ABSTRACT
The concept of carrying capacity is rooted in a notion of ‘limits to growth’. The discussion for and against limits has been going on for over three decades and has been central in the debate for the interpretation and implementation of the concept of ‘sustainability’. This chapter turns to a more fundamental, theoretical examination of the concept of limits and compares it with alternative views of sustainability attempting to relate it to issues of tourism carrying capacity. This debate on sustainability is caught in what Norgaard (1994) has called the confrontation between the two mal-adaptive determinisms of ‘ecologism’ (limits) versus ‘economisin’ (efficiency). Our argument is that moving towards sustainability is neither about staying passively within ‘objectively defined’ limits nor is it about doing what the markets dictate; it is about a dynamic, integrated and, most importantly, democratic and participatory process of managing socioenvironmental change. This provides a new perspective on the concept and application of tourism carrying capacity.
