Agenda 21 and Tourism
The UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD)
At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, also known as the Earth Summit, the participating states adopted the Agenda 21, a catalogue of measures of long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development and guaranteeing fair and equitable share of natural resources between countries at different stages of economic and social development.
To promote and monitor the implementation of the Agenda 21, the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was established. Every two years the CSD calls a session on different topics of the Agenda 21. Following consultations with business and NGO representatives, the member states evaluate achievements made and discusses further implementation of the agenda.
Further information: www.un.org/esa/sustdev/csd/csd.htm
The Work Programme on Tourism and Sustainable Development
Although tourism exerts an important influence on social, cultural and economic aspects and represents an important economic factor, the Agenda 21 mentions it only subordinated to topics such as economy or traffic. Therefore, in 1997 the CSD was addressed by the UN to establish a work programme on sustainable tourism development.
This work programme has been adopted in 1999 at the 7th session of the CSD. It addresses governments, the tourism industry and nongovernmental organisations, including the following tasks:
- Development and implementation of policies and national strategies for sustainable tourism development
- Development and enforcement of specific legislation/measures, against any kind of illegal, abusive or exploitative tourist activity, including sexual exploitation/abuse
- Provision of adequate consumer information to enable consumers to make informed choices
- Development of guiding principles and objectives for sustainable tourism development
- Cooperation and consultancy in partnership with all relevant stakeholder groups for the development of ecologically, socially and cultural acceptable forms of tourism
- Adoption of environmental management systems in the tourism industry.
During the preparation of the session, a group of German NGOs of environmental protection, nature conservation and sustainable development that was coordinated by ETE elaborated a position paper on tourism and sustainable development.
In 2011, tourism will be once again a topic on the agenda of a CSD session and member states will report on the implementation of the work programme.
Further information: www.un.org/esa/sustdev/sdissues/tourism/tourism_decisions.htm
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