Environmental Management: Principles and practice

Ekistics
Ekistics is described as the ‘science of human settlements’: it draws upon human
ecology and regional planning and treats urban territory as a living organism, adopting
an interdisciplinary, problem-solving approach—in some respects similar to an
ecosystems approach, especially in its focus on networks (Doxiadis, 1968; 1977).
Although the journal Ekistics is widely read, the approach is now mainly of academic
interest, and is little used in practice.
Applying the ecosystem concept to tourism and heritage
management
The application of environmental management to tourism and heritage features
has grown since 1970s. It has mainly involved the application of impact assessment,
eco-auditing and the exploration of sustainable development strategies (Edington
and Edington, 1986; Butler, 1991). Two themes appear frequently: sustainable
tourism development, and avoidance or mitigation of tourism impacts. Tourism
and heritage features management can be divided into: (1) natural history-oriented
tourism; (2) eco-tourism (tourism based on visits to areas of unspoilt natural beauty
or rich wildlife; (3) tourism actively involved in assisting conservation and/or
gathering environmental information (e.g. tourists pay to assist on a survey or
archaeological dig).
Tourism often takes place in a sensitive environment: coastal zones; alpine
skiing; coral reefs; and where walkers or off-road vehicles cause damage. The
value of the ecosystems approach is that it can highlight vulnerable features and
threatening human behaviour, which may be easily overlooked if ecosystem
structure and function are not considered. For example, in parts of Australia and
South Africa, there have been calls to cull sharks. Before doing so it would be wise
to study their behaviour and role in the ecosystem to see whether their value
outweighs their threat, and also to see whether they move about so much that local
removal is pointless. Similar situations may arise in tropical rainforest environments
where apparently minor disturbance of bird or bat roost sites might have serious
regional effects, through reduced pollination, seed dispersal or insect predation.
Where Alpine farmers turn to tourism and relax their management of summer
grazing, the under-grazed grass may fail to anchor winter snow and increase the
threat of avalanche.
Tourism may become even more important as a means of financing and
encouraging respect for conservation, and of generating income for local peoples.
Ecosystem management can help ensure that tourism provides optimum support for
conservation. Heritage sites can be established to conserve cultural and natural

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features, including wildlife and old crop varieties in arboreta and the gardens of
large estates. In many parts of the world some of the last remaining stands of ancient
trees are found as sacred groves, around burial areas, and in temple gardens. There is
a need to apply ecosystem studies to determine how such refuge areas can be sustained
and augmented. Caves are especially vulnerable: visitors can introduce moulds and
other organisms which damage delicate structures or fauna, and ecologists can advise
to help reduce these problems (Cigna, 1993).