Political ecology of tourism

This article uses a political ecology approach to examine the relationships among tourism development, water, and environmental health in the Bay Islands, Honduras. It identifies the various stakeholders involved in the tourism industry, their relative power with respect to control of water resources, and distributional outcomes related to water quality and environmental health. Integrating the findings of ethnographic, survey, and environmental research conducted since 1991 in three communities, it shows that while the Islands' freshwater, land, and marine resources are jeopardized by unchecked tourism development, adverse affects are not distributed equally among various stakeholders. Reinforcing earlier findings focused on socioeconomic and nutritional outcomes, it concludes that while significant environmental degradation is attributable to the actions of powerful national and international stakeholders, it is the Islands' impoverished ladino immigrants and poor Afro-Antillean residents who are the most vulnerable to environmental health risks emanating from those activities. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.