Beschreibung:
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Throughout the EC, recreation and tourism are of great economic and environmental significance. As this significance is set to increase, Neil Ravenscroft sets out the framework of environmental impact assessment and applies it to the interaction of tourism and the environment.</jats:p><jats:p>Tourism can sometimes provide a conundrum. A poor country has a natural or cultural attraction and wishes to exploit to the maximum the economic benefits which can flow from it in the short term; foreigners may be concerned about its preservation ‐ but those foreigners are not on the poverty line. But after a few years of successful tourism, the attraction can suffer permanent damage, so depriving future generations not only of the attraction but the possibility it offers to provide tourism flows and economic benefits (Bodlender, 1990).</jats:p><jats:p>In terms of the impact of recreational activities on the environment, whilst not especially significant when compared to factors such as industrial pollution, there are a range of impacts that cannot be ignored, since the gravity of those impacts is strongly related to levels of use ‐ and recreation and tourism are amongst the fastest growing industries in the world.</jats:p><jats:p>The role of environmental assessment has now moved from the periphery to the centre of the development process, both as a means of identifying the likely impact of the development and of providing a more formal channel for public involvement in statutory planning.</jats:p>