Alexis Guillemard, post-doctoral fellow at UQAM
Introduction
The anthropization of coastal areas confronts human activities with an over-concentration of risks linked to climate change. It has been observed that “the coastline tends to retreat inland, while human activity tends to move closer to the sea” (Hellequin et al., 2013, p. 386; own translation). This phenomenon—of coastal environments in motion (e.g., as a result of rising sea levels, coastal erosion or the disappearance of buffer zones) on the one hand, and the ever-increasing coastalization of anthropized space on the other—comprises a paradox. Despite the impacts of climate change and the associated risks, several factors explain why the intersection of land and water remains attractive.
Among them are tourism and vacationing, as they play a fundamental role in the symbolic and economic enhancement of coastal areas (Wackermann, 1998). Indeed, since the first holiday resorts in Europe, and later in North America, the coast has gained in attractiveness. Socioeconomic changes (paid vacations, emergence of a middle class) then led to the massification of seaside tourism and also contributed to the densification of human occupation of the coasts.
Literature review and research questions
More specifically, I wanted to identify the roles which tourist areas play in climate change adaptation in small and medium-sized cities (SMCs). This urban scale brings together “the urban poles of non-metropolized space” (Carrier and Demazière, 2012, p. 137; own translation). SMCs, which are hybrids between rurality and urbanity, remain much less studied than metropolises (Bell and Jayne, 2006; Carrier and Demazière, 2012; Pumain, 1999). Yet they offer a highly interesting context for understanding the relationship between tourism and climate change. The tourist appeal of coastal SMCs, especially, is largely based on their natural attractions. For these types of destinations, the tourist value lies not only in their urban centres but above all on their access to water (beaches, wharves, harbours, coastal parks, waterfront accommodation, etc.), their landscapes, the richness of their ecosystems and the quality of their agricultural produce. All these assets can be affected by the intensifying impacts of climate change. As a result, these destinations need to reconcile two challenges: maintaining and developing the tourism activity that contributes to their richness; and taking climate change into account and adapting to it.
Coastal tourism is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change (IPCC, 2018; Nicholls, 2014). The relationship between tourism and climate change has attracted increasing interest since the 2000s (Pang et al., 2013; Scott et al., 2012). Nevertheless, tourism studies remain dominated by managerial approaches that tend to compartmentalize tourism within the sectoral and economic prism (Ateljevic et al., 2007). To complicate matters, in areas where tourism is not the exclusive or primary use made of the coastline, its analysis is difficult to isolate from other dimensions and uses of the space. If anything, the role of tourism in the use of the coastline is subject to competing or complementary logics.
Consequently, the study of the adaptation of coastal tourist areas cannot be limited to a sectoral analysis. This study focuses on the adaptation of territories where tourism shares the coastline with other uses made of the space. Adaptation refers to the spontaneous or planned reactions of ecological and social systems to the effects of climate change (IRCC, 2007; Jacob et al., 2015). In this sense, it amounts to “recognizing the active character of climatic processes” (Garcia, 2015, p. 114; own translation) and may strive to mitigate the negative impacts or enhance any potential benefits of climate change for humans (Jacob et al., 2015). To adapt, the territory, understood as the space appropriated by humans, needs innovations. Nevertheless, as adaptation goes beyond technical issues (e.g., it does not suffice to continually add layers of riprap), social and territorial innovations are needed, such as concertation and networking of territorial stakeholders, in order to better meet the needs of all segments of the population.
To understand how territories, their players and the reality of climate change interact, the theory of space production (Lefebvre, 1974) can help us deconstruct the different components at work in the production of tourist spaces. Lefebvre (1974) proposes a three-movement interpretation: the space conceived by planners, the perceived space of space-time practices (displacements, daily migrations, physical experiences of the materiality of space) and the lived space of social representations (association of symbols that hierarchize space). Overall, however, Lefebvre’s conceptualization of territory was influenced by the spirit of his time and presents a bias: for him, nature is merely an inert object.
We must not forget that climate change is one of those transformations that calls into question the rupture between nature and culture, between object and subject (Latour, 2015). Humans are increasingly meddling with phenomena hitherto considered outside their realm of influence. Subsequently, nature, which we imagined to be inanimate and conquered, responds; it becomes “ticklish” (Latour, 2015) and weaves its way into human affairs. Upheavals such as climate change confirm nature’s active role. Tourism development is no exception to these non-human forces; in fact, it is particularly sensitive to them. This problem leads us to pose two main research questions: How do the impacts of climate change modify the production of coastal tourist areas? How does the development of tourism influence the adaptive capacity of coastal areas?
Methodology
To answer our research questions, I chose traditional qualitative research methods as well as action research tools that encourage the co-creation of useful data for both the researcher and the subjects. This methodological hybridity was achieved in two complementary phases. An action research project organized in the form of a living labon the adaptation of coastal tourist areas, carried out in the regional county municipality (RCM) of Rivière-du-Loup, provided access to the representations of tourist areas in the face of climate change shared by the various stakeholders in the area. A series of co-creation workshops brought together different types of stakeholders, who worked together to propose possible actions to adapt coastal tourist areas to climate change. The living lab has gone through two phases: one phase of openness to the entire tourism ecosystem of the Rivière-du-Loup region, and one phase in which I worked more closely with three stakeholders (Kiskotuk Coastal Park, Sud-de-l’Estuaire ZIP Committee and Rivière-du-Loup RCM). This change of scale around a smaller number of players willing to collaborate was aimed at improving the capacity to act within our living lab.
In parallel with the latest workshops, I conducted a more traditional social science survey in the Rivière-du-Loup and Rimouski-Neigette RCMs, involving tourism and land use planners. A total of 23 semi-structured interviews and two days of participant observation complemented my workshop findings, detailing the issues experienced by different types of stakeholders.
In addition, as part of my participatory observations, I took part in collective adaptation actions such as those led by the Sud-de-l’Estuaire ZIP committee, an NPO charged with protecting the shores of the Saint Lawrence River. For example, in Notre-Dame-du-Portage (Rivière-du-Loup RCM), I took part in a day-long revegetation project on the lower marsh (the part of the river that is wettened by the mid-tides) of Anse-du-Portage (see image above).
Description of results
The data collected allowed for a better understanding of the role of tourism in adapting to climate change in the Rimouski and Rivière-du-Loup coasts.
The workshops and interviews highlight the Saint Lawrence River as a central element of Lower Laurentian tourism and the lives of the people who live there, particularly in its role as a barometer of the effects of climate change. From a climate change adaptation perspective, it is essential to understand the ties that bind people to their territory, to allow proposing solutions that will be socially accepted. The powerful, active dimension of the Saint Lawrence is often put forward, and represents a fertile breeding ground for decisions that would take into account the evolution of the estuary under the effects of climate change.
Before analyzing the potential role of tourism in adapting to climate change, I wanted to understand the organization of tourist areas in the two RCMs studied. In the Rivière-du-Loup RCM, tourism is diffuse. It benefits from the architectural and cultural qualities of the central municipality (Rivière-du-Loup) and from the neighbouring municipalities’ (Cacouna and Notre-Dame-du-Portage) past as resort towns. Most of the services and spaces where tourism develops are also used by residents (urban and coastal parks, restaurants, bars, etc.), with only a few places used more strictly for tourism (hotels, inns, museums, etc.). In the Rimouski-Neigette RCM, the tourist attraction revolves around a few provincially renowned hubs (the Pointe-au-Père maritime historic site, Bic national park), and the separation between tourist and residential areas seems more marked.
However, the two regions have a number of things in common. Most of their tourist attractions are concentrated on the estuary’s coastline. Moreover, in both cases, the hybridity and heterogeneity of uses shape spaces shared by local populations, tourists and non-human actors (the river and its banks in motion, for example). Moreover, while we had targeted vacationing as an important component of shoreline occupation, this historically structural activity is gradually disappearing from the coasts of both RCMs. Cottages formerly used as second homes are being transformed into four-season residences or bed-and-breakfasts, often managed via platforms such as Airbnb, whereby the town loses its status as a resort, which we define by the presence of second homes.
Faced with climate change, tourism stakeholders (tour operators, guides, attraction managers, etc.) share an awareness of the threat but are struggling to take concrete action. Some of the fears expressed are direct consequences of climate change (e.g., storm damage to coastal infrastructure), while others are indirect (e.g., stricter standards governing shipping on the Saint Lawrence to limit disturbance to marine species already weakened by changes in water temperature in the estuary and gulf). For example, at the first livinglab workshop, the subjects expressed their need to know more about the local impacts of climate change. Although a minority downplayed the importance of the transformations underway, many put forward the need to adapt coastal uses. However, the discourse was often limited to general and global considerations, demonstrating the difficulty of framing the issue of climate change to a local scale.
Finally, my results have highlighted the role of the territorial experience as a facilitator of adaptation to climate change. At the level of individuals and organizations, actors who have frequented the territory for years are already taking action or are capable of doing so. The hybridity of the SMC context provides fertile ground for the emergence of spatial practices that enable concrete action to be taken in the face of the effects of climate change. For example, at Kiskotuk Coastal Park, a park located between Cacouna and L’Isle-Verte, I engaged with an actor who observes and intervenes in his environment, a hunter, who told me that his hunting blinds enable him to measure erosion. He also directly transforms the marshes to prevent them from being completely submerged, by digging ditches to allow water to flow towards the estuary. While the repercussions of these interventions on neighbouring areas may be harmful, they nevertheless show that in the coastal territories of SMCs individuals are taking initiatives presented as actions to protect wetlands and land uses, in the face of sluggish institutional action.
Credit: Alexis Guillemard
Moreover, the living lab in Rivière-du-Loup demonstrated the interest of local players in working together to tackle local climate change adaptation issues.
Nevertheless, several obstacles to action remain. Although there are a number of individual and civil society initiatives, institutional support for adaptation is slow to materialize in areas on the outskirts of major cities (except in the form of riprap). As one person working for the municipality of Notre-Dame-du-Portage explains: “We wanted to work on a really long stretch of the river […]. It requires a lot of resources, and we’re not in a position to deal with that” (Interview 2 with the Rivière-du-Loup municipality). In fact, the municipality had to turn to the NPO of the ZIP committee rather than engage in the difficult mobilization of resources from other institutional scales. In addition, the influence of elected officials in the decision-making process would slow down adaptation, as new regulations would be unpopular with their electorate. At the municipal and RCM levels, respondents pointed to the lack of information on climate change and the lack of financial resources earmarked for local initiatives.
Discussion
To understand the role of tourism in adapting to climate change, we have interpreted our results through the prism of the work of Lefebvre and Latour. Firstly, under the impact of climate change, the tripartite production of tourist spaces seems to be confronted with a fourth type of space, or moment, namely the space of constraints. We define this as “a moment in the production of space that is subject to the resurgence of hazards and risks, which transform symbols and spatial practices, and then impose themselves on often outmoded institutions. As space that is lost, threatened or constraining for anthropic uses, we define it as space where non-human forces act (or, more often, retroact)” (Guillemard, 2022, p. 286; own translation). Faced with the emergence of constraints, humans can decide to become immune to them or, on the contrary, to withdraw far from the space where non-human forces express themselves. The space of constraints materializes locally the awareness of the “critical zone” (Latour, interviewed by Watts, 2020), in other words, the realization of the finitude and fragility of the Earth’s thin crust which humans occupy. Thus, the conceptualization of this fourth moment adds to the Lefebvrean idea of space as a social product the recognition of non-humans’ capacities for action.
Furthermore, our results show that living labscan become what Latour calls “parliaments of things” (Latour, 2018; own translation), where researchers “translate” non-humans who act for other human actors in a territory, to foster an integration of these non-human actants among the actors in that same territory. These approaches can be particularly conducive to taking current and potential social inequalities into account when assessing and choosing which measures to prioritize. Indeed, living labsconstitute processes of social and open innovation centered on use, where a systematized empathetic posture can facilitate consideration of the positions of local actors and populations little included in climate change adaptation policies conducted by the various institutional scales. For example, in our case, empathetic interviews made it possible to integrate the voices of the Wolastoqiyik Wahsipekuk Maliseet First Nation and actors such as hunters and farmers into our experimental sessions focused on the Kiskotuk Coastal Park.
Lastly, since the public authorities in SMCs have few means of taking action, adaptation initiatives seem to rely on other players, at times on the scale of organizations (e.g., regional or national nature parks) and at other times on the scale of individuals (e.g., farmers, hunters, hikers, guides). While the service economy tends to distance Quebecers from a day-to-day relationship with their environment, the tourist areas of the coastal SMCs studied enable certain actors to interact directly with their environment, in both its anthropized and natural dimensions, and to participate very concretely in adapting to climate change.
Conclusion
Credit: Sylvie Boyer, Canva pro
To answer my main research question, the production of tourist areas can encourage adaptation to climate change in coastal SMCs. Nevertheless, this reflects an inequality of human, financial and technical resources between territories. While large cities such as Montreal are turning the corner on adaptation, backed by dynamic material and political support, adaptation in small and medium-sized cities still depends on fragmental and isolated initiatives.
In coastal areas, some of the more spectacular transformations are attracting the attention of public authorities. The slower transformations, visible only to the attentive eyes of a few people who are specialists in their environment, are slow to find institutional responses in non-metropolitan urban environments. In the Lower Saint-Lawrence region, players in the Rivière-du-Loup and Rimouski tourist areas do act alone or collectively, but their observations and interventions cannot counterbalance the lack of large-scale action steered by better-endowed institutions. Our interviewees often point to the same obstacles: lack of resources, manpower, knowledge and political will.
To cite this article
Guillemard, A. (2022). Tourism: Brake or lever for climate change adaptation in small and medium-sized coastal cities?. In Cities, Climate and Inequalities Collection. VRM – Villes Régions Monde. https://www.vrm.ca/le-tourisme-frein-ou-levier-de-ladaptation-aux-changements-climatiques-dans-les-petites-et-moyennes-villes-littorales-2
