Geography Essay set on sustainable development in Dorset

« As many tourists/people should be encouraged to visit Lulworth Cove/Durdle Door and Studland Bay ». How far do you agree with this statement ?

            Dorset is a county located in the South West of England on the Channel coast. It is home to the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site (photo 1). Geological sites such as Durdle Door/Lulworth Cove and Studland Bay are found on this coastline. The view is splendid and valuable due to its interesting geology, yet it is fragile and in danger of erosion. This is why some people  think that the number of tourists on the Jurassic Coast should not increase. On the other hand, some people think that the number of tourists should increase to provide money and employment in the region.

            Lulworth Cove/Durdle Door and Studland Bay are main popular tourist sites on the Jurassic Coast. Studland Bay attracts a lot of families due to its nice beaches, barbecue sites and ice cream stands and restaurants where you can rest and have a picnic in the sunny afternoon while looking at the sea (photo 2).  There are signs that tell the tourists where they mustn’t go for their safety but also to prevent them from disrupting natural wildlife or damaging the site by stepping everywhere.  Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door are interesting results of erosion and what it has done over time. When Lulworth Cove is a short bay dug by water in the shoreline of the sea, Durdle Door is an arch formed in a headland and eroded by water over time as well (see photo 3).Those sites are closed together and near Lulworth Village. They attract more hikers, due to its trails, than Studland Bay. Yet it also has few tourist facilities such as an Information Center and a little shop  which has explanations on the sites, for example the rocks that are found there and how the sites where formed. There are toilets as well. To make a good honey spot site (a place which attracts tourists)  it also has benches on the trails for people to rest when they are tiredwalking and a car parkto allow people to come with their car. Of course it also has signs like in Studland Bay to try to prevent people from stepping everywhere, damage the sites, create desire lines and landslides (e.g : photo 5), and more generally helping erosion of the sites. Without all of these facilities for tourists less people would come to visit both Studland Bay and Lulworth Cove/Durdle Door even if the view is splendid because a Visitor Center attracts people as it is a source of information, and toilets, car parks, little shops and benches make a tourist’s life easier and that is partly what makes them want to come back. 

            Tourism on the Jurassic Coast has both positive consequences and negative consequences  on the area. Looking at the advantages of tourism in Dorset, we can see that it creates jobs for the local people. For example, people buy things from shopkeepers, or waiters are needed in restaurants which welcome tourists. Employment is a major importance in Dorset as the unemployment rate is very high. Overall, tourism brings money to the government and to the region and  allows the sites to be better taken care of, or the schools to be funded to take the kids on school trips for example . Also, with tourists coming to visit beautiful and interesting sites like Lulworth Cove on the Jurassic Coast, people have knowledge of what erosion is, they will have seen those extraordinary geological sites ! We mustn’t forget that the purpose of these sites is also for people to see them and learn something. Another positive consequence of tourism in Dorset is that people from cities like London are able to meet people who live on the coast, and people who live on the coast get to meet people who live in cities. This creates a social mix up which is good to be able to learn our differences. All these consequences show that tourism is a positive thing for Dorset.  Yet we could ask ourselves what would happen to the environment, to the local economy and to the local people’s daily lives if, suddenly, there was a sudden increase of the number of tourists visiting Dorset, and more precisely, coming to visit Durdle Door/Lulworth Cove and Studland Bay.

            Focusing on Durdle Door/Lulworth Cove, we have to remember the ‘background’ of these two sites : they’re very close to each other, and right next to Lulworth Village, where local residents live there all year. As we have seen, tourists help to create a social mix up in the area : so if there were more tourists, there would be a greater social mix up. Yet the residents living in Lulworth Village would probably not be too happy if suddenly there was a mass of tourists coming to visit Durdle Door/Lulworth Cove, and therefore stopping at the village for the night, for shopping, or to eat at a restaurant. The tourists would be noisy, the streets will become crowded when the tourists come in the summer, and this would disrupt the local people’s daily lives who were used to tranquility and peace. For example, an old person who’s been used to the peaceful area all his life would not be happy about mass tourism.  Another thing we looked at previously is that tourism creates jobs and so helps the local economy  and the local people trying to find employment : obviously, this would mean that masstourism would create more jobs. However, mass tourism would also make the prices in the village go up (at least in the summer, when the tourists are there), and the local residents won’t be much better off than before. The prices going up would, though, bring money to the local economy. Something else we have to keep in mind is that most tourists, if not all tourists, come in the area only in the summer. This means that a restaurant waiter in the summer is not assured to keep his job all-year long. Yet at least, he has a job in the summer. And maybe, as the sites get more and more famous with mass tourism, some tourists will come in the winter to avoid the crowd in the summer. Looking at it that way, it sounds positive ; yet mass tourism would have terrible consequences on the environment. First of all, tourists who come to Durdle Door/Lulworth Cove will help the rocks to erode faster and the natural sites will get damaged as some tourists walk everywhere and don’t respect the signs that say « Don’t walk there » or « Don’t climb that cliff, it may fall ». If the rocks of Durdle Door/ Lulworth Cove erode faster, it is non-respect to what nature has done, and secondly, if the sites get damaged or eroded faster, tourists will then gradually stop coming, and this is not sustainable, as in the future, the people living in Lulworth and around the area will not be able to rely on tourism for their economy ! What’s more, with more tourists, the facilities that exist will have to change : toilets, benches, visitor centors, car parks, trails, restaurants will have to be built to welcome more and more tourists. This would damage the natural view, the animals who live there will have to move as their habitats will have been destroyed during the construction of a visitor center or toilet building. Having looked at the social, economic  and environmental consequences of mass tourism in Durdle Door/Lulworth Cove, we can now look at what consequences mass tourism would have on Studland Bay.

            Studland Bay attracts people who want to relax on the beach or have a barbecue (e.g. families). Yet the beach is also very fragile ; the sand dunes that are habitats to many animals are covered by vegetation which protects them from eroding away. Everyday when people walk on those dunes instead of the trails (see photo 5) they remove the vegetation help the dunes eroding away, and animals lose their habitat. That’s bad for the environment. Doing barbecues out of the designated area (see photo 6) is also bad, as fire and smoke help the sand dunes eroding away. We have to protect those sand dunes to protect the natural habitat. Also, as Studland Bay is a very touristic area with lots of car parks, little souvenir shops and ice cream stands, more tourists would mean even more cars in the summer, and this would pollute the area and help to warm up the planet. Global warming is a very important issue and a world scale problem. Socially and economically, the consequences are the same as in Durdle Door/Lulworth Cove : more tourism will obviously create more jobs, but the prices will go up, and the noise and crowded beaches may disrupt the local residents who used to come to the beach and have a quiet summer afternoon in Studland Bay.

            Overall, I do not agree with the statement « as many people/tourists as possible should be encouraged to visit Durdle Door/Lulworth Cove and Studland Bay ».  Tourism isn’t a bad thing : it can provide money, jobs, help the economy. Yet mass tourism is a bad thing : it’s not sustainable ! If we encourage everybody to come visit Durdle Door/ Lulworth Cove and Studland Bay, progressively the sites will be damaged and eroded easily, even if there are people to manage them. Other major problems due to mass tourism are global warming, environmental damage (erosion, animals losing their habitats). I think we should limit the number of tourists in Durdle Door/Lulworth Cove and Studland Bay to what the existing facilities can welcome.

Appendix :

Photo 1

            The Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site.

Photo 2 :

 A shop, restaurant and ice cream shop in Studland Bay

Photo 3

 

Lulworth Cove

and

Durdle Door

 

Photo  4 :

A sign telling the tourists that they mustn’t climb cliffs as they are unstable and fragile and that they may fall.

 

A trail in Studland Bay.

 

Photo 5

 

Photo 6

Designated barbecue area sign