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Abstract |
Europe’s present-day rich legacy of geological material in museums, universities, archives and libraries – its cultural geoheritage – is a consequence of its citizens’ 400 years of geological inquiry (Hose 2016a). Its recognised geosites and geomorphosites and their associated landforms, rocks, minerals and fossils (or geodiversity) – its natural geoheritage – populate both the historic and modern geological literature (Hose 2016b). The recognition that many of the literatures’ geosites and geomorphosites, and from which the specimens in the collections had been gathered, were lost, degraded or were no longer accessible led, from the mid-20th century, to the development of geoconservation measures to protect what was left (Hose 2008). Further, the recognition geology in general and geoconservation in particular were poorly regarded and understood by the public geologists and others, from the late 20th century, developed geotourism provision (Hose 2011, 2012), latterly with an emphasis on geoparks, indeed, it has been recognised that ‘In today’s economically stretched climate, tourists are a valuable source of local income. The encouragement of the tourist industry to include geodiversity within its remit is therefore high…’ (Burek 2012, 45). Whilst traditionally tourism provision has focussed on mass market provision there has been a growing interest in developing niche tourism (Novelli 2005) which can encompass geotourism (Hose 2005) and adventure tourism (Shephard & Evans 2005). |
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