Scales And Scenarios Of Change In The Anthropology-landscape Relationship: Models Of Cultural Tourism In Fuerteventura (Canary Isles)

• Published in: WIT Transactions on Ecology and the Environment 2010-01, Vol.130, p.51
• Main Authors: Ruiz-Labourdette, D, Díaz, P, Rodríguez, A J, Santana, A, Schmitz, M F, Pineda, F D
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Anthropology; Archipelagoes; Cultural tourism; Islands; Landscape; Mathematical models; National parks; Parameters; Sustainability; Tourism
• ISSN: 1746-448X; 1743-3541
• DOI: 10.2495/ISLANDS100051

Tourism is a crucial part of the economy of the Canary Isles (Spain) and its potential with regard to its ‘ecological’ and ‘cultural’ facets has not yet been well addressed. These perspectives could lead the industry towards a model of sustainability that is as yet lacking in Spain’s usual tourism: the way in which this industry has been managed has been successful in the financial sense, but erroneous in relation to socio-economy and sustainability. In the Canary Isles, the tourism continues to have a serious environmental cost. In this archipelago, a National Park has been planned for the near future on Fuerteventura. This reference enables the creation of scenarios based on new perspectives. We have developed a model of the interdependence between the island’s anthropological structure and that of its natural and cultural landscape. The model is based upon multiple regression. The procedure is tested at different spatial scales. The results establish i) the parameters with which this interdependence becomes more or less strong, ii) the way in which the degree of interdependence varies in counties of different sizes, and iii) the interest of these parameters to be used as indicators of change, considering scenarios deriving from the new perspectives.