An approach to assessing the Environmental impacts of Coastal tourism 2015

An approach to assessing the Environmental impacts of Coastal

tourism

Abstract

Introduction

Tourism is one of the largest and fastest growing sectors in the world economy and has significant environmental, cultural, economic and social effects. Coastal tourism is a part of Tourism that acts as a major tool for the development of economy. Coastal tourism has many positive impacts. But the negative impacts should also be taken into consideration for maintaining the environments stability. If not planned properly, it can have ill effects on the pristine environments and biodiversity, and can result in the misuse of sensitive coastal ecosystems that include natural resources such as freshwater, mangroves, coral reefs, sand beaches, estuaries, coastal fresh water lakes and marine life. At a number of sites, tourism development has resulted in serious degradation of coastal resources and displacement of local communities and coral reefs have been damaged.

Need for the studyThe coastal tourism which is growing at a fast rate has led to the social, cultural, physical and environmental changes. Measuring environmental impacts is important because people’s support for tourism development depends upon their attitudes towards environmental changes. The need for addressing environmental concerns in tourism development planning is also important because the human livelihoods are affected due to certain actions of tourism. In most of the studies on the environmental impacts of tourism, the focus appeared to be primarily on such factors like the resiliency of the ecosystem, the intensity of site development and use, and the commitment and involvement of local stakeholders. Most of the people residing near the coastal regions are fishermen. The introduction of coastal tourism to an area leads to the resettlement of the fishermen communities for the tourism developments. The major environmental/socio-cultural impacts noted in the table are pollution of air. water, noise, dumping of garbage, destruction of sand dunes, increasing crime, increased alcoholism, prostitution, over-crowding, loss of open space, unwanted-life style changes, practice of nudity and drugs and corrosion of local cultural values.The exclusion of local fishermen and their families from the beaches and their traditional occupations not only leads to economic but also social conflicts (inter-use conflicts). Communal tensions already exist and hostility would increase if families were displaced and cut off from their traditional occupations. Situations like these also lead to resentment and even hostility toward tourists.Considering the present state of the Kerala coast, it is obvious that many of the attractive areas of the coast are thickly populated and the town/cities continue to dump sewage and other effluents directly into coastal waters. Beaches and backwaters are contaminated by

urban sludges and sewage. In addition to these, the industrial effluents, which include toxic and dangerous chemicals, are also thrown into the coastal waters. Motor boats and ships leave oil and petroleum effluents into the coastal waters.