Sustainable development: Its meaning, perception, and implementation. The case of ecotourism in Croatia

A critical review of open literature and of institutional reports is given on the current discourse on 'sustainable development' (SD), and to its ascendant term 'sustainability' (SIB). Results of the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, which reiterated its commitment to Agenda 2 1, did show the differences between the developed North, who favors environmental issues, and the less developed South, whose primary problems are development and equity in resource use. One of the major problems is also absence of a clear distinction between science and policy advice, which results in politicization of science. In the second part of the paper the environmental issues are discussed for the concept of 'sustainable tourism' and for 'ecotourism', a development activity considered of prime Importance for economic advancement of Croatia, in particular for its Adriatic coastal regions. Croatia's tourist industry has not established complex monitoring services, nor adopted a useful determination of the carrying capacity, not even for the major Adriatic islands, or some National parks. As a substitute there are some attempts to institutionalize environmental impact assessment, although maintenance of environmental quality seems of more importance for the tourist market. The extension into the future of the present form of management, promoted as 'sustainable', concentrating mainly on profit making, would result in environmental degradation and loss of market value of the Croatian tourist locations.