Can Oil Extraction and Nature Conservation Co-Exist?

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

KI Professor John McLevey and collaborators Mark Stoddart and Alice Mattoni recently released their book "Industrial Development and Eco-Tourisms: Can Oil Extraction and Nature Conservation Co-Exist?".

Here's a summary that they shared with us:

This book examines the “oil-tourism interface”, the broad range of direct and indirect contact points between offshore oil extraction and nature-based tourism. Offshore oil extraction and nature-based tourism are pursued as development paths across the North Atlantic region. Offshore oil promises economic benefits from employment and royalty payments to host societies, but is based on fossil fuel-intensive resource extraction. Nature-based tourism, instead, is based on experiencing natural environments and encountering wildlife, including whales, seals, or seabirds. They share social-ecological space, such as oceans, coastlines, cities and towns where tourism and offshore oil operations and offices are located. However, they rarely share cultural or political space, in terms of media coverage, public debate, or policy.