Ecotourism and the Myth of Indigenous Stewardship was published in 2008 in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism and caused a flurry of articles to published in response. I think that this article will provide some interesting counter balances to what I will be investigating in my final project. The authors question the claim that indigenous people are indeed more ecologically minded than non-indigenous people by following four main perspectives:
- survey of the ecotourism literature to gauge the sentiment behind indigenous peoples as wise stewards
- literature review in other fields (eg. Anthropology and conservation science) to provide a more complete understanding of the role that aboriginal people play as ecological stewards
- brief overview of the literature on social evolution from the biological standpoint
- discussion of the foregoing in the context of ecotourism.
David A. Fennell (2008) Ecotourism and the Myth of Indigenous Stewardship, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 16:2, 129-149, DOI: 10.2167/jost736.0