Linking Culture and the Environment

96 Tourism, Sustainability and the Social Milieux
others felt that tourism operators, especially those conducting business on the
islands, ought to be environmentally sensitive and responsible.
Although the concern for environmental degradation was general across
the region, a dimension can be identified in which some local people caution
that concerns about environmental quality cannot stand in the way of all
(tourism) development. These people argue that it will be necessary to find a
workable balance between protection and development.
Tourism management issues
A third major issue is a large one, with several significant dimensions.
People throughout the north shore stated that tourism must be managed in
order to protect the natural environment, to maintain high standards in
facilities and operations, to provide tourism benefits for the region, to discourage
inappropriate activities and facilities and to achieve coordination
of tourism development. Furthermore, they stated emphatically that local
involvement in decision making was imperative and that local control was
highly desirable.
Local people outlined a variety of mechanisms through which such
involvement and, perhaps, control could be effected. Among them were:
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the status quo;
the private sector;
user-pay groups (such as snowmobile clubs);
an existing marina marketing association;
a regional tourism authority;
a proposed National Marine Conservation Area; and
a north shore regional government.
Residents declared that they expected senior governments (provincial and
federal) to support their decisions concerning tourism development on the
north shore and in the islands. They added that such support would be an
improvement over the normal responses from senior governments: either
ignoring them altogether when making decisions or confusing them with
contradictory policies and actions.
The discussions in the region about tourism management incorporate a
significant contradiction: regulation implies government; governments,
especially senior levels of government in Toronto or Ottawa, cannot be
trusted. Time and time again in discussions, people would argue for the regulation
of tourism, only to realize with dismay that they were invoking
government action and the accompanying bureaucracy. Many felt that entrepreneurs
in the tourism business should be capable of regulating themselves.
However, even these people seemed to doubt that tourism entrepreneurs, if
left to themselves, would self-regulate in acceptable ways.
No issue better illustrated the uneasiness among local people with
respect to managing tourism than the National Marine Conservation Area
(NMCA) then being proposed for the region by Parks Canada, the federal
agency in charge of protecting representative examples of Canada’s terrestrial
and marine heritage. As a federal government agency headquartered in