In May 1993 the British Mountaineering Council met to discuss the future of high altitude tourism. Of concern to attendees were reports of queues on Everest and reference was made to mountaineer Peter Boardman calling Everest an 'amphitheater of the ego'. Issues raised included environmental and social responsibility and regulations to minimize impacts. In the years that have followed there has been a surge of interest in climbing Everest, with one day in 2012 seeing 234 climbers reach the summit. Participation in mountaineering tourism has surely escalated beyond the imagination of those who attended the meeting 20 years ago. This book provides a critical and comprehensive analysis of all pertinent aspects and issues related to the development and the management of the growth area of mountaineering tourism. By doing so it explores the meaning of adventure and special reference to mountain-based adventure, the delivering of adventure experience and adventure learning and education. It further introduces examples of settings (alpine environments) where a general management framework could be applied as a baseline approach in mountaineering tourism development. Along with this general management framework, the book draws evidence from case studies derived from various mountaineering tourism development contexts worldwide, to highlight the diversity and uniqueness of management approaches, policies and practices. Written by leading academics from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, this insightful book will provide students, researchers and academics with a better understanding of the unique aspects of tourism management and development of this growing form of adventure tourism across the world.

Why has political ecology been assigned so little attention in tourism studies, despite its broad and critical interrogation of environment and politics? As the first full-length treatment of a political ecology of tourism, the collection addresses this lacuna and calls for the further establishment of this emerging interdisciplinary subfield. Drawing on recent trends in geography, anthropology, and environmental and tourism studies, Political Ecology of Tourism: Communities, Power and the Environment employs a political ecology approach to the analysis of tourism through three interrelated themes: Communities and Power, Conservation and Control, and Development and Conflict. While geographically broad in scope-with chapters that span Central and South America to Africa, and South, Southeast, and East Asia to Europe and Greenland-the collection illustrates how tourism-related environmental challenges are shared across prodigious geographical distances, while also attending to the nuanced ways they materialize in local contexts and therefore demand the historically situated, place-based and multi-scalar approach of political ecology. This collection advances our understanding of the role of political, economic and environmental concerns in tourism practice. It offers readers a political ecology framework from which to address tourism-related issues and themes such as development, identity politics, environmental subjectivities, environmental degradation, land and resources conflict, and indigenous ecologies. Finally, the collection is bookended by a pair of essays from two of the most distinguished scholars working in the subfield: Rosaleen Duffy (foreword) and James Igoe (afterword). This collection will be valuable reading for scholars and practitioners alike who share a critical interest in the intersection of tourism, politics and the environment

In May 1993 the British Mountaineering Council met to discuss the future of high altitude tourism. Of concern to attendees were reports of queues on Everest and reference was made to mountaineer Peter Boardman calling Everest an 'amphitheater of the ego'. Issues raised included environmental and social responsibility and regulations to minimize impacts. In the years that have followed there has been a surge of interest in climbing Everest, with one day in 2012 seeing 234 climbers reach the summit. Participation in mountaineering tourism has surely escalated beyond the imagination of those who attended the meeting 20 years ago. This book provides a critical and comprehensive analysis of all pertinent aspects and issues related to the development and the management of the growth area of mountaineering tourism. By doing so it explores the meaning of adventure and special reference to mountain-based adventure, the delivering of adventure experience and adventure learning and education. It further introduces examples of settings (alpine environments) where a general management framework could be applied as a baseline approach in mountaineering tourism development. Along with this general management framework, the book draws evidence from case studies derived from various mountaineering tourism development contexts worldwide, to highlight the diversity and uniqueness of management approaches, policies and practices. Written by leading academics from a range of disciplinary backgrounds, this insightful book will provide students, researchers and academics with a better understanding of the unique aspects of tourism management and development of this growing form of adventure tourism across the world.

Why has political ecology been assigned so little attention in tourism studies, despite its broad and critical interrogation of environment and politics? As the first full-length treatment of a political ecology of tourism, the collection addresses this lacuna and calls for the further establishment of this emerging interdisciplinary subfield.

Drawing on recent trends in geography, anthropology, and environmental and tourism studies, Political Ecology of Tourism: Communities, Power and the Environment employs a political ecology approach to the analysis of tourism through three interrelated themes: Communities and Power, Conservation and Control, and Development and Conflict. While geographically broad in scope—with chapters that span Central and South America to Africa, and South, Southeast, and East Asia to Europe and Greenland—the collection illustrates how tourism-related environmental challenges are shared across prodigious geographical distances, while also attending to the nuanced ways they materialize in local contexts and therefore demand the historically situated, place-based and multi-scalar approach of political ecology. This collection advances our understanding of the role of political, economic and environmental concerns in tourism practice. It offers readers a political ecology framework from which to address tourism-related issues and themes such as development, identity politics, environmental subjectivities, environmental degradation, land and resources conflict, and indigenous ecologies. Finally, the collection is bookended by a pair of essays from two of the most distinguished scholars working in the subfield: Rosaleen Duffy (foreword) and James Igoe (afterword).

This collection will be valuable reading for scholars and practitioners alike who share a critical interest in the intersection of tourism, politics and the environment

Table of Contents

Introduction: Communities and Power Mary Mostafanezhad, Roger Norum, Eric Shelton and Anna Thompson-Carr Section 1: Communities and Power 1. A Gendered Political Ecology of Tourism and Water Stroma Cole 2. Ngarrindjeri Authority: A sovereignty approach to tourism Ron Nicholls, Freya Higgins-Desbiolles and Grant Rigney 3. Co-management of Natural Resources in Protected Areas in ‘Post-Colonial’ Africa Chengeto Chaderopa 4. “Few People Know that Krishna was the First Environmentalist”: Religiously Motivated Conservation as a Response to Pilgrimage Pressures in Vrindavan, IndiaTamara Luthy 5. Festive environmentalism: A carnivalesque reading of eco-voluntourism at the Roskilde Festival Mette Fog Olwig and Lene Bull Christiansen Section 2: Conservation and Control Eric Shelton and Mary Mostafanezhad 6. Unsettling the Moral Economy of Tourism on Chile’s Easter Island Forrest Wade Young 7. Rethinking ecotourism in environmental discourse in Shangri-La: An antiessentialist political ecology perspective Jundan (Jasmine) Zhang 8. (Re)creating forest natures: assemblage and political ecologies of ecotourism in Japan’s central highlands Eric J. Cunningham 9. ‘Ecotourism or Eco-utilitarianism – exploring the new debates in Ecotourism Stephen Wearing and Michael Wearing Section 3: Development and Conflict Roger Norum and Mary Mostafanezhad 10. Political Ecologies and Economies of Tourism Development in Kaokoland, North-West Namibia Jarkko Saarinen 11. Cleaning Up the Streets, Sandinista-style: The Aesthetics of Garbage and the Urban Political Ecology of Tourism Development in Nicaragua Josh Fisher 12. The Political Ecology of Tourism Development on Mount Kilimanjaro Megan Holroyd‬ 13. “Absolutely Not Smelly”: The Political Ecology of Disengaged Slum Tours in Mumbai, India Kevin Hannam and Anya Diekmann 14. Composing Greenlandic tourism futures: An Integrated Political Ecology and Actor-Network Theory Approach Carina Ren, Lill Rastad Bjørst and Dianne Dredge Conclusion: Meets, Routes and Leaves: Concluding thoughts on the intersection of tourism studies and political ecology Roger Norum, Mary Mostafanezhad, Eric Shelton and Anna Thompson-Carr AfterwordJim Igoe