Mountainous Protected Areas & Nature-Based Tourism in Asia

A quarter of global land surface is occupied by mountains. These fragile ecosystems have remained relatively isolated, resulting in rich biodiversity but some of the poorest and most marginal communities in the world. In the recent rush to develop these inaccessible highland ‘frontiers,’ Asia’s mountainous Protected Areas (PAs) symbolize the trade-off between conservation and nature-based tourism (NBT). Mountainous destinations account for 15–20% of global tourism, ranked second only to sun-sea-and-sand vacations, so the focus of this edited volume is to compare mountainous PAs holistically across Northeast, Southeast and South Asia, three regions with large population bases that require ‘enlightened’ NBT solutions (Weaver, 2014). This introductory chapter covers PA philosophy and designation objectives, attempting to align the biodiversity goals to balance PA’s conservation potential with sustainable development via NBT. under Aichi Target No. 11, territorial expansion of PAs was sought by 2020 but there has been a lack of equivalent research in a pan-Asian context over the appropriate activity types for mountainous PA settings. Our ‘trans-boundary’ subject matter fuses geological, anthropological and socio-economic approaches across three regions to enable discussion on an in situ definition of NBT. Asia posted the fastest pre-pandemic regional growth in international arrivals and although it was the first region to suffer the impact of COVID-19, it seems set to lead the recovery due to domestic demand. Although many trails, roads or mountains have closed due to the pandemic, there is hope that such action could inspire a radical re-think in the direction of pragmatic mass NBT towards a more sustainable relationship with mountainous PAs across Asia.