The Wadden Sea & Climate Change - a Touristic Resurrected Wild

Nature Tourism and Natural Heritage Tourism are booming sectors of global tourism. But with Climate Change and Global Warming there are growing risks and threats for natural environments and there traditional and modern... [ view full abstract ]

Nature Tourism and Natural Heritage Tourism are booming sectors of global tourism. But with Climate Change and Global Warming there are growing risks and threats for natural environments and there traditional and modern sustainable economic use. Traditional coastal fishery for instance usually relies on sunstainable fishing technologies to ensure economic income for several generations of fishermen families.

In the (European) Wadden Sea a complex ecosystem developed under the specific conditons of high and low tide with times of floding and times of falling dry. The very special mixture of tides-related parttime land conditons and parttime sea conditons created a traditonal economic usage and cultural heritage of usage of varied natural ressources like seals, fish, crabs, mussles or shrimps. Like few other fast eveolving developments in regional human history climate change and global warming force the natural environment to adapt to external impacts and influxxes.

The emigration of species is a complex and one of the most important consequence of the adaptation process in the natural environment. But while there is emigration due to warmer conditons there is immigration too. Other species of fish, crabs, mussles, algies et cetera are entering the Wadden Sea. But do they mean new ressources for traditonal economic usage like fishery too. And what about more modern economic usage of the areas like in the tourism industry as natural attraction?

In the local societies of the island and costal areas of the Wadden sea are many concerns about unstable and uncertain times ahead. This presentaion provides critical and discursive views on potentials and threats of the ongoing adaptation processes of the natural and cultural systems in the Wadden Sea area. The paper outlines examplifarily some of the regional potential solutions of the economic crisis relates to climate change and global warming. In additionto that it exemplifies how traditional economic heritage can be used for modern educational forms af heritage tourism that provide a deaper understanding of the manyfold dimensions of regional consequences of climate change and global warming.