Environmental Justice and Environmental Equity in Tourism: Missing Links to Sustainability

Abstract

This paper argues for incorporating an environmental justice framework into sustainable tourism and ecotourism. Such a framework provides important directions and guidance for addressing injustices related to human–environmental relationships, particularly with respect to disadvantaged, low-income and minority communities. Issue areas include environmental equity, environmental discrimination and environmental racism. Drawing from the environmental justice literature, this paper first clarifies key concepts associated with environmental justice. This is followed by an examination of issues in tourism development that clearly relate to environmental justice (even though the term itself may not have been used). An analytical framework for addressing environmental justice and equity in tourism studies is proposed, incorporating environmental justice concepts and dimensions of procedural and distributive justice. Several theoretical areas that offer potential for developing this bridge between tourism and environmental justice are presented. The discussion opens new avenues for better incorporating justice and equity into ecotourism and sustainable tourism development and research.