This book is devoted to island sustainability with a focus on the small island economies in the Pacific, especially islands of Okinawa located at the southwestern edge of Japan. It examines socio-economic characteristics, development issues, policies, networking of island societies, and the roles of culture, human resources, agriculture and tourism in a globalizing world. Okinawa, the birthplace of nissology (island studies in Greek), embraces all aspects of small, remote island characteristics, including geography, history, economy and culture. Okinawa hosted the third and fourth Pacific Leaders Meeting (PALM). PALM adopted the Okinawa Initiative on Regional Development Strategies for a More Prosperous and Safer Pacific. This initiative emphasized the important role of Okinawa in spearheading and coordinating development and educational relationships among the Pacific islands. Although the focus is on Okinawa, analytical methods and visions presented in this book will provide food for thought for many similar island societies which have been struggling to achieve toward sustainable development. Since the International Small Island Studies Association (ISISA) held its first meeting on Island of Okinawa, Nissology has been emerging as an important area of scientific investigation. The book is intended to appeal to students, academic researchers, policy makers and industry professionals and practitioners.

This insightful and timely book is the first of its kind to explore specific policies, issues, challenges, and practices that will enhance the sustainable development of tourism in island destinations, including island nations, twin-island nations, and sub-national island jurisdictions (SNIJs). Islands are faced with a myriad of challenges: economic failure, natural disasters, political upheavals, and socio-cultural dilemmas. Tourism is the most likely means for economic development in many islands and yet, specific tailor-made policies for an island context have received limited exploration and discussion. The policies explored in this volume include those relating to management, marketing, governance, and sustainable development of the tourism sector in islands. This book is ‘go-to’ guide on the topic and the case studies and best practices throughout the book provide practical knowledge and insight. The volume posits a concise and logically structured review of island tourism in a post-pandemic context, exploring specific tourism policies that will contribute to the enhancement of sustainable tourism development in islands, particularly those in developing countries. This significant book offers insight into best practices and will be of interest to academics, researchers, policymakers, and students of tourism policy, planning, and sustainable development.

Contains papers presented at the 1st International Conference on Island Sustainability organized on the Island of Brac, dealing with projects, initiatives and experiences related to different island issues. By using the experience of economically developed island environments, it is possible to learn how to ensure the development of other island communities, not only to prevent depopulation but to encourage new settlement. Those projects will serve as guidelines for other initiatives in less developed islands, adapting those experiences to specific regional, cultural and socio-economic characteristics.

This multidisciplinary volume dicusses the impact of tourism on sustainable development in the Caribbean, the Pacific, and the Mediterranean. Bringing together scholars, development practitioners, international experts, and professionals, the contributors discuss the issues from a holistic and transnational perspective. This work provides a much-needed, thorough understanding of the interplay among economic, cultural, environmental, and public health parameters. The contributors provide a workable definition of sustainable development that can be understood, conveyed, and implemented by policy makers, development practitioners, and tourism professionals. Among the special issues addressed here are the role of women in tourism, the contradictions inherent in cultural tourism, the hegemony of tour operators, disease mapping and risk assessment, and island community involvement in tourism-related land-use planning.

Case study of Kerala, Karnataka, and West Bengal, India.

Papua New Guinea is going through a crisis: A concentration on conventional approaches to development, including an unsustainable reliance on mining, forestry, and foreign aid, has contributed to the country’s slow decline since independence in 1975. Sustainable Communities, Sustainable Development attempts to address problems and gaps in the literature on development and develop a new qualitative conception of community sustainability informed by substantial and innovative research in Papua New Guinea. In this context, sustainability is conceived in terms that include not just practices tied to economic development. It also informs questions of wellbeing and social integration, community-building, social support, and infrastructure renewal. In short, the concern with sustainability here entails undertaking an analysis of how communities are sustained through time, how they cohere and change, rather than being constrained within discourses and models of development. From another angle, this project presents an account of community sustainability detached from instrumental concerns with economic development. Contributors address questions such as: What are the stories and histories through which people respond to their nation’s development? What is the everyday social environment of groups living in highly diverse areas (migrant settlements, urban villages, remote communities)? They seek to contribute to a creative and dynamic grass-roots response to the demands of everyday life and local-global pressures. While the overdeveloped world faces an intersecting crisis created by global climate change and financial instability, Papua New Guinea, with all its difficulties, still has the basis for responding to this manifold predicament. Its secret lies in what has been seen as its weakness: underdeveloped economies and communities, where people still maintain sustainable relations to each other and the natural world.

"This publication aims to inform and guide decision-makers, professionals and local communities in their endeavors to create synergies between improving living conditions and caring for the environment, both natural and human-made"--Publisher's website.