ECOTOURISM:  SUSTAINABLE AND GOOD FOR HEALTH
Brian MacKenzie (Director of Planning & Development, Tai Poutini Polytechnic, Greymouth, NZ.  brianm@tpp.ac.nz)
 
Based on a paper presented to the Green Globe 21 Sustainable Tourism Conference
3 – 5 March 2004 Takahanga Marae, Kaikoura, New Zealand
 
Abstract:
 
There is an increasing, worldwide emphasis being placed on the development of ecotourism as a sustainable alternative to mass tourism.  The parameters of ecotourism are generally considered to require inclusion of local communities in the planning, development and operation of ventures.  This requirement resonates with the literature on health improvement, which demonstrates that enabling individuals and communities to increase control over their lives – and the change in power relationships that is entailed – is health enhancing. 
 
An implication of this approach is that the successful development of eco-tourism ventures will need to replicate the approach set out in the World Health Organisation’s Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion: ensuring a supportive policy environment; community action in planning and developing activities; the creation of supportive, sustainable environments for tourist activity; increasing the personal knowledge and skills of all those involved (operators and tourists); and reorientation of resources from the ‘curative’ end of the environmental perspective (i.e. fixing the damage done) to the preventive (not doing the damage in the first place).  There is good evidence of the success of this approach in improving health, and it is therefore posited that the approach would lead to sustainable eco-tourism development.
 
Based on research carried out in 2002, this paper explores the relationship between ecotourism development and health, and demonstrates how the Ottawa Charter may be applied to ecotourism.  

Click below to download the full paper.