Population, consumption, and environment: a tourist spot scenario
for MacArthur Foundation, Chicago, USA

Summary
Image gallery

Summary

This study examined the inter-relations between population, consumption and the environment, using coastal tourism as a prism. It studied the influence of tourism induced migration on coastal ecosystems of selected villages of Goa. Tourism induced migration was categorized into temporary migrants (tourists) and permanent migrants (workers). The coastal ecosystems under consideration were sand dunes, mangroves, and khazan lands. The study covered 5 villages in Goa. It had four main research questions:-

How are population movements in a tourism area responsible for ecosystem changes in the coastal belt?
What are the socio-cultural and institutional factors that underlie these ecosystem changes?
What are the possible policy interventions?
What lessons does the study have for other developing regions where the tourism industry is still in its infancy or being considered as a development option?

The study addresses the above four research questions through an integrated approach comprising three components— statistical, spatial, and ethnographic.

The study suggested the following:

It is not the numbers of tourists, but the quantity and type of resources used to service the needs of the tourists that brings about changes in coastal ecosystems.
High budget tourists consume more land than the mixed and low budget tourists and hence land use and land cover changes are more.
Out migration and host population are also responsible for land use and cover change along with in-migrants
Laws, especially those relating to agriculture, communidades and coastal regulation Act of 1991 have contributed towards land Use change
Mature tourist destinations reveal a greater awareness and concern for the environment, especially among the youth , than other tourist destinations.
Tourism is an important driver for land use and land cover change as:
    (a) It provides the opportunity to alienate land profitability
    (b)It also creates a dissociation between production and consumption of coastal
        resources.

The changes brought in by the needs of the tourist and the pressures of globalisation for providing the tourist with what she/he expects, results in a dilution and erosion of the local communities’ sustainable use of coastal resources.

Image gallery

Source WWF Information kit, WWF-India, Goa Division and the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction 1994.

Khazan land agro-ecosystem

Dune vegetation in Varca

Mangrove vegetation

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Origins of inter-state migrant workers

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Calangute: land cover 1999

A hotel with a salt pan in the foreground

Extraction of salt in the khazans