National and international environmental organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations and scientists have been warning about environmental problems caused by unlimited growth, the idea of production that destroys natural resources and excessive consumption and have been calling on managers to take precautions on this issue for a long time. In the tourism sector in Turkey, which has a significant impact on natural resources, environmental problems arising from wrong policies have begun to increase. Although sustainable tourism or conservation approach to prevent these problems is emphasized in national and regional plans, it is an important problem to take decisions contrary to these approaches in practice. This study argues that besides the economic and social effects of tourism development, its ecological dimension should be examined within the framework of critical social sciences and aims to evaluate tourism policies and plans in Turkey with the approaches of political ecology. In this direction, in the study, the decisions taken on tourism in the five-year development plans were examined and the applications of these decisions in practice were evaluated. According to the findings of the study, although nature protection and sustainability issues are frequently mentioned in tourism planning, it is seen that unlawful decisions are taken, tourism investments are allowed in conservation areas, forestry areas and coasts have been zoned for construction. In addition, it has been concluded in the study that the national literature has not shown enough interest in these negative effects, and the political actors, those primarily responsible of the problems are ignored..