It is less than 200 days to a new millennium and the good news is we are all green now. Aren't we? Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, thank you, but we don't need your campaigns any more. Everyone knows that everyone else wants a beautiful, green world, full of pristine wilderness, wild animals and authentic, original people living authentic, original lives in peace and with good access to craft shops.

Yes, you really can have it all. The wonder of the modern world is that you can consume as much as you like and do whatever you like, all the time.

We have clean, green nuclear and chemical industries. We can turn waste into energy. Why should tourism be any different - let's have ecotourism! We can all fly to Disneyland to our hearts' content safe in the knowledge that they too have a proper concern for the environment.

And we can afford, or at least aspire to, an indestructible, all-terrain, 4x4, air- conditioned, child-safe, airbag-cushioned, alloy-wheeled, urban assault vehicle to impress the neighbours and "visit the countryside" and, providing it's not raining, take a short walk in nature.

It is like so much else in sustainable development - we have allowed ourselves, our ideas and our language to be absorbed, taken into the largely unmoved and unchanged mainstream. Ecotourism is just one more example of a good idea translated into whatever it takes to turn the economy around that little bit faster. Much of our spikiness has gone, and with it much of our relevance, even our usefulness.

To redeem ourselves and our ideas, we must look again at what ecotourism is and what it could be. We must find sharper ways of defining and describing ecotourism and then measure more accurately against the standards we set.

For many, ecotourism has come to mean any visit to a place of natural interest or beauty. For others, it implies a heightened sense of responsibility in the tourist, taking great care not to damage the very thing they have come to see. But it should also include consideration of how we travel to and around the precious destination, a reduction in the frequency of visits to special places in order to improve the quality of the visit and the decision, sometimes, not to visit; the need for greater collective action and investment to safeguard or enhance the special place; the importance of high standards in green building and other development either in the refurbishment of existing premises and places but also for new developments; changes in agriculture and other enterprises to diversify the economic base and strengthen local cultures.

Before making a trip, especially one involving a car, why not first consider taking full advantage of the world on our doorsteps. Look again closely at what is already there in front of our noses and just beyond our backyards and gardens. And if it's not up to much, improve it.

If tourism is sometimes an escape from the real world, why not try to make that real world better so reducing the need to escape? This can lead to wonderful surprises.

In my own part of South Yorkshire, there is a new, truly lovely and somewhat surprising green corridor. It runs from the Old Moor wetlands at the former Manvers colliery (until recently one of the largest derelict sites in Europe) along the river Dearne to the Earth Centre, itself on the site of two disused collieries. From there, it passes through the Don Gorge, past numerous wetlands, SSSIs and nature reserves, and on to Thorne Moor or Potteric Carr. The latter is situated at the edge of a business and industrial estate but, as a result of assiduous management, has acquired the greatest biodiversity in the South Yorkshire area. You can walk, cycle or ride a horse without interference from cars, by using the new Trans-Pennine Trail. This in turn connects to the national cycle network and, for much of its length here, runs alongside an excellent network of canals and rivers managed by the Environment Agency and British Waterways.

Let us act to improve the quality and diversity of the British countryside to complement the new public access provisions. We can do this principally by changing methods of farming through the price mechanism and through further encouragement for more sustainable, often organic methods of farming.

We need more action to clean rivers or rather to avoid polluting them in the first place. When we have truly wild places, everything possible should be done to keep them that way; let's have real cities surrounded by real countryside not pseudo versions of each.

But it is often the case that some former industrial sites can support more biodiversity and ecological and landscape interest than many banal so-called greenfield sites, and flexible approach in planning with the presumption towards biodiversity could bring significant benefits.

Stronger buffer zones should be created around and sometimes within our wild places. These would contain the car parks and shops and interpretation and education centres to help us get the best out of our visits. And a progressive definition of ecotourism would include some assumption that it is not just about visiting places of ecological interest but about encouraging and supporting wherever possible responsible visiting which steps lightly on the earth we find there.

• Jonathan Smales is chief executive of The Earth Centre in Doncaster, tel: 01709 322086