VI Protected area with sustainable use of natural resources.

IUCN Category VI is generally more encompassing classification that is focused on the mutually beneficial correlation between nature conversation and those who are dependent on both. A wide range of socio-economic factors are taken into consideration in creating local, regional and national approaches to using natural resources as a tactic to assist sustainable development rather than hinder it.

MODIFIED SPACES

AGRICULTURAL LAND Food-producing lands occupy about half of the

world’s land surface and include an array of extensively as well as moderately modified environments, each of which has its own implication for ecotourism.

Approximately 10 percent of the world’s land area is occupied by field crops, orchards, plantation, market gardens, paddies, vineyards and the like (field and tree crops).

A good example of farmland-ecotourism compatibility occurs in long-established cacao and nutmeg plantation, which often appear undifferentiated from a natural forest because of the high canopy trees that are maintained to provide shade for the sensitive tree crops.

Field crops

Orchards

Plantation

Market gardens

Paddies

Vineyards

URBAN SPACE

Urban spaces do not initially appear to offer any opportunities for ecotourism. On the supply side, many cities, particularly those in the more-development but less densely populated countries, are dominated by green space.

Urban areas also often contain remnant natural space that harbour wildlife and large protected areas that are now surrounded by urban development in major cities such as Sydney and Melbourne.

Artificial wetlands

Whether urban or rural, artificial wetland often attracts an enormous variety of wildlife and may eventually resemble a natural, undistributed habitat in their complexity.

An urban example if the Hornsby Bend settling lagoon in Austin, Texas (USA), where 118 bird species have been recorded.

Artificial wetlands

Hornsby Bend in Austin,

Texas (USA)

Artificial reef

Lawton and Weaver (2001) classify artificial reefs as either unintentional or intentional.

Unintentional artificial reefs consist of shipwrecks as well as other solid materials that are lost or discarded through accident, natural disaster or dumping.

Intentional artificial reefs are usually established in a methodical manner with respect to positioning and contaminant removal.

Artificial reefs

Accidents

Natural disaster

Dumping

Wasteland

Example related to waste disposal is Toronto’s Leslie Street Spit in Canada, which extends into Lake Ontario and consists of detritus from urban construction projects that has been dumped over many decades.

Restoration ecotourism desired end result may be the creation of an ecotourism-sustaining landscape, the process or rehabilitation itself can develop as a learning-based ecotourism experience.

Wasteland

Restoration ecotourism