TOURISM AND PROTECTED AREAS: POLITICAL ECOLOGY OF THE RURAL TOURISM IN ROMANIAN DANUBE DELTA

Abstract

In this paper I discuss how tourism takes various shapes in a rural protected area from Romania (one of the typical, most vulnerable of the post-socialist period). Though tourism is advocated by Romanian officials and economists as a powerful tool, which provides economic and community development in rural, deindustrialized and protected areas, ethnographic examples presented in this paper show that ‘real tourism’, still regarded as a panacea, is far from fulfilling the locals’ needs and expectances (in terms of economic and social development in the Danube Delta). By using a political ecology perspective I will emphasize various local practices regarding tourism, demonstrating that there are several political layers of legality that do affect the perception and the tourism practice.