340 Book Reviews / Natural Resources Forum 33 (2009) 338–342
policy review. According to the
new approach, water resources are
managed to achieve optimum long-
term social and economic benefit, thus
addressing equity and efficiency. The
reform attempted to address
environmental, social and economic
issues simultaneously. It provided
evidence that the most effective
approach to achieving the three
objectives is to address social issues
first, which sustain support for
economic and environmental reforms.
The last part of the book looks
at water management issues on a
transnational level. The case study
addresses transboundary river-basin
management on the Mekong River.
Water resources are of substantial
economic importance in the riparian
countries, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam
and Thailand, while their cooperative
challenge is to allocate this resource.
The Mekong River Commission was
established to foster economic and
social development via coordinated
management of water and related
resources while protecting this unique
environment. Despite an enduring
cooperation, the riparian countries
continue to have problems due to the
implementation of national-based
decisions. The case study shows that
water resources management in such
a complex transboundary setting is
extremely challenging and requires
an integrated approach, changes in
mindsets, consultation, stakeholder
participation and technical expertise.
The major contribution of the
cooperation has been the development
of a shared information and knowledge
base, which facilitates the planned
IWRM approach.
The 12 cases show the diversity of
contexts and scales and the variety of
socioeconomic and political settings in
which water management takes place,
how it has improved, and the array of
approaches and results that have
been found. The book provides
policymakers and practitioners with
practical case studies of IWRM with
concrete “lessons learned” that
showcase interlinked development and
water challenges. In most cases, water
management improvements were not
initiated with the goal to apply the
IWRM concept; rather practical
pressures and needs resulted in
effective approaches akin to the
principles of the IWRM. It was also
demonstrated that there is no one
formula that can be applied
everywhere for advancing water
management: implementing IWRM
is a long and continuous process,
requiring patience as well as
adaptation to local needs and
conditions.
Despite the vast assortment of
settings, many common conclusions
from the case studies are interestingly
formulated in the last chapter. In all the
cases, the institutional and governance
framework had to be strong and
often adjusted, to facilitate water
management improvements. In several
experiences, securing livelihoods was
the condition for sustaining support for
environmental conservation. A change
in mindsets and the engagement
of all the stakeholders have been
requirements for progress in all the
case studies. The cases also show how
lower-level actions are dependent on
higher-level support, and vice versa.
Finally, as the scale increases, the
adoption of IWRM becomes more
challenging and complex.
Integrated Water Resources
Management in Practice: Better Water
Management for Development is thus a
confirmation of the effectiveness of the
IWRM concept in practical terms, and
provides an opportunity to learn from
good water management practices. It
shows how IWRM can be an effective
tool for attaining sustainable
environmental, social and economic
development and that these three
foundation pillars can be in harmony
with each other. The rich contents of
this book offer a realistic examination
of the practical side of IWRM through
presenting reliable facts and
interesting case studies accompanied
by illustrative figures and in-depth
analysis. It can be recommended to all
water professionals that seek to
find solutions in improving water
management to achieve sustainable
© 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 United Nations
social, economic and environmental
development.
Mirja Kattelus
Water and Development Research
Group
Helsinki University of Technology
Espoo, Finland
Ecotourism and Sustainable
Development, 2nd edition
By Martha Honey
Island Press: Washington, DC, 2008,
551 pages narf_1256 340..••
Ecotourism as a concept dates back to
the 1970s, although it was only defined
in 1990 by the International
Ecotourism Society, which described
ecotourism as, ‘Responsible travel to
natural areas that conserves the
environment and improves the
wellbeing of local people’. Despite this
and other efforts to formalize the
concept, ecotourism has always been
the victim of terminological ambiguity.
The principal goal of the second
edition of Ecotourism and Sustainable
Development is to reclaim the term and
sharpen its usage. In so doing, Honey
distinguishes ecotourism from other
terms such as nature, adventure and
wildlife tourism as the only type of
tourism that explicitly incorporates
both a commitment to enhancing the
natural environment as well as
contributing to an improved quality of
life for communities around the
tourism destination. In the final pages
of the first chapter, Honey puts forward
seven criteria with which to distinguish
legitimate ecotourism from
‘greenwashing’ and ‘ecotourism lite’.
These criteria are: 1) travel to natural
destinations; 2) minimize impact; 3)
build environmental awareness; 4)
provide direct financial benefits for
conservation; 5) provide financial
benefits and power for local people; 6)
respect local culture; and 7) support
human rights and democratic
movements (see pp. 29–31). The
primary goal of the book is to create a

Book Reviews / Natural Resources Forum 33 (2009) 338–342
sufficiently precise concept and
definition for ecotourism. The
secondary goal is to make the case for
ecotourism certification.
This book contains ten chapters,
which move between a general history
and description of ecotourism and
detailed cases. The first three chapters
cover generalities about ecotourism
including the origins and evolution of
the field over the past twenty years.
The following seven chapters are
country studies which cover Africa and
the Americas, but which unfortunately
neglect Europe, Asia, and the South
Pacific. Honey’s country studies
include Ecuador (the Galapagos
Islands), Costa Rica, Tanzania, Kenya,
Zanzibar, South Africa, and the United
States. Honey concludes each of her
seven country study chapters by
evaluating each country according to
the above seven criteria.
The first chapter is an excellent
introduction to the field — it traces the
history of tourism generally, and
ecotourism specifically, while
effectively engaging the key policy
debates in the field. In this chapter,
Honey identifies the key historical
factors in the emergence of
ecotourism. These include US national
park legislation, the emergence of
transnational conservation organiza-
tions, and the growing awareness of
the need for environmental protection
on the part of international develop-
ment organizations and the public in
general.
Chapter two focuses in more detail
on the tense and tenuous relationship
between the global travel industry and
ecotourism. According to Honey, the
world travel industry is a free market
institution, whereas ecotourism, by
virtue of its focus on local economy, is
at odds with the free market. This
dichotomy is problematic as there is no
inherent ideological contradiction
between the free market and small-
scale development. In fact, the idea of
mobilizing local resources for local
economic development is, in many
cases, more in line with free market
ideology than large scale development
in which there is typically a greater
© 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 United Nations
role for the state. Nevertheless, Honey
clearly documents the ideological gulf
between the global travel industry and
small scale ecotourism. Chapter two
also demonstrates Honey’s intimate
knowledge of global travel. She
describes the roles of the hotel chains,
airlines, American Express, and cruise
ships, and she discusses their efforts to
co-opt ecotourism, thus furthering her
case for third party certification
standards for ecotourism. This chapter
also discusses what might be called the
tourism value chain including
outbound travel agents, inbound travel
operators, and travel industry
marketing. Inbound tour operators are
the key link in ensuring that the
principles of ecotourism are
maintained.
The third chapter juxtaposes
ecotourism with the global travel
industry as described in Chapter two.
In Chapter three we learn what
ecotourism is, who ecotourists are, and
how to distinguish genuine ecotourism
from ‘ecotourism lite’. Most
ecotourism takes place in the
developing world, and most tourists,
eco and otherwise, come from the
North. Ecotourists are distinguished by
their substantive exchanges with host
communities. In this chapter, in a
section entitled, ‘multi-layered
challenges’, Honey engages the
important and unresolved debate
between the advocates of biodiversity
conservation and the advocates of
natural resource exploitation for
community development. She also
discusses the potential of ecotourism
to negatively impact host culture, and
she makes policy recommendations
toward resolving these problems.
Despite Honey’s critical stance,
however, she occasionally blurs the
boundary between textbook and
guidebook when she endorses certain
ecotourism destinations over others.
Each of the country studies are
evaluated on the basis of the seven
criteria for genuine ecotourism laid out
in the book’s first chapter. Zanzibar’s
ecotourism industry ranks lowest with
respect to Honey’s ecotourism criteria
while South Africa’s ranks highest.
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341
Surprisingly, the United States scores
lower than South Africa and Costa
Rica. The case chapters are rich in
historical and contextual detail, but
ironically, lack a clear focus on
ecotourism. Instead they are broad
descriptions of nature tourism
generally. This makes it very difficult
to effectively evaluate the studies on
the basis of Honey’s strict ecotourism
criteria. Furthermore, Honey’s
evaluation of the US ecotourism
industry raises some important
questions regarding her seven criteria.
What is a natural destination, and
if ‘natural’ here refers to non-
metropolitan, why is this an important
criterion for ecotourism? Is an urban
garden more or less natural than a
man-made lake? Can tourism to urban
areas not also contribute to quality of
life and enhance the natural
environment? Further, it is unclear
what Honey intends when she requires
that ecotourism contribute to
democratic movements. Do state-
supported ecotourism programmes in
Cuba, for example, though robustly
satisfying the other six criteria, not
qualify as true ecotourism?
The book’s conclusion draws the
lessons of the various case studies into
the broad policy recommendation that
ecotourism offers a significant
alternative development model for
rural communities across the global
south. The problem with this argument
is that while this is true for amenity-
rich areas, such as those of the book’s
case studies, places without the
preconditions for successful tourism
would be ill-advised to abandon
traditional rural industries for the
gamble of ecotourism. Honey
concludes that ecotourism ventures
where the host population has an
ownership and management stake as
well as a benefits stream, tend to be the
most effective and long-lasting. Also,
according to Honey, ties to non-
governmental organizations on the
national and international level, as well
as government support, can be
important to success in ecotourism.
Finally, Honey concludes that
ecotourism is becoming increasingly

342 Book Reviews / Natural Resources Forum 33 (2009) 338–342
mainstream. This is problematic, she
argues, in that it has muddied the
waters of ecotourism with
‘greenwashing’ and ‘ecotourism lite’,
but it is positive in that greater
numbers of travellers are becoming
ecotourists, which makes the
transformative potential of the field
even greater.
As the Executive Director of the
Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable
Development, it is no surprise that
Honey’s project throughout this book
is to promote and defend the concept
of ecotourism. At times Honey is an
ecotourism apologist, such as when
she addresses, and then dismisses, the
critique that the carbon footprint from
airplane travel to these scattered
destinations might undermine the
positive environmental benefits
obtained by virtue of the tourist’s
presence. Nevertheless, she is also
aware of the complexities of carrying
out successful ecotourism, and this
comes through in the text.
This book is well-written and
engaging, and it is appropriate for
introductory courses, people with a
general interest in ecotourism, and
© 2009 The Author. Journal compilation © 2009 United Nations
14778947, 2009, 4, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1477-8947.2009.01256.x by Cochrane Trinidad and Tobago, Wiley Online Library on [25/04/2023]. See the Terms and Conditions (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/terms-and-conditions) on Wiley Online Library for rules of use; OA articles are governed by the applicable Creative Commons License
policymakers seeking to avoid the
pitfalls of ‘ecotourism lite’. The first
edition of Ecotourism and Sustainable
Development was widely read, and this
edition’s updates and new chapter
constitute a significant improvement
on an already important book.
Michael L. Dougherty
Development Studies Program
Department of Community and
Environmental Sociology
University of Wisconsin-Madison,
USA