application of different management strategies such as the provision and maintenance of visitor facilities, controlling where tourists go and what they do and in the provision of educational programmes. The potential negative impacts of tourism on biodiversity often interact with wider landscape-level impacts. Such impacting factors that are derived from the landscape matrix include the presence of pest animals, weeds and human-related activities that compromise biodiversity conservation. Acknowledging that impact assessment can include wider environmental and social issues this chapter focuses on the biodiversity aspects of impact assessment. Accordingly, we conclude this chapter with an exploration of the implications for impact assessment in regard to the complex characteristics of ecotourism and their interaction with biodiversity. This will be achieved by examining the case of the ecotourism–conservation nexus associated with iconic species such as gorillas in Africa. Overall we consider the need to understand the positive and negative impacts of ecotourism on biodiversity at various scales and levels of socio-political complexity. In doing so we unravel the role of people’s and institutional perceptions of what is regarded as an impact and the cumulative effects of a number of land uses and human activities, of which tourism is only one, on biodiversity.