Frederick W. Lange

The impact of tourism on cultural patrimony a Costa Rican example

Abstract Development of tourism in tropical areas is having a distinct impact on the preservation of cultural resources, particularly when developments are on the coasts, and where lack of monumental architecture does not make it visually obvious that cultural heritage is present. The impact is primary, in that sites are levelled, covered over, or otherwise destroyed; and secondary in that roads to new areas encourage auxiliary population concentrations or open new areas to exploitation by professional pot-hunters. Cooperation between museums and universities who seek to preserve and study these cultural remains, and those who are stimulating the development is often poorly established because of lack of precedence for cultural resource management programs in developing countries. Discussed are the problems of primary and secondary impact based on an example from Pacific coastal Costa Rica