Nature as a Resource for Tourism

1. Nature as a Resource for Tourism • What is nature? • What is the relationship between man and nature? (slides from Sigrún Helgadóttir) • Who benefits from nature? • How does nature and tourism relate?

2. What is nature? What is referred to as ‘nature’ means different things to different people. The reasons for this depend on people’s economic situation, age, gender, education, expectations as well as other explained and unexplained factors. Oxford dictionary; simple life without civilization; outdoor, animal-like existence.

3. Man and Nature • Man and Nature • How important is the connection between man and nature • for people, • for communities? • Travel • Why have people travelled in the past? • Will people continue to travel?

4. General dates in Earth’s history • Earth’s age - 5000 Million yrs. • First life – 4000 • Complex organisms evolve – 570 • Dinosaurs and mammals – 225 • Dinosaurs become extinct – 67 • First manapes – 30 • First humans – 4 • Our species (homo sapiens) – 150 thousand years • Urbanisation – 15 thousand years • Industrial cities develop – 200 years

5. Why did people travel? • Followed the best vegetation (vegetables) according to seasonal rain and roaming heards of wild animals. • Escaped natural catastrophies such as volcanic eruptions and droughts. • Looked for new or better land when land became scarce at home.

6. Who benefits from nature? All life forms including animals and humans benefit from nature. Humans can be divided into stakeholder categories according to the kind of benefit they gain from nature. These categories may include the general public (poor or wealthy), governments and land owners.

7. Land owners Show the people that our Old Nobility is not noble, that its lands are stolen lands – stolen either by force or fraud; show people that the title-deeds are rapine, murder, massacre, cheating, or Court harlotry; dissolve the halo of divinity that surrounds the hereditary title; let the people clearly understand that our present House of Lords is composed largely of descendants of successful pirates and rouges; do these things and you shatter the Romance that keeps the nation numb and spell bound while privilege picks its pocket. Tom Johnston, Secretary of State for Scotland from Our Scots Noble Families 1909.

8. A human footprint Source: Our Ecological Footprint

9. Paul and Anne Ehrlich and John Holdren in Ecoscience:People’s need for nature ... • No matter how special we think we are, it is clear that our genes just like other mammals, are adapted to natural environment - clean air and diverse landscapes. How we relax and train physical strenght has been determined over millions of years. • Our body and genes seem best adapted to the tropical savannah’s but as cultural beings we have learnt to adapt to towns and cities. • For thousands of years, we have strived to copy the climate and physical surroundings of the past: Warm and humid air, plants and even the company of animals.

10. Peoples’ need for nature • Those who can afford it, build greenhouses, swimmingpools and take their children to the beach. • It is not fully understood how the human body reacts to natural beauty, diversity, shapes, the colours of nature (especially green), movements and sounds of other mammals such as birds etc. • Nature’s part in human life has to be viewed as an integral part of the human need. • Attention must be paid to the importance of nature in the discussion about the earth’s resource management.

11. Import and export of nature, from the book: Wilderness Management, 1990

12. Cities • Cities continue to grow in size and become more densely populated as they depend on inexpensive energy, transport, food, and nature. • City walls collapse. People move to rural areas as food production moves into the cities.

13. A housein the city Source: Our Ecological Heritage

14. Motivation for local (outdoor) tourism • Low barriers for the economically, socially and physically challenged • Allows for a cultural experience • Land-interpretation – democracy • Encourages initiative – adjusts other lessons • Sence of belonging (home) - Nature protection awareness • Lífsleikni (Friluftsliv, lifetime hobbies) - community spirit

15. What is leisure environment? • The leisure environment is either nature-orientated or human-orientated. 2. The leisure environment has to be of a certain size and consumed within a timeframe. • The leisure environment depends on visitor perceptions and experiences. Williams and Shaw pg. 141 in reader.

16. Patrick Grahn’s Study • People can perceive distinct patterns of qualities in parks. • When people are going to perform a specific outdoor activity they first look for the right environment. • Nature excursions…, take place in an environment which has the characteristics of wilderness.

17. Patrick Grahn’s Study • The same park can play essentially different experience role for different groups of citizens. • The experience depends as much on the environment as it does depend on the activity, thus they are inter-related. • Different interests [of people] is an influencing factor on their experience.

18. Grahn’s neg & pos. roles

19. Shaw & Williams: An ideographic typology of tourist & leisure environments • General environment: Mountains • Specific features: Geological • Inclusive environments: National park See table 8.1 pg. 142 in the course reader

20. Theming the landscape The tourist gaze ‘is a mix of different scopic drives by which things of significance in history/culture/nature/experience are identified, signified and totalised.’ Scopic = range of actions or observation John Urry, 1992: 172.

21. Nature as a resource for tourism • Nature by definition is a specific kind of land. However, it is rather difficult to pinpoint the exact meaning of the concept due to its wide ranging interpretation. • Nature as such plays crucial role in the future development of tourism in Iceland.