Ecotourism, NGOs and Development: A Critical Analysis

Description

Ecotourism has emerged over the last twenty years not just as a market niche, but also as a strategy for combining development with conservation in the developing world. Ecotourism, NGOs and Development considers the basis for advocacy and argues that it is premised upon a very limited and limiting view of the potential for development. Jim Butcher examines the advocacy of tourism as sustainable development in a range of NGOs and within the general literature. The research reveals that in spite of the plethora of critical commentaries on the operation of ecotourism projects, there is generally an uncritical take on the ideological basis of the projects. This book offers a timely critique of key assumptions underlying ecotourism's status as sustainable development, arguing that ecotourism as development strategy ties the fate of some of the poorest people on the planet to localized environmental imperatives.

'An excellent trenchant critique which makes us re-think the concept of ecotourism from its first principles.' - Kevin Hannam, University of Sunderland, UK 'Beyond its clarity of methodology and vital contribution to academic discourse, the case studies in this book provide phenomenal insights. To do justice to the aspirations of our peers in the developing world the truths in this inimitable work must be taken onboard and acted upon.' - Ceri Dingle, Director of WORLDwrite, a UN, DPI accredited NGO