The tourism and the environmental ethics

The tourism and the environmental ethics
The difficulties to achieve an equilibrium

Alfredo Ascanio (askain)

It does more than 50 years Aldo Leopol already presented the dilemma that existed between the development and the conservation of the environment in its book of titled A Sand County Almanac (1949). In the chapter IV, “The Upshot”, Leopol said that “the land ethic did not yet exist; there is as yet not ethic dealing with man’s relation to land and to the animals and plants which grow upon it…the land-relation is still strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations."

Twenty years later Charles A. Reich in its work The Greening of America indicated that the question is, “can we develop to new consciousness that places the individual and humanistic value above the machine? “ And now in this century Andrew Holden of University of Luton (United Kingdom) asked himself: “is needed a new environmental ethics for the tourism?

The matter is that up to now the environmental ethics is only anthropocentric, that is to say an economics ethics that ignores the responsibility of the man with the nature.

Holden says that "is difficult to achieve a homogeneous environmental ethics for the tourism by the variety of its interests. The imposed politics by imperative economic and neglecting the environmental price of the use of the geographical spaces, only conducted to the governments to establish criteria of conservation to avoid the impacts, but in truth of what treats is of preserve the middle for assure the energetic development of the tourism".

An unacceptable ambiguity by some ONGs more extremists as the "echo-warlike" of the mountains of Colorado to be opposed to the reintroduction of the Lynx inside the ecosystem.

Al contrary of it what occurs with the anthropocentric ethics, that ignores the intrinsic value of the nature, the true environmental ethics offers to all the not human entities (animal, plants, rocks) the same moral position that the human beings.

All the entities not-humans should enjoy the life liberty rights and of other legal rights, the same as the individual rights that demands the man for if.

The problem is to recognize the right intrinsic of the nature then the tourism as business carefully. The tourism should be revised because to reach the true sustainable tourism the value of the environment would have a greater importance that the value like a resource of leisure.

The tour operators in the market of the tourism of masses like Touristik Union International (TUI) now united to Thomson Travel Group, have developed politic environmental but that is only a slant ethnocentric to reduce their energy losses and of emissions contaminants but for elevate their profit value of their business and also the codes of conducts are based on conserve for be able to develop the tourism in ambiances a lot more natural by reasons that they damage not al sector.

Who benefits or damages a new environmental ethics? That new ethics he consists of passing from the anthropocentric ethics to a not anthropocentric ethics that assure the equality of the rights of the nature of the man.

That is to say: an echo-holistic ethics to put the emphasis in the survival of the species and the ecosystems, but the the development of the tourism would have restrictions in certain natural areas, which seems that is impossible for now because this new model suppose and a conceptual change in the system of far away beliefs of the rational thing for return at most spiritual.

Despite its promise, for this subject not exists a simple answer. Beyond the concept of echo-holistic ethics for the majority of the parts interested in the tourism it supposes a very drastic change that would be able them to damage.


2006/10/23 오전 10:07