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cesses for meeting regulatory requirements, auditing
of systems, public disclosure of environmental
performance statements, and independent verification
of management systems and environmental
performance statements. In response to sustainable
development initiatives, the first EMS
standard was published in the United Kingdom.
During the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro, the Business Council for Sustainable
Development emphasised the need for business
and industry to develop tools for measuring
environmental performance and environmental
management. Subsequently, the International
Standardisation Organisation �ISO) embarked
on development of an international standard
for an EMS model. This work culminated in the
ratification of ISO 14001, Environmental Management
Systems: Specification with Guidance
for Use, in September 1996. ISO 14001 provides
a framework to proactively manage operations
which may have an adverse impact on the
environment through implementation of an
EMS.
An EMS adopts contemporary business management
concepts by using a framework to manage
environmental concerns which involves policy
commitments, defining objectives, targets and
programmes, monitoring performance and conducting
reviews. The tourism industry, with its
documented impacts worldwide and with its
continued dependence on the environment, will
have to come into terms with guidelines and
principles represented in the environmental management
systems framework.
See also: codes of ethics, environmental;
environment; environmental auditing;
environmental compatability; environmental
engineering; planning, environmental; impact
assessment, environmental; precautionary principle
NAV BRAH, AUSTRALIA
environmental perception see perception,
environmental
environmental planning see planning,
environmental
environmental rehabilitation 199
environmental quality see quality,
environmental
environmental rehabilitation
Environmental rehabilitation is a subset of environmental
protection. The rehabilitation of environmental
damage and the proper allocation of the
costs of this within protection frameworks have
been formally incorporated in legislation in
many countries in order to ensure that businesses
and private individuals behave in a manner that
avoids, rather than merely controls, their potential
for future environmental damage. Tourism has a
vital interest in environmental protection and
rehabilitation, as it relies to a significant extent
for much of its appeal on the health of the natural
environment.
With respect to existing environmental damage
from tourism development, mechanisms have to
be found that ensure accountability for this is
pursued, but not at the expense of actual
rehabilitation. The history of rehabilitation is
littered with examples of clean-up programs being
weakened by legal argument over accountability
and liability. The Superfund programme in the
United States is a prime example of this �75 per
cent of the budget was spent on legal fees and
consultant studies, and only 54 of 1200 priority
sites were cleaned up in thirteen years). Nevertheless,
the Superfund legislation has radically
changed the way industry in the United States
handles and discharges waste, and is beginning to
have extraterritorial effects. For example, American
hotel companies worldwide are now incorporating
higher environmental standards in their local
tourism operations through an unwillingness to risk
legal action against their US-domiciled activities.
The tourism industry has experienced concern
internationally over the physical impact of its
activities in recent years as host nations struggle to
come to grips with the often unregulated development
that has been experienced in the past.
Ranging from the effects of overwhelming pressure
on existing infrastructure to the degradation of
natural sites through excessive tourist numbers,
such concerns have helped in the development of
operational guidelines for the rehabilitation of