MEDITERRANEAN ACTION PLAN

Rapport de l’Atelier sur le tourisme et le développement durable en Méditerranée
Antaly (Turquie), 17, 18 & 19 septembre 1998
of the various elected bodies such as the City Council or the Regional Prefecture
Council etc. simply because most people are far too busy to devote time for the
management of the commons.
They also take care of their land, many of the people employed in tourism
temporarily during summer return to their traditional occupations, which support
otherwise both the general economy of the region and tourism (while resisting the
tourism monoculture).
They have more time for family life and their children. More time for their culture.
They may speak and hear their own language, which is not the case during the
« high » season, when one inhabitant corresponds to several foreigners.
Finally, and perhaps in more absolute terms, basic functions of nature need
« quite » intervals. Pollution dispersion and dilution mechanisms in the sea, ground
water recharge mechanisms, which are so important for the water economy and
crucial biological mechanisms, including reproduction, are much more vulnerable
during periods which now coincide with the low season.
Elliniki Etairia (The Hellenic Society for the Protection of the Environment and the
Cultural Heritage) has studied flora in archaeological sites and found that these
areas are frequently particularly rich in threatened and rare species. If vegetation
is removed only few weeks earlier than usual, in order, let’s say to receive early
tourists, the plants will not have the time to produce seeds and biodiversity will be
seriously threatened.
This is just one example showing how unsafe is one of the so called « panacea »
recipies that are found in all sustainability tourism recommendations and are so
easily « recycled » in many papers without proper understanding of their full
consequences.
In the well-prepared background document for this workshop, on Tourism and
Sustainable Development, of the Working Party on Tourism of the MCSD, most of
the impacts of tourism on the environment are mentioned already.
The usual complex combination of greed by developers, profits from « unexplored »
opportunities, namely sites with some interest and the naive enthusiasm of local
population upon the first influx of funds, followed by lack of experience, absence of
planning and weak institutional infrastructures and enforcement mechanisms by
local and regional authorities result to a rapid, uncontrolled urbanisation and total
destruction of magnificent landscapes and sites, which require millennia to be
shaped in ten to thirty years and a full "consumption" of the environment itself. In
these cases lack of long term planning allows to short term interests to sacrifice the
« hen » which lays the « golden eggs » instead of living from these eggs in a
sustainable way. All these are known and we usually blame « mass tourism » . Let
me show then again another aspect, which cannot be attributed to mass tourism
but to the so-called « quality » , even exclusive tourism.
The background paper quite rightly mentions the extremely complex problem of
pleasure boats and marinas and emphases the fact that they are used frequently as
symbols of Status and as an excuse for real estate projects to be completed or (1
add) even generated. I have nothing at all against pleasure boats if and when they
25
Plan Bleu