the role of tourism in natural resource management in the okavango ...

economic growth in developed countries, and this is one of the contentious issues
surrounding the definition of sustainable development. The World Commission
merely states that the ability to satisfy aspirations for a better life should be extended
to all people, and that perceived needs are culturally and socially determined, so
that sustainable development requires the promotion of values that encourage
consumption rates that are ecologically credible over the long-term and to which all
people can reasonably aspire (Hunter and Green, 1995).
This view certainly does not exclude the continued pursuit of economic growth in
developed countries, and this may explain why many politicians have eagerly
embraced the concept of sustainable development, with its apparent acceptance
that environmental concern need not mean the abandonment of economic growth as
a political goal. The same enthusiasm can be found in the response of some
agencies involved in the promotion of tourism to the concept of sustainable
development (Hunter and Green, 1995). Munt (1992), referring to tourism and
sustainable development in developing countries, argues that sustainability has
been seized upon by the political mainstream as a convenient concept for ensuring
'sustainable' material growth.
For the World Commission, meeting human needs and aspirations means equity or
fairness with regard to access to wealth-generating resources and in the distribution
of developing costs and benefits. Equity of access to resources is essential for the
realisation of sustainable development, and this applies both in the sense of current
social justice (intra-generational equity) and in terms of fairness between
generations (inter-generational equity). The apparent inability of tourism
developments in many developing countries to deliver fairness of access to benefits
to local populations is a frequent criticism in the tourism literature (Hunter and
Green, 1995).
The second critical idea contained in the World Commission's concept of sustainable
development, is that of limitation. There is a limit to the natural environment's ability
to satisfy present and future needs, and this applies to the need for non-renewable
resources, renewable resources and the 'free services' which the natural
environment supplies in terms of waste accumulation, climate regulation, clean air
and water, food resources, etc. Such limitation is analogous to the notion of a
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