The idea of popularization the unique European geotops was implemented in
2000 by the leadership of four geoparks - geological reserve Haute-Provence in France,
Petrified Forest of Lesbos, Vulkaneifel in Germany and Cultural Park Maestrazgo in
Spain signing of the agreement on creation the European Network of geoparks. Since
2004 this program received support from UNESCO. This network is a forum for
sharing knowledge and experience. Protection of geological and landscape heritage -
their main mission. The main activities of geoparks include environmental education,
training and development of natural sciences research.
In order to establish the mainstream development of any tourism activity, it is
necessary to conduct, study, evaluate and provide appropriate documentation of
possible environmental impacts. Environmental certification is carried out with aim to
creating a legal-economic mechanism for implementing the entitled of citizens to a safe
environment, that enshrined in the Ukrainian Constitution. Generally, an
environmental passport is an official document that is being developed to ensure the
state registration of objects that have a harmful influence on the environment, to control
environmental safety, prevention and elimination of negative impacts [9,10].
Ecological passports need to be developed for all economic objects, tourists’
areas, objects of international, national, regional and local significance, which will
allow conducting environmental assessments, audition and monitoring more effective.
Unfortunately, an ecological certification’s state of tourist facilities is unsatisfactory in
Ukraine. Another problem is the lack of a legislative framework for obligatory
ecological certification of tourist territories, which in turn deprives the ability of
specialists to anticipate and prevent the emergence of excessive man-made pressures
caused by tourism activity timely, and to carry out appropriate planning and
organizational measures for the tourism development.
3. Principles of sustainable development of tourist destination. The
popularity of most tourist destinations is based on the purity of the environment and
the identity of the local culture. Therefore, following the basic principles of sustainable
development, tourist destinations can expect to the success in tourism development.
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