Tourism based on natural environments is a huge international industry, requiring access to land with scenery, native plants, and wildlife. In turn, land managers need money to maintain the land and all its resources. Looking at the economic, social and environmental consequences of nature-based tourism, this book discusses the importance of links and partnerships, as well as the conflicts between commercial tourism interests and land management agencies.

Natural Area Tourism provides a comprehensive description of tourism in natural areas allowing readers to understand the scope of, complexities arising from, and possibilities of undertaking successful tourism developments in natural areas. Furthermore, the second edition contains an overview of recent developments, such as mountain biking, adventure activities in protected areas and geotourism. There is new content and examples from the Asian region on managing the tourism industry and management effectiveness. The book also considers important new developments in monitoring, such as remote sensing and the use of GIS, as well as the use of electronic educational resources in delivering interpretation. Attention is given to the implications of climate change, inadequate protected area security and the ever-increasing influence of the landscape matrix. Moreover, the second edition includes a comprehensive review of the new literature that has emerged since the publication of the first edition more than a decade ago. Accordingly this book will remain an invaluable resource and account of natural area tourism for many years to come.

"Focusing on fundamental ecotourism concepts, this broad-based textbook provides a basis for studies into environmental-based tourism. It covers key topics such as the management, economics, and potential environmental impacts, both positive and negative, of this popular and growing sector"--Publisher description.

This book examines the nexus between conservation, land conflicts, and sustainable tourism approaches in Southern Africa, with a focus on equity, access, restitution, and redistribution. While Southern Africa is home to important biodiversity, pristine woodlands, and grasslands, and is a habitat for important wildlife species, it is also a land of contestations over its natural resources with a complex historical legacy and a wide variety of competing and conflicting issues surrounding race, cultural and traditional practices, and neoliberalism. Drawing on insights from conservation, environmental, and tourism experts, this volume presents the nexus between land conflicts and conservation in the region. The chapters reveal the hegemony of humans on land and associated resources including wildlife and minerals. By using social science approaches, the book unites environmental, scientific, social, and political issues, as it is imperative we understand the holistic nature of land conflicts in nature-based tourism. Discussing the management theories and approaches to community-based tourism in communities where there are or were land conflicts is critical to understanding the current state and future of tourism in African rural spaces. This volume determines the extent to which land reform impacts community-based tourism in Africa to develop resilient destination strategies and shares solutions to existing land conflicts to promote conservation and nature-based tourism. The book will be of great interest to students, academics, development experts, and policymakers in the field of conservation, tourism geography, sociology, development studies, land use, and environmental management and African studies.

Nature-based Tourism in Peripheral Areas provides a comprehensive examination of this form of tourism development as it occurs within alpine, forest, sub-polar, island, coastal and marine environments. This book goes beyond much of the debate surrounding ecotourism and the impacts of tourism in vulnerable environments to place nature-based tourism in a wider regional context, particularly when for many peripheral regions tourism remains one of the key opportunities for economic development. Therefore, a central theme that is present throughout many of the chapters is the role that nature-based tourism can play as the catalyst for larger regional development of regions. The book will serve as essential reading to senior undergraduate and postgraduate students taking courses in tourism and related degrees where the major focus is on tourism that occurs within peripheral regions. It will also serve as a key reference to researchers and professionals interested in the role of tourism as a regional development tool.

'Ecotourism' outlines the phenomenon of Ecotourism; its sources and its development as a concept. Conservation issues are now at the forefront of public opinion - Nature is calling us to its wilds and we are responding in droves. The decline of natural rainforests, loss of endangered species, global warming and land degradation have galvanised public support for conservation. The interest in Ecotourism and nature-orientated tourism has coincided with this worldwide concern Using relevant case studies, 'Ecotourism' examines the potential positive social and environmental benefits of Ecotourism and is ideal for both students of tourism and practitioners within the tourism industry. 'Ecotourism' will also be of interest to environmental groups, land managers, academics and planners. Indeed anyone interested in examining what Ecotourism is and how it may hold the potential to solve or at least mitigate several of the great problems of our age. An example being arguably the greatest of these dilemmas: to satisfy human needs for employment, income and economic development, while at the same time protecting the environment. Stephen Wearing and John Neil are both lecturers at the School of Tourism Studies, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.