Sustainable Tourism in Global Perspective: Part 2

Sustainable Development and Tourism: a Process of Collaboration

by Johan Hattingh, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Stellenbosch University

IN A 2024 survey on sustainable development and sustainable tourism, the question was asked: What were the biggest challenges and obstacles you encountered in implementing sustainable tourism, and how did you overcome them (or not)?

Respondents highlighted various obstacles: farm workers unaccustomed to working weekends; guests unused to sorting their waste into different bins; guests picking up and removing fossils from the field to take home; guests camping overnight wherever they please, littering and turning every bush into a toilet; neighbours and local environmental associations that could collaborate more; local authorities that could do more to maintain roads and keep rivers clean of litter, debris, and invasive plants.

All these obstacles have one thing in common: people; and the sentiment among all respondents for a solution was greater involvement and mutual collaboration for a collective effort to promote sustainable development and sustainable tourism.

All respondents recognized that education and communication, specifically environmental education, is the core of the process of change required for sustainable development and sustainable tourism.

Aspects emphasised as part of this process of environmental education included: learning how to reduce waste, save water and energy, minimise the negative impact of tourism on the environment, and eliminate the appropriation of cultural artifacts and environmental treasures (such as picking up fossils in the field).

But this is likely just the starting point. Some respondents highlighted that environmental education also includes the process of learning how to live and build ecologically. In something as basic as laying out a garden on the premises of a guesthouse (even on a residential plot in a town), it is possible to plan from the outset to establish indigenous plants that use little water, allowing guests to experience the region’s flora from there.

The setup of the guesthouse itself can reinforce the process of learning to live ecologically. One respondent highlighted how the choice of building materials can contribute in this regard, and how the placement of something like water heaters (under the house) can help warm living spaces during cold winter months. Another respondent pointed out how they learned to gradually phase out plastic use and replace it with reusable glass products.

This means that the process of environmental education does not only occur in one direction but also involves the provider (owners and workers) collectively.

It comes down to learning how to work with ecological processes that involve nature, culture, and the heritage of the region. The Deep Ecologist Arne Naess (1912-2009) referred to this as building ecological wisdom, gradually understanding over time what it takes to be part of and participate in a whole of life-giving and life-sustaining networks and interactions.

Building on this insight, the concept of bioregionalism emerged. It stems from the realisation that, as humans, we generally need to relearn how to live sustainably. There are certain aspects of modern life we will need to unlearn, and certain things we will need to recall from our ancestors or indigenous populations who, over centuries, have already learned to live sustainably in a place.

Environmental education, if we want to do it thoroughly for the sake of sustainable tourism, is thus essentially a radical process of renewal, but also of restoration and rebuilding. And this becomes possible if we are willing to bring our degrees and scientific knowledge into dialogue with inherited, traditional, and indigenous knowledge.

When this happens, oral traditions, customs, and indigenous practices become just as important as well-executed scientific research in building our ecological understanding and ecological wisdom.

That the foundation for this kind of deep ecological learning is available to us is confirmed by respondents in the Cederberg who noted how conservation-minded people have formed collaborative groups to preserve their environment and everything within it (wildlife, plants, traditional culture, and even prehistory as captured in fossils).

Perhaps these groups have already begun to think like mountains, like the Cederberg. Perhaps our challenge is to form more of these collaborative groups, learn more from each other, including from our ancestors, and thus better understand what it requires of us to promote sustainable tourism in a place, thereby contributing to sustainable development.