ABSTRACT
This book has attempted to offer conceptual and practical insights into the complex interactions between ecotourism and heterogeneous and dynamic natural environments. It has drawn on a diverse array of case studies from around the world, incorporating analysis from a range of geographic scales and integrating knowledge from the social and natural sciences. A variety of ecotourism activities, ecosystem types, ecosystem components and environmental responses have been examined, and it has been shown that, in order to be successful, ecotourism requires the maintenance of natural, socio-cultural, economic and political capital (Collins 1999, Scheyvens 1999, Kiss 2004, Jones 2005, Butcher 2006). The appeal of ecotourism, in enabling environmental conservation and socio-economic development (Boo 1990, Ross and Wall 1999, Cleaver 2001, Mohan 2002), rests in its potential to provide economic benefits whilst maintaining ecological integrity through sustainable resource consumption. From the thematic case studies presented in this volume, three overarching issues have emerged that may be summarized as: constructions of nature, ethics and environmental sustainability; ecotourism, nature and neoliberalism; and environmental measurement, monitoring and management. The general nature of these issues and their specific articulation within chapters is outlined here, before the book closes by proposing some new directions for ecotourism research.
