Sustainability Discourses: Human Livelihoods and Life Chances

Abstract

The concept of sustainability is increasingly used in a variety of different ways, and for a variety of different purposes. In this chapter this apparent adaptability, and some of the ambivalence to which it gives rise, are examined in the context of recent eco-tourist development on the Yucatan peninsular, Mexico. The discussion of the environmental impact of tourism, and the search for more ‘sustainable’ forms of tourism, really began with the publication of the Brundtland Commission Report (WCED 1987, Croa111995) but the term eco-tourism did not gain currency until later. The World Wild Fund for Nature has defined eco-tourism as “... tourism to protected natural areas, as a means of economic gain through natural resource preservation. A merger of recreation and responsibility” (Kallen 1990,37). In the course of time, however, the epithet “eco” has been applied, with something approaching abandon, to almost any form of tourist development which claims ‘ecological’ objectives (Mowforth 1993, France 1997, Wahab and Pigram 1997).