도서지역 친환경 관광계획 수립방안에 관한 연구 = A study of environment-friendly island tourism development

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Island is a unique geographic feature where inland and marine environment coexist, and its isolated ecosystem is fragile and distinct. Due to the uniqueness of its isolated environment, islands are very popular destinations in tour industry. Many small island nations are heavily relied on the revenue from tourism industry. However, at the same time, unplanned and reckless tourism development causes significant environmental and social problems in those small island nations. Until now, environmental impact of the island tourism development in Korea was not that much severe because the country was focusing on developing important infrastructure first and there was low demand for island tourism. However, as the national GDP is growing and the demand for marine sports activity is rising, many island resort development plans are proposed and planned from private company and local government, especially in the south-west seashore of Korea peninsula. Unfortunately, these proposed island resort development plans are not coordinated with government sectors and local residents, but are planned independently by private companies and then aggregated into a local tourism development plan. Thus, there is an urgent need to supervise unplanned island tourism development and enhance the environmental aspects of the island tourism development. This study summarizes the current status of tourism development in islands, examine the cases of the island tourism development, the problems of the tourism plan itself and the tourism planning process. The environmental aspects of the island tourism development plan are analyzed from three different aspects: policy/planning aspect, ecological/environmental aspect, and social/community aspect. In the policy/planning aspect, the plans are needed to have a comprehensive planning process to coordinate diverse tourism developments from private/public sectors. To do this and conduct a strategic environment assessment of the island tourism development, it is required to have a complete island data base including population, social infrastructure, economy, ecological status. In the ecological/environmental aspect it is necessary to analyze the environmental capacity the island can tolerate and to survey ecological condition to determine whether the island can be developed or should be preserved. Recently many developers suggest installation of desalination facility to supply fresh water without considering energy consumption or its environmental effects. In the social/community aspect, it should be emphasized that the purpose of the island tourism development is the enhancement of the local residents` living condition and economic self-reliance, not for the economic benefit of private companies. The authentic culture of the island community should not be influenced or hampered by the tourism development. Two case studies are carried out to suggest a way to integrate more environment- friendly aspects into the island tourism development. One is the ecological survey of Jae-Won-Do (Jaewon island), located in the south-west sea of Korea, to identify the current ecological status of an inhabited island. The other is the ecological connectivity analysis among island by using GIS data and Conefor program. Based on the Graph theory, this analysis examines the importance of each island in the ecological connectivity of the entire islands. The importance of ecological connectivity and the ecological condition of the island should be considered together to evaluate the ecological preservation necessity of the island. This study clarifies the current problems of the island tourism development and suggests strategies to enhance the environmental sustainability of the island tourism development. A further study is needed to make more detailed environmental protection guidelines and criteria for selecting a site for island tourism development plan/project.