ABSTRACT
A significant contribution to ecotourism’s global following has been its
potential to deliver benefits to communities remote from centers of
commerce, benefits that do not involve widespread social or environmental
destruction.18 Too often in the past the only opportunities for many
communities remote from urban centers, particularly in the developing
world, were provided by the extractive industries – mining, logging, fishing or
slash and burn livestock production – all of which have detrimental impacts
on local communities and often leave an unacceptable legacy of long-term
environmental damage.
