The chances are that if you're drawn to Cornwall, it's the natural beauty and coastline that first turned your head; but Cornwall's success in attracting so many visitors puts such a strain on its environment that the very beauty which brings you here in the first place is endangered. So what's to be done?

Sustainable tourism

The answer is sustainable tourism. If you think about it, it's kind of obvious. By definition, the alternative course of action is unsustainable tourism: tourism which sees carbon emissions rise uncontrollably, waste generated faster than landfills can cope, small towns wither in the shadow of out-of-town hypermarkets, litter clogging hedgerows, rivers and beaches, water and energy wasted and huge amounts of detergents pumped into the rivers and sea every day. If you consider that Cornwall's half a million inhabitants are joined, every year, by up to five million visitors (many of whom stay between the middle of July and the end of August) you'll start to get an idea of the scale of the problem.

Sustainable holidays

The good news, however, is that a holiday in Cornwall becomes a sustainable holiday with far less effort and thought than you might imagine. In fact, the problem's root cause - the huge numbers who visit Cornwall - is also the key to its solution: because when so many people make the smallest changes, the impact can be massive...

Small things done repeatedly

How small do you want? When you leave the hotel, turn off all your lights. A big deal? Not really, and it'll make no difference to you either way, but the reduction in the need for electricity will have a big impact on the emissions produced to generate it.

When you're booking your hotel, why not ask if they have laundry cards? Places that do will wash every item in your room every day if you want but, if you do as their card asks, you can make sure that only items that really need it are laundered. Hotels in Cornwall which have started using these cards in the last year or so have noticed striking reductions in the amount of detergents, energy and water they use.

Kick out the jams

Despite appearances to the contrary, not everything worth seeing in Cornwall is to be found at the end of a car journey. There's no shortage of highly moochable towns: St Ives, Fowey, Falmouth, Mevagissey and Padstow, for example. The South West coast path is as beautiful as any footpath in the country, and there are numerous trails, paths and rides to explore with either your own, or hired, bikes, ponies or horses. Many of the most scenic destinations in Cornwall are reached easily by train, too.

Shop locally

You probably get enough, at home, of driving to giant supermarkets and loading up the same stuff in the same old (plastic) bags. You're on holiday: give something different a go. Look out for farm shops, village stores, farmers' markets and one-off speciality shops. Cornwall's profile has completely changed in recent years, to the point where local beers, cheeses, meats, ice creams, wines and breads have been nationally recognised as the finest of their kind. More and more places are featuring and promoting local products. Try some. You might surprise yourself (while helping to keep some of Cornwall's tourist revenue here; at the moment, more than half of it leaks out of the county).

Reduce, reuse, recycle

If you think for a moment and make the slightest adjustment things begin to change: instead of buying, using and binning bottle after bottle of water, hold on to just one - or use a flask - and keep topping it up from the tap. Buy one or two big jute or reusable shopping bags and start to say goodbye to the ubiquitous carrier-bag bunting flapping along Cornwall's hedgerows and beaches. Give ridiculous packaging the elbow, too: spend a day or two keeping in mind exactly how much stuff you're throwing away, and see how you might cut it down, if not out.