A Livelihood Approach to Sustainability

It is argued that although sustainable development has received widespread acclaim, practical application of the concept has been fraught with difficulties. Furthermore, when adopted and adapted by a single sector such as tourism, further problems arise because many sustainability challenges are inter-sectoral, involving competition for the use of scarce resources among different potential uses. A sustainable livelihoods (SL) approach is advocated as providing a tangible way forward, and an SL framework is presented to guide future research and practice related to sustainability.