Tourism Environmental Protection (THP) is an important course for tourism management majors. The course requires students to master various theories, methods and skills in tourism and environmental protection. THP cultivates students' good awareness of tourism environment optimization. THP requires the organic combination of tourism and environmental protection to lay a solid foundation for the study of tourism management and future jobs in the tourist industry. THP involves the natural tourism environment, cultural tourism environment, tourism facility environment, tourism environment capacity and quality. It includes tourism environment monitoring and management, tourism environmental protection laws and systems, tourism environmental protection measures. Regional differences in tourism environmental protection need to be presented. THP involves many theories, including environmental science theory, sustainable development theory, system science theory and ecosystem theory. Life cycle theory on tourist destinations, circular economy theory  and  tourism  economics  theory  are  significant [1-3]. We must address the coordination of the man-land relationship. The content of THP involves the evaluation of tourism environment capacity and quality, tourism environment monitoring and tourism environmental protection laws. However, these theories and contents can easily make students lose interest in the THP course teaching.

Therefore, in the THP course teaching, we adopt the teaching mode of combining theory and case to optimize THP teaching activities, which improves students' interest in the course and enables them to actively participate in THP course teaching. The purpose of this paper is to use some practical examples to illustrate the optimization of the teaching content of the tourism environmental protection course, to improve students' interest in the course and actively participate in the course teaching.

Optimization of the Theoretical Content of Tourism Environmental Protection and Cases

Existing literature has shortcomings. Tourism Ecology and Environmental Management [3], Tourism Environment and Protection [1] and Tourism Environment [2] do not include the theory of coordinated development of the human-land relationship and the green and low-carbon economy. Therefore, to enrich the content of the THP course and  increase  students'  interest in the course, in the teaching activities, we have strengthened the theoretical explanation of the coordination of the human-land relationship and the green and low-carbon. We used some events to illustrate these issues. We suggest that the best example of human-land relationship coordination is an uncoordinated man-land event. For example, human activities have caused a large amount of plastic waste to be discharged into the ocean, resulting in large-scale pollution of ocean water [4], which seriously affects the marine tourism environment. The discharge of Japanese nuclear wastewater into the ocean has a negative impact on the marine tourism environment [5,6]. The Chernobyl nuclear leakage accident destroyed a large area of the natural tourism environment [7]. Human grazing has adverse effects on the grassland tourism environment [8].

What is green and low carbon in the tourism environment is a very interesting topic. We find that if we allow students to think about this question for themselves, we can easily stimulate students' interest in the THP course. When tourists travel to Mount Emei, we can ask how to protect the natural tourism environment of Mount Emei from a low-carbon perspective [9]. Mount Emei is a world natural heritage. It is located in the southwestern Sichuan Basin in China and the transition zone from the basin to the mountains in the southwest. The climate of Mount Emei is a subtropical humid monsoon climate. The average annual precipitation of Mount Emei reaches 1,922 mm. The rivers of Mount Emei are vertical and horizontal. Its highest point is 3,098 m above sea level and its lowest point is 420 m above sea level. From Baoguo Temple at the foot of Mount Emei to Jinding, the highest point of Mount Emei, it is about 60 kilometers long. There are two ways to get from the foot of the mountain to the golden top. Tourists walking and climbing along the stone steps are a low-carbon way. Tourists can also take the shuttle bus directly to the top of the mountain, which may encourage the burning of more fossil fuel and accordingly is not a green way to travel the mountain.

Natural Tourism Environment Selection, Environmental Protection Law, Event-Integrated Teaching

Natural tourism environment includes geological environment, landform environment, climatic environment, hydrological environment, biological environment and air environment. Existing teaching materials often include incomplete natural tourist environments. When teaching activities are taking place, we can meet some tourism environmental events worldwide or near schools. They can be employed as the best teaching case. The combination of theory, law and events can optimize the teaching content of natural tourism environmental protection [10].

A great event involving the tourism environment of the Yangtze River is that the Ministry of Agriculture of China issued the "Implementation Plan for the Prohibition of Fishing and Establishment of Compensation System in Key Waters of the Yangtze River Basin", which requires that before the end of 2019, the Yangtze River Aquatic Biological Reserve shall completely prohibit fishing [11]. Beginning in 2020, the Yangtze River Basin has entered a 10-year recuperation period. This event undoubtedly has a vital and positive impact on the water tourism environment of the Yangtze River. The Yangtze River is rich in biological resources and many rare aquatic creatures and fishes are living there. Therefore, it is a very interesting tourist activity for tourists to take a cruise from Shanghai to Chongqing to see the rare aquatic creatures in the Yangtze River. However, the Yangtze River Biological Integrity Index currently belongs to the worst "no fish" grade. The rare fish resources in the Yangtze River have been severely damaged. For example, the baiji dolphin, known as the "water giant panda", is a freshwater cetacean unique to China, only found in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. In 2007, the Baiji was declared functionally extinct. The Yangtze finless porpoise, known as the "living fossil" of the Yangtze River ecology, is only distributed in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, as well as Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake near the Yangtze River. In 2017, there were only 1,012 heads left. The Yangtze sturgeon has a history of 150 million years. At the beginning of this century, the natural breeding activities of the Yangtze sturgeon stopped and the wild population disappeared. The white sturgeon is a rare and special animal in China. Since 2003, no white sturgeon have been found in the Yangtze River in the past 16 years. Therefore, China must immediately start protecting the biological resources of the Yangtze River.

The Old Industrial Area Being Developed into a Tourist Area is a Good Subject for the Course

The German Ruhr area is one of the most famous old industrial areas in Europe and even the world. Since the 1960s, the coal mining and steel industries have been in recession. However, due to the agglomeration of industrial firms, the Ruhr area has also become an important scientific, service and cultural center in Germany. The German government has prompted changes from industrial to tourism land use in the Ruhr area [12]. The Ruhr area has become an urban tourist area. Closed industrial factories have become heritage sites, thus increasing the attractiveness of the Ruhr area as a tourist destination. Tourism jobs are created. For example, the Ruhr region has established a national geopark where mining activities ceased in the 1970s due to the beauty of the southern Ruhr area. A large number of mining and geological relics have been left in the region and large-scale tourism infrastructure has been built [13]. Germany is a major practitioner of the redevelopment of old industrial land. The 50-mile Emscher Landscape Park is built in the Rust Belt of the Ruhr. More than 100 factories and other sites within the park are recycled for recreation, cultural activities and green spaces. Likewise, New York’s High Line, completed in 2009, is a famous project to transform industrial infrastructure into a park [14]. Vigorously building bicycle lanes and green parks in cities can guide tourists and urban residents to increase bicycling for urban tourism activities [15]. Chengdu is also building large greenways around the city and small urban parks.

Tourism environmental protection courses involve natural tourism environment, humanistic tourism environment, tourism facility environment, tourism environment capacity and quality, tourism environment monitoring and management, tourism environmental protection laws and systems, tourism environmental protection measures and regional differences in tourism environmental protection. THP involves many theories, including the coordination of the human-land relationship and the green and low-carbon. However, these theories and contents may make students lose interest in the THP course teaching.

Thus, in THP teaching activities, we emphasize the coordination of the human-land relationship, the green and low-carbon and key event analysis. The discharge of Japan's nuclear waste into the ocean harms the marine tourism environment. The Chernobyl nuclear accident destroyed the natural tourism environment. It is low-carbon for tourists to climb Mount Emei along the stone steps. The 10-year fishing ban in the Yangtze River is a combination of natural tourism environment selection, environmental protection law and important events. The transformation of old industrial areas (such as the German Ruhr area) into tourist areas is a good subject for the course.

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