Tourism and agriculture - Development in harmony or conflict?

Recommendation 1009 (1985)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

See Doc. 5423, report of the Committee on Agriculture. Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 4 July 1985.

Thesaurus

The Assembly,

1. Recalling its Resolution 687 (1979), on European regional planning and the role and function of Alpine regions, and Recommendation 997 (1984), on regional planning and protection of the environment in European coastal regions ;

2. Noting the enormous increase in tourism in countryside areas all over Europe in recent years ;

3. Recognising that this development can be explained inter alia by the desire of many citydwellers to escape from the more and more impersonal and stressful life in cities as well as by an increase in leisure time ;

4. Convinced that tourism in countryside areas not only has as its necessary prerequisite prosperous agriculture and related industries, but that it may also, if properly pursued, benefit disadvantaged rural areas by increasing the income of farmers and enabling rural communities to finance infrastructure investments ;

5. Concerned, however, that ill-conceived expansion of mass tourism is already, and risks increasingly in the future, undermining the environmental and cultural foundations of rural communities, to the ultimate detriment of the tourist industry itself ;

6. Considering that the risks presented by the above type of tourism are particularly great in sensitive Alpine areas, notably through extraneous architecture, rubbish and soil erosion caused by deforestation and excessive downhill skiing ;

7. Aware that similar dangers exist, such as man-provoked forest fires, in many other parts of Europe, for instance in the Mediterranean areas, along coastlines and around major cities,

8. Recommends that the Committee of Ministers call on the governments of member states :

8.1 to work in favour of replacing the present quantitative and often careless expansion of tourism in sensitive areas by a more qualitative, "ecology-oriented" growth, in close partnership with agriculture and forestry ;

8.2 to acknowledge, financially and otherwise, the additional role of farmers as caretakers of a natural and cultural heritage vital to tourism ;

8.3 to ensure that, when the interests of the local population clash with those of absentee landlords or owners, priority should be given to the former ;

8.4 to involve the tourist industry in the above efforts, and to consider ways to make it contribute financially towards some of the costs related to its "consumption" of the countryside ;

8.5 to give new momentum to the plans for a European campaign to revitalise rural areas, as already called for in Assembly Recommendation 935 (1982).