Eco-tourism vs. Sustainable Tourism

Mon, 2 Jan 2007 02:53:45 GMT

posted by ioman01

In one of our early posts on this blog, we featured an essay on sustainable tourism by Green Team member Jaime. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest checking it out before proceeding with this entry.

I recently read a slightly different take on the issue in the 14 December edition of the BBC's "Green Room," its page of op-eds on environmental issues. Dr. James Mair of the Centre for Marine Biodiversity and Biotechnology at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh asks if "eco-tourism" is "a sustainable trade." The op-ed raises some interesting issues and questions, not only for tourism generally, but for tourism regarding small islands in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in particular.

I have a few problems with the opinion piece, not the least of which is that he freely utilizes the term "eco-tourism" without ever defining it. In my experience there are dozens of different definitions of "eco-tourism," and no real consensus on just what that encompasses. How can we determine if something is sustainable without first agreeing on which "something" we're examining. I find "eco-tourism" too vague and much abused and distorted, which is why I (like Jaime) tend to focus instead on "sustainable" tourism.

That aside, here are few excerpts worth considering:

The regime change caused by the conveyor belt of tourism brings income and employment; the down-side is a drain on freshwater, loss of biodiversity and habitat, and contaminants washed up by seasonal waves or continuous tides of visitors.

Jaime discusses the same tension between coastal environment and tourism development in his essay. It can be seen not only on the small islands that Mair focuses on, but probably any coastal area undergoing rapid (and usually unplanned or under-planned) tourism development.

Islands of the Las Perlas Archipelago (LPA) are characteristic of where tourism and conservation are in an embryonic stage.

Within a two-week period in late November and early December of this year, the LPA Municipality published a decree, with government backing, for the establishment of a hydrological reserve in the largest of the islands to protect over 9,800 hectares of important watershed environments, home to 14 endemic bird species.

Meanwhile the central government promulgated another decree announcing major large-scale tourist development plans.

The left hand protects the ecology, the right hand builds on it.

I can't count the number of times we've seen this in play in the Dominican Republic, no matter who is in the presidential palace. All too often the Environment Minister will declare that such-and-such protected area cannot be touched by resort developers because of its status under the General Environment Law, only days later to have the President reveal that he changed the boundaries or the protected status of that area by executive decree.

Many tourists who visit such places become fascinated by, and protective of, reef fish, corals, nesting turtles, migrating cetaceans, whale sharks and so on. They will often actively support conservation initiatives; but they may also be the unwitting necrotic traveling agents of change.

Some truth to this. Sometimes when tourism successfully promotes conservation and ecological concerns, its success can unwittingly create new problems to the very areas people want to help or protect. It is a high wire balancing act.

The sight of small islands drowning under congregations of tourists "thonging" on beaches, and others who could be termed "pleasure-seekers" with opportunistic predatory instincts already springing silently on novel niche destinations, begs the question: when will the organic growth of island eco-tourism reach its carrying capacity?

An excellent question I've often wondered about myself. How many of the island governments have seriously attempted to calculate their carrying capacity?

...has anyone asked the indigenous island peoples, with their fragile eco/social systems, what they want for themselves and their own descendants?

I'm a bit puzzled by this one, at least if Dr. Mair is continuing to speak of LAC islands. How many Caribbean islands still have indigenous cultures on them? It is, however, an excellent question to pose to those mainland tourism areas where resorts, especially all-inclusives, often displace and marginalize the locals.

Many economists think conservationists mean "no-development" when proposing "sustainable development".

Maybe it would be a start if both sides could try to agree at least on the definition of "unsustainable" developments.

It's true that many economists and tourism promoters, including many a Tourism Minister, think that conservationists and environment NGOs simply oppose any type of development, and thus tend to dismiss them and their input. On the other hand, too many environmental activists oppose any type of touristic development and all too often think economists and tourism promoters can never be convinced to undertake serious steps to make tourism poles sustainable. And he's right, if we have such a hard time agreeing on what is "sustainable," why not open dialog among the parties by at least agreeing on what is "unsustainable."

Dr. Mair mentions the "Malta Guidelines on Sustainable Tourism" agreed by the United Nations' World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) earlier this year, and then asks

Can the "contracts" that the (possibly well-meaning but often environmentally inept) World Bank or Inter-American Development Bank come up with for what is termed development assistance "converge" with the principles of the UNWTO statement?

Have the World Bank and IDB taken up the Malta Guidelines? Maybe, but I have yet to see concrete signs of it. How best to do so? That, in itself, should be the basis of a broad and deep discussion.

Not long after reading Dr. Mair's piece, I came across a reaction to it on a blog devoted to issues involving Jamaica, Cucumber Juice. I quote them here with the author's permission. Although she addresses it to local circumstances, I think some of what she says will resonate with those who know the DR well.

Sometimes I think people drive around in their gas-guzzling SUVs, scouting for beautiful, untouched areas in Jamaica to 'develop' with little or no regard for the delicate ecosystem that governs the island. Either that or they dream up these grandiose and ridculous plans meant to spur 'progress' and bring 'development.' Must be the consequence of sitting in a vehicle too high off the ground - you begin to feel like you're above it all and know it all. I mean, c'mon, isn't it common sense to consider, at least in the top 3 considerations of suggesting/envisioning any project, the environmental impact? And not just the next 3 - 5 years but the next 25 - 30 years...talk to the people, find out about the land and how things have been. Our people, especially in the rural areas - are the best source of information on Jamaica's environment...country bumpkins they are not.

I'm all for bringing clean running water, electricity, phones, vibrant city-centres, etc... to rural areas (because the strain on parish capitals, particularly, Kingston & MoBay is already disastrous and deteriorating daily) but this wholesale whoredom that the Government of Jamaica subscribes to is unacceptable: Baha'i, Cockpit Country, a coal-burning power plant, the Causeway Bridge expansion, more and more hotels on the fragile coastline, bauxite mining (in general), bridges built too low for a river's rising, houses built in a river bed (still cyaan get over that one). Really, which is worse: our myopic vision and planning or a largely, and surprisingly, dormant civil society that let's too many things slide right on by them?

What do you think?

-- Keith R

Technorati Tags: Environment medio ambiente Latin America Am�rica Latina sustainable tourism turismo sostenible ecotourism ecoturismo Americas IADB World Bank World Tourism Organization BBC

LAC Wins Two of Five UNDP Equator Awards

Wed, 24 May 2007 02:14:55 GMT

posted by ioman01
TemasEtUnam Five tropical communities were honored yesterday at United Nations Headquarters in New York with the Equator Prize — and two of the five were from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The Prize, awarded biennially by the Equator Initiative led by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), recognizes "extraordinary work to diminish poverty through the [...]

Striking a balance between biodiversity conservati...[Conserv Biol. 2008] - PubMed Result

Fri, 6 Sep 2008 23:17:00 GMT

posted by StuartinFiji

Klein CJ, Chan A, Kircher L, Cundiff AJ, Gardner N, Hrovat Y, Scholz A, Kendall BE, Airamé S.

Centre for Applied Environmental Decision and Analysis,
The University of Queensland,
St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia.
c.klein@uq.edu.au

The establishment of marine protected areas is often viewed as a conflict between conservation and fishing. We considered consumptive and nonconsumptive interests of multiple stakeholders (i.e., fishers, scuba divers, conservationists, managers, scientists) in the systematic design of a network of marine protected areas along California's central coast in the context of the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative.

With advice from managers, administrators, and scientists, a representative group of stakeholders defined biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic goals that accommodated social needs and conserved marine ecosystems, consistent with legal requirements.

To satisfy biodiversity goals, we targeted 11 marine habitats across 5 depth zones, areas of high species diversity, and areas containing species of special status. We minimized adverse socioeconomic impacts by minimizing negative effects on fishers. We included fine-scale fishing data from the recreational and commercial fishing sectors across 24 fisheries. Protected areas designed with consideration of commercial and recreational fisheries reduced potential impact to the fisheries approximately 21% more than protected areas designed without consideration of fishing effort and resulted in a small increase in the total area protected (approximately 3.4%). We incorporated confidential fishing data without revealing the identity of specific fisheries or individual fishing grounds. We sited a portion of the protected areas near land parks, marine laboratories, and scientific monitoring sites to address nonconsumptive socioeconomic goals. Our results show that a stakeholder-driven design process can use systematic conservation-planning methods to successfully produce options for network design that satisfy multiple conservation and socioeconomic objectives.

Marine protected areas that incorporate multiple stakeholder interests without compromising biodiversity conservation goals are more likely to protect marine ecosystems.

Publication Types:

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

What Is a Sustainable Business? (2008)

Sun, 28 Jul 2008 18:12:15 GMT

posted by Aldouspi

With Elizabeth A. Lowery, Thomas Mooney, Megan Guy, Auden Schendler. Moderated by Joel Makower.

The Aspen Institute and National Geographic magazine host the first ever Aspen Environment Forum, in Aspen, Colorado—a powerful, three-day exchange examining the future of our shared environment.

Welcome to our blog about Sustainable Use and Biodiversity

Wed, 6 Jul 2006 18:57:19 GMT

posted by The_Zimbio_Team
This is our group blog, which is unique because any Zimbio member can post an entry to it. Some members blog about recent news and trends related to the portal topic, others recount relevant personal stories. You can also comment on and rate existing blog entries, to voice your opinion and to help the community identify which members and entries on the portal are must-reads. Got an interesting idea or story to share with other members of this portal? Well, then put on your journalist's cap and add your own blog entry!

Sustainable Use and Biodiversity - Articles - Zimbio

Eco-tourism vs. Sustainable Tourism

LAC Wins Two of Five UNDP Equator Awards

Striking a balance between biodiversity conservati...[Conserv Biol. 2008] - PubMed Result

What Is a Sustainable Business? (2008)

Welcome to our blog about Sustainable Use and Biodiversity