Island Environment Essay

Introduction

In the past few decades, tourism has grown rapidly, as can be seen, in its contribution to employment and economic growth to become a distinguished industry (WTTC, 2017). The travel industry develop into the fastest, enormous, and most sustainable growing economic district in the world (Butler, 1999; Weaver, 2006; UNWTO, 2018). Currently, it has 292 million employed people worldwide, accounting for one out of ten global jobs (WTTC, 2017). The industry come out with 10.2 percent of the world GDP in 2016, and it is forecast to increase steadily by 3.9 percent annually in the next decade (WTTC, 2017). In this context of growth, when developing tourism in a stable manner, continuous improvement is a very important factor for competitive destinations. Nevertheless, we must mind that tourism has an incredible unique power to create wealth, thus in the medium and long term we must care about the environment’s loading competence and the life of quality for the local residents, otherwise, we will face the problem of refusing passengers due to the saturation of the local population. Moreover, in order to improve competitiveness and tourist productivity, it is very important to formulate relevant policies. It is necessary to focus on the preservation of the environment and local values (Exceltur, 2017).

Tourism is considered to be a means of promoting the development of a country's economy, but tourism is also one of the participants in environmental consumption due to the construction of buildings and tourism activities (2016 F. Kurniawan). Recently several studies have confirmed tourism has generated increasing direct and indirect effects (positive and negative) at the economic, social, and environmental levels of continental and island destinations (Sun et al., 2013, Sánchez et al., 2014). Furthermore, the consequences of tourism activities not only on the environment may lead to important ecosystem degradation, pollution, and erosion, but also to the socio-cultural aspects of the resort, which may lead to irreversible changes in traditional lifestyles (Mathieson and Wall, 1982). Therefore, the tourism industry comforts the same threat as other societies, which is the equilibrium of the demands of economic development and recognizing the impact of the activity on the environment and social culture (Mathieson and Wall, 2007).

The UNWTO (2016) (United Nations World Tourism Organization) organized the First Conference on Climate Change and Tourism in 2003, it was show that global phenomena of climate change have been connected to the tourism industry, since then, the role of tourism in the net contribution of global greenhouse gas emissions have been discussed. In order to help preserve the natural environment, the UNWTO Davos Declaration encourages tourists to think about the impact of their behavior on the economic, social, and environment and reduce carbon footprint and carbon emissions (Scott, Amelung, Becken, Ceron, Dubois, Gössling, Peeters, Simpson 2008). In addition, scientific evidence indicates that changes in the Earth's climate are directly related to human behavior, so further thinking about the importance of human behavior to environmental impacts (IPCC, 2007).

These situations have created a series of knowledge whose main purpose is to solve the problem of environmental degradation from the perspective of human behavior. As long as the sustainable environment protects society and the natural environment, the behavior of environmental protection becomes crucial (Gifford, 2014). Consequently, this is why most environmental policies require sustainable behavior (Dobson, 2007; Oskamp, 2000), which means that human behavior is a cornerstone in solving environmental problems. what's more, the term sustainable tourism appears in a real situation, because too many tourist destinations can no longer continue to develop without considering the aftermath, so sustainable tourism is another way to do, not just follow the original travel principles (Shaw＆Williams，2002).

It has previously been observed that many islands in the world are more dependent on tourism than mainland islands (Briguglio and Briguglio,2005). The small island destinations offer beautiful, vibrant, aesthetically pleasing views, as well as a variety of natural habitats, including attractive, warm, clear, and clean water. So it is one of the most popular tourist activities (2016 F. Kurniawan). However, compared to other types of tourist destinations, islands have limited resources and a fragile natural environment, so tourism on the island must pay more attention to the management of the environment and the environmental problems caused by the behavior of tourists. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to review recent research into sustainable behavior and island destinations.

Island destination

-definition

There are many of definitions an 'island', so it is difficult to define. Authors from different fields continue to doubt the true meaning of the structure of the island (Olwig, 2007). Although each island has something in common in fact it is different. Not all islands can be tourist destinations (Wilkinson, 2012; Liang, 2017). Some islands merge with the peninsula, and some will disappear due to the tide. At the same time, the island could be far from the mainland but also could be very close to it, moreover, if the island is close to another island, it could be formed an archipelago. In addition, the differences between the islands in particular the climate, flora, fauna, economy, social culture and development… etc. That indicates the diversity of islands, the previous literature mentions that it needs to be interpreted and presented according to the difference of islands.(Baldacchino, 2008; Corral and Cànoves, 2013).

For Baldacchino (2012), the island is generally defined as the land surrounded by freshwater and saltwater, this definition is close to Packham (2012) who defines an island as a piece of land covered by water. However, accorded to another definition provided by Stratford (2003), Kopaka (2009), and Baldacchino (2013) that an island is a dynamic entity with eco-biological, sociocultural, experiential, mystical, representative, mythological, or metaphorical nature. While a variety of definitions of the term island destination have been suggested, this paper will use the definition suggested by Rachel Dodds (2012) and Sonya Graci (2012).

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Place Order

-why island destination, not mainland

On many different islands in the world, tourism is seen as the way for a country to develop its economy (Croes, 2006). The factor that attracts visitors to the island related to their beauty, exoticism, artistic, and natural habitat diversity such as coral reefs, beaches or sand dunes, and the warm, seductive water of the island (Daby, 2003). Due to the natural attraction of the island destination is usually related to the tourism industry, so the most direct threat to the natural environment of the island is the possibility of over-exploitation (Butler, 1993 and 1998; Murphy, 1994). Furthermore, construction and tourism activities are one of the main factors causing environmental damage, as can be seen, tourism is one of the major contributors (Pickering and Hill, 2007; Fabinyi, 2008; Hannak et al., 2011). Many studies have pointed out that there are four human activities that cause a quality and quantity impact on the natural environment, the first is fishing, the second is hotels and resorts, as well as the use of ports and boats, the third is walking on the coral reef, snorkeling, and shallow water, the last one is island’s land pollution (Barkes and Roberts, 2004; Hutabarat et al., 2009; Parolo et al., 2009; Hannak et al., 2011).

Since most of the island’s GDP is attributed to tourism, the island’s tourism has grown rapidly over the past decade. The rapid increase in many buildings or facilities has resulted in a lack of adequate infrastructure to handle large amounts of waste and sewage, causing water and soil pollution. In turn, affects the economy, society, and ecology of the entire island. For instance, habitat, ocean, and geology; isolation or deterioration of local culture; damage to traditional livelihoods, therefore, compared with the mainland, after the small islands were developed, in general, the small islands are more susceptible to negative effects. Furthermore, the natural and social resources of the island are limited, which also shows that the sustainable development of the island is very important (Rachel Dodds,2012; Sonya Graci, 2012)

At present, a series of studies have confirmed that tourism will have negative and positive impacts on islands. (Hall, 2010; Silva et al., 2010, Corral and Ca`noves, 2013, Wortman et al., 2016). The evidence of negative influence on the island environment is due to the tourist's behavior which can be seen clearly in these three cases. The first one is Boracay, Philippines. Because of the great deal of tourists, causing damage to the island environment, the island was closed in February 2018 for cleaning. Boracay government has three purposes, the first is to clean up the environment, the second is to improve the hotel's sewage treatment system and the last one is to develop a tourism strategy to ensure the island's sustainable development (EHL).

The second island is Jeju Island in South Korea. Recently relevant research indicates that Jeju Island is also dependent on the natural environment to attract tourists, but due to excessive use of the island and rapid expansion, it has a major impact on the environment. By way of illustration, Min-Seong Kim (2018), Jinwon Kim (2018), and Brijesh Thapa (2018) show that apart from sustainable development, the sustainable behavior of tourists is one of the important factors to concern.

The third island is Taiwan’s island it is called Liuqiu Island, this is an island that is attracted tourists by maritime activities. However, the destructive behavior of tourists has caused the degradation of intertidal biodiversity, which has a huge impact on the environment (Lo, 2013). That case study confirms the importance of tourist sustainable behavior, it shows tourists can directly affect the environment. In this review, the next part will discuss how tourist behavior is sustainable.

Sustainable behavior

-definition

Basic on previous research, several definitions of sustainable behavior have been proposed. According to Bonnes and Bonaiuto (2002), Sustainable behavior is defined as ‘A series of thoughtful and fruitful actions to protect the social physical environment in contemporary and future generations’. Another researcher more recently defined sustainable behavior is defined as a series of actions aimed at the complete protection of current and future social and physical resources. Here physical and social resources refer to natural resources or an environment that supplies human needs. For example food, water, place of residence, quality of life, social justice, safety and education…etc. Moreover, sustainable development can meet human needs and protect human resources (society, culture, people's survival, and welfare) while protecting material resources because these two are as important as protecting ecosystems (basic substances that life and organisms depend on) (Tapia-Fonllem et al., 2013).

-sustainable behavior of tourist definition

In accordance with several studies, sustainable behavior of tourist is a word that began to appear twenty years ago (Emil Juvan,2016, Sara Dolnicar 2016), Obviously, this term has not appeared twenty years ago, but it has begun to have narrative related to the tourist sustainable behavior. According to the first literature, Krippendorf (1987) used the term “the emancipated tourist”, which defines experienced tourists, as starting to awareness of health and the environment that were not important to them. And a decade later, Dinan (2000) and Sergeant (2000) used the term “ sustainable tourist” which is defined as someone who appreciates themselves as a visitor in another culture, economy, society, and environment and respects the uniqueness of travel. In 2010, sustainable behavior is defined by Mehmetoglu (2010), ‘‘Someone who was concerned about sustainability issues (i.e. of economic benefit to local people”. From time to time, various theories of sustainable behavior of tourism have been explained, this paper will use the term “Environmentally responsible tourist” which is a definition by Emil Juvan (2016) and Sara Dolnicar (2016) who saw the tourists’ behavior that would not cause negative impacts on the natural environment, and even more they could profit the environment to destinations around the world.