Tourism and Aldo Leopold’s Environmental Ethics: A Review

Abstract

The tourism industry's substantial reliance on the natural environment continues to raise debates with spatial and temporal aspects. There have been debates around the ethics of using sentient animals as attractions; using nature as a resource to suit tourist requirements; using the environment as a pollutant sink, and using a carbon-centric transportation system as concerns mount on how nature is misused in tourism. As we have grown more aware of the co-dependency of our relationship with nature as a result of the environmental issues posed by human activities, we have to re-evaluate our ethical relationship with nature. However, while a critical review of the application of environmental ethics is crucial to tourism's interaction with nature, there has been a considerable effort of studies done in tourism studies. Tourism is at the crossroads of several important ethical concerns, including good environmental and natural resources management, respect for and empowerment of local populations, the necessity of development and property rights, and the consequences of commodification and globalization. This paper adopted a methodology of the review of the very scarce literature available on ethics and tourism based on Aldo Leopold’s environmental ethics. The review of the available literature leads to a conclusion that very little has been done to include the ethical environmental principles suggested by Aldo Leopold by the tourism industry for its benefits.