Biodiversity and Tourism

The Convention on Biological Diversity resulting from the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in June, 1992 is the first international legal instrument to provide a comprehensive global basis for the various international efforts to conserve nature. Agreements developed in the past were either regional or limited by the scope of application. The Convention requires parties to conserve and, at the same time, sustainably use the biological diversity of the earth — understood as the diversity of genes, species and ecosystems.

Die Konvention über die biologische Vielfalt, ein Ergebnis der Konferenz der Vereinten Nationen für Umwelt und Entwicklung (UNCED) im Juni 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, hat die verschiedenen internationalen Naturschutzbemühungen erstmals auf eine umfassende, globale Grundlage gestellt. Bisher hatte es lediglich regional oder inhaltlich begrenzte Naturschutzabkommen gegeben. In der Konvention verpflichten sich die Parteien, die biologische Vielfalt der Erde — unter der sowohl die genetische Vielfalt als auch die Vielfalt von Arten und Ökosystemen verstanden werden — zu schützen und gleichzeitig nachhaltig zu nutzen.

The World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC), a body of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), has compiled a first survey and evaluation of biodiversity on a global scale (“Global Biodiversity — Status of the Earth’s Living Resources”). Although there is still a considerable lack of knowledge in this regard in some parts of the world, the study provides a comprehensive overview and identifies major areas where a particularly high biodiversity exists or the need for conservation is especially urgent. The statements herein are thus mainly taken from this publication. However, it should be pointed out that the IUCN’s rankings are purely quantitative data evaluations based mainly on species count. But the concept of biodiversity also includes qualitative aspects of individual ecosystems. Historically evolved, natural and culturally influenced landscapes as well as nature areas are not included in the IUCN’s survey. Here further statistical surveys are needed which do justice to the qualitative aspects of ecosystems. A comprehensive survey on biodiversity is contained in the reference work of the UNEP entitled “Global Biodiversity Assessment”, published in 1995. Here, a first attempt is made to analyse various ecosystem types and to correlate them with human use and its impacts on them. However, tourism as a special form of this use is not discussed, and all other impacts are described at a very general level. The United Nations Environmental Programs (UNEP) and the European Union (EU) are currently conducting a pilot study in ten bio-geographical regions of the world in which information on land use, habitat structure and landscape types are being assessed, along with data on animal and plant species, all with regard to biological and landscape diversity. The results are not yet available.

“Tourism” is here defined as “the activity of people who travel to places outside their customary surroundings and stay there for leisure-time, business or other purposes for no longer than one year without interruption” (WTO, n.d.). Moreover, “their main reason for travel must be other than performing an activity which is remunerated at the place visited” (op. cit.).

It is undisputed and has been proven in numerous studies that in places where tourism takes place in massive form or encroaches on particularly sensitive ecosystems, severe impacts on nature and the environment result. This proof will therefore not be repeated here. The focus will instead be on systematising the well known impacts, demonstrating which are the major impacting factors, and identifying the impacted ecosystem types.

Criticism of the social, cultural and ecological consequences of tourism was first voiced back in the 70’s. But more than a decade elapsed before this insight became widespread and was generally accepted (cf. BMZ 1993). Among the people involved with tourism today it is almost a commonplace that tourism can have adverse environmental impacts and that they should be limited as far as possible. Solution strategies in the form of programmes, planning strategies, regulation and recommendations can thus be found in governmental and inter-governmental bodies and non-governmental organisations as well as in the tourism industry itself. These plans are of varying — generally slight — degree of feasibility or binding quality, which is evidenced, for one thing, by the fact that there is a multitude of recommendations, but there are hardly any binding agreements. Most radical in this regard are legislative regulations in a number of destination countries, but very frequently — particularly in developing countries — there is no way to implement or enforce them effectively.

In chapter 1.3 (Section A) a global overview of the most endangered sea- coast habitats was already provided. The European seas and coasts are characterised by a large number of ecosystem types which will be described below. Particularly sensitive and therefore endangered coastal areas in Europe are salt meadows and dune landscapes and the ecosystem of the Wadden Sea (mudflats) (cf. chapters 6, 7 and 9). An overview of the most important characteristics and peculiarities of European seas and coasts is in chapter 5.3.

In Europe, biodiversity is very unevenly distributed, with the least variety of ecosystems, accompanied by the lowest species diversity, in the north of Europe (EEA 1995). Centres of high biodiversity are to be found in the Mediterranean region (Italy, Spain, Greece, France) and on the fringes of Europe (Bulgaria, Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia), with over 5,000 endemic plant species which occur only in these countries. (According to the EEA, many of the European countries list species as endemic, although the same species might also exist in another country but is not [yet] listed and protected there — a consequence of differing methods of data compilation. There is a lack of internationally recognised regulations to overcome this data deficit and ensure comparability.)

In recent decades the nature of the coast has changed profoundly in many places. The natural processes and functions of the seas and coasts are being increasingly influenced and disturbed by anthopogenic intrusion. Coastal cities and harbours have spread out markedly. Agriculture, fishery, industries, coastal protection and tourism are often not subject to any restrictions and have an impact on the coastal system as a whole and are thus the source of a number of problems.

The Côte d’Azur is France’s most highly frequented tourist region. Over 8 million people come to the French Mediterranean coast every year. Monaco alone attracts over 3 million tourists every summer. Through the former fishing village of St.-Tropez, which has only 6,400 inhabitants itself, up to 100,000 daytime tourist pass during the main season. The “Blue Coast”, as the approx. 300 km long strip of coast between Menton, on the world’s most expensive holiday areas. In the tourism sector of this region, three times as much money was earned in 1993 as in agriculture. 25 to 30% of the workforce earn their livelihood in tourism. The popularity of the million FF, but also in the some 300,000 holiday dwellings located in this region. In addition, since the mid-80’s a marked conference tourism has developed in some cities of the Côte d’Azur (Nice, Monte Carlo, Cannes), and it, too, has become a significant economic factor in the region. The congress and conference season, which begins in September, brings in a lot of money for the hotels and restaurants located there: statistics show that conference participants spend five times as much per day as holiday tourists (SANDBERG 1994).

The substance of the legal aspect of this study is based on the description of the major areas of conflict between the requirements of tourism and species and habitat protection as well as present conflict-solving instruments and procedures in keeping with the principle of “sustainable development”, to explore the possibilities of further developing international conventions using these basic findings and to submit proposals. In its legal aspects the project is to explore the possibilities for a “tourism protocol” and work out proposals. The legal section will thus comprise:

Before entering into the legal questions as such, some remarks will be made to summarise the need for regulating sustainable tourism. This will serve to make this legal section more easily comprehensible and also enable this part of the study to be read alone. The remarks are based on the findings of the factual part of the project and are thus only of a summarising nature.

The assessment of existing international law and such measures currently in preparation yields the result that there is as yet no specific agreement on sustainable tourism. At the regional level various agreements are in the process of being worked out (Alps tourism protocol; possibly a legal instrument within the scope of the Antarctic Treaty).

Below the options for new international regulations on sustainable tourism will be discussed. The question will be addressed whether specific agreements on sustainable tourism are better suited than additional agreements within the scope of existing international agreements. It will also be discussed whether new regulations are recommended at the global or regional level or at both.

The level of detail of an agreement is a statement as to which subjects exactly are treated in an agreement and to what extent of concreteness.

The Parties of this Protocol,

This statement by Krippendorf must be scrutinised a bit more carefully in the light of the preceding investigations. There are indeed implementation problems for the (few) existing control instruments; but there is also clearly a need for introducing new instruments and gearing them specifically to ensure a tourism which is sustainable for nature and the environment.