ABSTRACT
Tourism development in association with wetland conservation is seldom significant from a purely economic standpoint, especially for more remote coastal wetland locations. Ecosystems services (ES) comprise all benefits that people obtain from nature-based ecosystems. One interesting point that has been raised in the discussion of cultural ecosystem services in general, and tourism and recreation in particular, is likelihood that activities related to use of these services can increase public sentiment and support for protecting all ecosystem services. Ecosystem services have primarily been viewed from an applied anthropocentric sustainable development perspective. The goal of an ecosystem services approach is to efficiently extract all services from nature-based ecosystems that benefit humans, while also protecting the ability of ecosystem to continue to maintain its functions and capacity to provide such services. An examination of two wetland sites in Taiwan that have developed tourism ecosystem services can provide some insight into relationship among the concepts of cultural ecosystem services, tourism development, sustainability, and resilience.
