宍道湖・中海地域とエコツーリズム先進地との比較検討

The authors introduced recent various activities by local governments, industries and
NGOs related to ecotourism in the area of Lakes Shinji and Nakaumi and elements to be included in the ecotourism program, and identified desirable directions for the ecotourism in the area in the previous paper. In this paper, we have compared typical ecotourism areas especially those with water environment in Japan and abroad with consideration of successful and failure experiences of ecotourism in those areas. Ecotourism type 2 or 3 of Ministry of the Environment, Japan, are considered to be applied in this area, and type 1 or 2 are considered to be applied if combined with Oki Islands where traditional type ecotourism already exists. Drastic environmental
alternations should affect natural environment which is one of the critical elements for eco-tourism as observed for Atitlán Grebe (Podilymbus gigas) extinction at Lago de Atitlán, Guatemala, affected by the earthquake. Such kinds of large scale environmental alternations including artificial geological alternation of the Honjo Area derived from the land reclamation suspension and the climate change should be considered in planning of eco-tourism in this area. Guidelines preparation for ecotourism has been conduceted in some typical ecotourism areas in Japan. Participants’ observance and adaptative management of the guidelines by the management
and policy development sector are challenging topics in the rules of the ecotourism areas in Japan including this area.