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Ecotourism
| Introduction
This month we explore Travel from two
different perspectives; as a mechanism for shifting our awareness of
ourselves and our relationship with the world, and in one of its
latest forms, "Ecotourism". "Ecotourism"
as
a concept began back in the 70's and quickly became the fastest
growing part of the planets largest industry. It became so
popular in fact, that the label was used by many just to gain a
foothold in what was seen as a goldmine in the tourist industry.
In spite of its misuse and some of the inherent difficulties,
the concept is still an important one and we will spend some
time on it in this issue.
*From the Ecotourism Society: "Ecotourism
is responsible travel to natural areas which conserves the
environment and improves the welfare of local people."
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The
following excerpt is from an Article in the UTNE
READER website Travel Archives.
The Inner Journey: Power
Tripping
When you're pumped
on travel, there's no telling how far you can go.
By Joe Robinson, Escape
Magazine
Any list of the world's eternal mysteries has to include duty-free shopping.
I've never gotten why I would need to stock up on Halston perfume or dead-weight
Glenfiddich in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, say at Fiji's Nadi airport.
(Hey, look what I bought in the South Pacific, a bottle of booze from Scotland!)
But what might be the best travel souvenir really is free, of both duty and
price tag-and actually has something to do with the place you visited. It always
rides back with me in the glow of a great trip. The prize: a sudden power surge
that makes me think I can do just about anything - solve a dilemma, shake a rut,
leap tall buildings in a single bound. I'm sure you know the feeling. It's that
sublime sense of enlarged horizons, a belief you can go wherever you want to in
the world. Because you've just done it. Something happens out there that cranks
up the can-do spirit. The perception of what's possible in life, limited by
habit, hassle, setbacks, age, sex or any number of other self-restrictions when
you left, is suddenly wide open. I guess that's why it's called the open road.
On it, you're no longer defined by the daily environment, the ceiling of stasis,
a fixed horizon beyond which you cannot go. The options are as unlimited as the
turnoffs. I've come back so pumped with possibility that I'm sure a random drug
test would bust me on the spot for performance-enhancing chemicals. The inner
doubter has somehow fallen by the roadside, replaced by a clarity, confidence
and will to get to the next place, to keep on moving in the rhythm of the
journey.
...Tracy Garfinkle, a traveler
who e-mailed me from the road in Turkey, calls this phenomenon "a rush of
empowerment-not power like you want to rule the world, but a realization that
this is your world. It's a feeling of enlightenment that anything is
possible."
This famed traveler's
"glow" is no illusion; it's a real feeling of momentum, propelled by
some fundamental changes in our internal driving mechanism. The journey has
"expanded our sense of self and our own resilience," explains Paul
Stoltz, author of Adversity Quotient, a book on the route to achievement.
"Travel is a condensed lesson of life, which is about facing and overcoming
adversities. There's an incredible sense of mastery coming out the other end of
a trip that says, even if things go wrong, I know how to handle it."
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"Travel is a
condensed lesson of life, which is about facing and overcoming
adversities. There's an incredible sense of mastery coming out the other
end of a trip that says, even if things go wrong, I know how to handle
it.
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Travel makes us believers. And
what we come to believe is our own instincts, not what others or our own
in-character role have pigeonholed us into. The empirical evidence has proven
that we can get from here to there-wherever there is. We have seen great things,
gone past the flat earth of our comfort zones, so the prospects, like us, have
grown...
All roads, ideas, moves ahead,
start here, in the belief that they're possible, doable-by you...That belief
alone-if we keep it going-is enough to launch us on more difficult paths when we
return. As John Gardner wrote in Excellence, "Humans achieve what they
think is possible for them to achieve." If you don't think you can, you
can't. Adventurous travel, though, reprograms us into possibility thinkers. We
learn to keep moving in the general direction, knowing we'll figure it out as we
go along... The power of the possible is such that it can beat logic,
conventional wisdom and forces able to crush you...
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"Humans
achieve what they think is possible for them to achieve."
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..."I believe we're born
with a core human drive to ascend or move forward and up, to progress toward
being and doing something significant with our lives," declares Stoltz.
"I define that as our mountain. Each individual has their own mountain.
What travel does is help us explore our sense of significance in the
world."...
...The road boosts confidence and resilience skills by putting us to the test of
the unknown and uncomfortable. We take on forbidding outbacks, wilting red tape,
scree-strewn slopes, humiliating faux pas, get hopelessly lost, but in the end
find ourselves-and live to tell about it.
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We learn what we need to
know to triumph over the odds at home: the idea that we can.
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"Listen to the stories
people tell when they come back from a trip," says Stoltz. "They talk
about the adversities they overcame: 'We had this disaster, but it all worked
out great, and we ended up meeting these amazing people. We took on the
unexpected and overcame it.'"
...In the process you're forced
to become open to things you wouldn't ordinarily consider and take risks you
wouldn't back home. In those times it's quite possible for even the most
treadmill-inclined to reinvent themselves...
Wilderness and nature play a
major role in stoking a larger sense of possibility...Eyes and cerebrums have to
widen to take it all in. "When we get out into nature, it's the one time we
feel, 'Wow, we are absolutely trivial and puny,'" says David Cumes, a
physician and adventurer born in South Africa who has a medical practice in
Santa Barbara, California. "You put the ego on the back burner and open up
to the right brain. And when we do that, we connect with the Big Self, and
that's when we feel great. That's how peak experience comes about."
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"You put the ego on
the back burner and open up to the right brain. And when we do that, we
connect with the Big Self..."
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That's what I feel when I
return, an animating sense of entitlement, that I belong everywhere I go. That
makes things I want to do seem less, well, foreign, daunting, more like home
improvements. Staking that claim further is the more potent realization that,
hey, it's been there all along. Travel has merely catalyzed and decalcified
capacities that already exist within me...
-- Joe Robinson
From Escape (April,
1999.) Subscriptions: $18/yr.
(4 issues) from Box 462255, Escondido, CA 92046.
To read this article in its
entirety please click
here.
| "In this day and
age of free-time, vacationing, and environmental awareness, one cannot
plan for a getaway without coming across the word ecotourism. Ecotourism
means many things to many people. The Ecotourism Society...defines
ecotourism as: "purposeful travel to natural areas to understand
the culture and natural history of the environment, taking care not to
alter the integrity of the ecosystem, while producing economic
opportunities that make the conservation of natural resources beneficial
to local people." Is ecotourism a sustainable option?
Read this article By Beth
Abell & Ben Winig at:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~eca/index.html
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Western
Society and Ecotourism: Traveling Companions?
by John D. Ivanko
Published in the Bulletin
of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 16, Nos. 1-2,
1996. All Rights Reserved.
The ideas behind ecotourism
are not new. Rooted in the conservation and environmental
movements in the United States over the past 150
years--spurred by the writings of Thoreau, Muir, and before
them, Buddhist and other philosophical ideologies--ecotourism
is a new application for an age-old concept of stewardship.
It recognizes the interconnections of all life and the
importance of maintaining a balance between human needs and
those of existing ecosystems. Perhaps Aldo Leopold's famous
"Land Ethic" best captures the philosophical
essence of stewardship: "a thing is right when it tends
to preserve the integrity, stability and beauty of the
biotic community...it is wrong if it does otherwise."
In diversity there is stability. Ecotourism is really
nothing more than the application of this philosophy to the
self-enriching discovery made possible through travel. It is
a process and an ethic, not an end in itself.
... We in the Western
industrialized nations have an incredible opportunity for
restorative and regenerative change through ecotourism.
There seem little doubt that tourism will continue to grow;
the most important question remains: Will it be ecologically
responsible and sustainable?
The responsibility clearly
rests with ourselves to care for an environmental and
cultural diversity which historically we have used merely to
serve our needs--and our needs only. Ecotourism, as a model,
process and ethic, offers an opportunity to put respect for
our earth into practice in a way that all people can enjoy
its beauty and benefits. That's my dream; and this dream
will not die!
John D. Ivanko may be
contacted at:
Globetrotter Photography
7843 County P
Browntown WI 53522, U.S.A.
E-mail: jivanko@aol.com
WWW site: http://members.aol.com/jivanko/public/globetrotterphoto.html
http://cac.psu.edu/~jdi1/Travel/sts.html
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Take nothing but
photographs;
leave nothing but footprints;
kill nothing but time.
By Ellen Scott of
the Ecotourism
page
Criticisms
of Ecotourism
In its simplest form, Ecotourism is
nature travel. In its more advanced form, Ecotourism encompasses all
aspects of life: wildlife, plants, biodiversity, sustainable
economies, conservation, environment, culture, heritage, society,
and human beings. In this form, Ecotourism is a kinder, gentler form
of environmentalism that recognizes humans as being part of the
ecosystem. This is a critical difference; it affects how tour
operators, environmentalists and conservationists, and tourists
interact with the host destination.
For eons, western thought has
dictated that humans are the masters of the earth, that we shape and
control our world. Evidence of this is the constant battle against
weather; floods and levees; earthquakes and earthquake proof
buildings; sea shore homes and replenishing of beach sand. It's a
continuing battle against nature and one we will not win. One rule
of nature is constant change and we in the western world struggle to
overcome this with increasingly advanced technologies...
Ecotourism thought evolved about 10
to 15 years ago. It was partly in response to consumer demand for
something new and unusual and the realization that the environment
is facing permanent damage. It was becoming apparent that mass
tourism is not sustainable and consumers want something exotic, but
once something becomes more commonly available, it is no longer
considered exotic; the definition is being pushed further into the
world's unexplored places, where few westerners have gone before.
The premise offers unspoiled nature and cultures but there are
reasons why few people have gone before; they are fragile,
inhospitable places that do not easily support human life.
There are many tour operators that
offer Ecotourism as an alternative to traditional packages. But,
this is in name only. Where these operators are failing is in the
sustainable economy sector. The money tourists spend is supposed to
trickle down into the host community but very little does. In a true
ecotour, the money goes directly into the community. All aspects are
covered from lodging, food, guides, activities and nature viewing.
The host community benefits and the industry they provide is
sustainable.
There is hope. Individuals such as
Ron Mader, Marcus Endicott, Jan Moss and Deborah McLaren, and
institutions such as the Ecotourism Society, Charles Stuart
University, Tourism Concern and a host of others are working towards
Ecotourism definition and Ecotourism practice. Furthermore, the
consumer is becoming more aware of issues and problems and are
demanding more intelligent encounters with other cultures and
nature. More are realizing that humans the world over are humans and
should not be providing entertainment at the cost of their dignity
and way of life.
| Beatrice
Briggs
Is
There Such a Thing as Eco Travel?
An
entire "alternative travel" industry has sprung
up to meet the needs of those who want no part of tour
buses, luxury resorts, condos or cruise ships. Some of
these enterprises are no more socially responsible or
environmentally justifiable than mass tourism; they just
charge a lot to take a select few to exotic destinations.
Less elitist and generally more ecologically sensitive are
the tours listed in publications like Outside, Sierra,
and Planeta. These trips tend to minimize the
burning of fossil fuels by causing participants to hike,
backpack, kayak, bicycle, canoe, raft, sail, horseback
ride, llama trek, camel ride, dog sled, reindeer safari or
cross-country ski in locations ranging from the Arctic
National Wildlife Refuge to nuclear-free New Zealand.
Other
tours take nature-lovers to places like the Costa Rican
rainforests or the savannahs of Kenya, where a
conscientious attempt is made to balance the tourists'
desire for a close-up view of exotic ecosystems and
endangered species with intelligent conservation practices
and local socio-economic development.
Still
other alternative vacations provide opportunities for
study, cultural exchange and citizen diplomacy.
Participants often stay in the homes of local residents
and work as volunteers in community development or
ecological restoration projects. Such programs dramatize
the fact that the art of traveling is really the art of
being a good guest. The ability to adapt to local
conditions, offer help where needed, enjoy the views,
carry no weapons, stay off the grass, clean up after
oneself and say thank you are skills that we all need to
develop, at home or abroad.
A version
of this article was originally published in the Summer
1990 issue of Conscious Choice magazine.
Beatrice
Briggs can be contacted via email: Beabriggs@aol.com
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"One
of the gladdest moments in life is the departure into unknown lands,
shaking with one vibrant step the irons of habit, the lead of
routine, the cloak of care and the confinement of home. The blood
flows with the fast circulation of childhood, with the thrill of
touching the contours of undiscovered shorelines
and the blue flames of distant mountains."
-Richard Bangs
Editor-in-Chief of Mungo Park
Founder of Sobek Expeditions
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Tourism is the world's largest and fastest growing industry. According to
recent statistics, tourism provides 10 percent of the world's income and
employs almost one-tenth of the world's workforce. By the year 2010, these
numbers will double. All considered, tourism's actual and potential economic
impact is astounding. |
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