Developing sustainable tourism through ecomuseology: a case study in the Rupununi region of Guyana

Sustainability is a concept that continues to evolve and perplex in tourism, one of the world's largest industries. Effective new theories and practices are constantly explored so as to incorporate sustainability into tourism frameworks. Due to their focus on participation processes, integration of resources, and responses to specific needs and contexts, ecomuseum principles can be very useful for the development of sustainable tourism. This paper examines the potential of using the principles of ecomuseology to support sustainable tourism development. The study adopted a mixed-methods approach involving local expert stakeholders at the case study site, the Rupununi region of Guyana, South America. The findings from this research suggest that the principles of ecomuseology possess considerable potential to support sustainable tourism development in the Rupununi and potentially other destinations internationally. In particular, this study illustrates how ecomuseological principles can be used to manage heritage resources and economic development by focusing on, for example, holistic interpretation and information sharing, placing equal attention on heritage resources, and monitoring changes to the region over time.     

The rise and fall of Spain (1270–1850)1

Two distinctive regimes are distinguished in Spain over half a millennium. The first one (1270s–1590s) corresponds to a high land–labour ratio frontier economy, which is pastoral, trade‐oriented, and led by towns. Wages and food consumption were relatively high. Sustained per capita growth occurred from the end of the Reconquest (1264) to the Black Death (1340s) and resumed from the 1390s only broken by late fifteenth‐century turmoil. A second regime (1600s–1810s) corresponds to a more agricultural and densely populated low‐wage economy which, although it grew at a pace similar to that of 1270–1600, remained at a lower level. Contrary to pre‐industrial western Europe, Spain achieved its highest living standards in the 1340s, not by mid‐fifteenth century. Although its death toll was lower, the plague had a more damaging impact on Spain and, far from releasing non‐existent demographic pressure, destroyed the equilibrium between scarce population and abundant resources. Pre‐1350 per capita income was reached by the late sixteenth century but only exceeded after 1820.     

Uganda's experience with aid

This paper presents Uganda's experience with aid flows overthe period 1970-96. It discusses the compilation of aid dataand also reviews the chronological developments in aid flowsto Uganda. Over this period, the sectoral distribution and typeof aid is largely dictated by the government's economic programmesin place. The period 1962-71 largely reflects government borrowingfor on-lending to agriculture and industry whereas the period1979-85 shows a wider range of sector-specific programmes drivenby the need to reconstruct and rehabilitate the economy. Althoughthe need to reconstruct and rehabilitate the economy continued,support for policy reform began to take up an increasing proportionof aid over the period 1987-96. We also analyse the impact ofaid on some major macroeconomic variables and find that investmentand real exchange rate developments have been largely drivenby official development aid flows. Although we find a similarrelationship between aid and improved policy environment, thefindings show that in the latter part, i.e., 1992-6, the continuedpolicy reform was driven more by ownership of the programmethan by aid. Indeed, in this latter period, the aid/GDP ratiosdeclined. The major lesson drawn from this study is that ownershipof a reform programme is more critical for its success, henceour conclusion that aid should be used for financing ratherthan buying reforms.     

Pricing the environment: a critique

A distinction is drawn between opportunity cost and willingness to pay (wtp) approaches to valuing the environment. Wtp is the appropriate measure in situations where there is no prior commitment to environmental standards, otherwise opportunity cost measures apply. Wtp would not normally or properly be used to formulate environmental standards. For a wide range of environmental attributes, where the conditions of direct perception of the environmental problem do not hold, meaningful expressions of wtp cannot be obtained. In these circumstances the underlying model of the Pigovian externality which leads to attempts to measure wtp is inapplicable. While a decision rule based on wtp could still be used it possesses no welfare significance. The critique has implications for sustainability when defined to require trade-offs between natural and person-made capital. Sustainability is practically achieved by developing a set of environmental standards.