Tourism, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is “organized touring; operation of touring as a business; provision of things and services that attract tourists.” As such, it has been a source of income for centuries, whether it was pilgrims making their way to religious sites or more recently, individuals in search of natural environments. However, never at any other time has it been so extensive or such a significant generator of revenue. It has even been actively promoted by such organisations as The World Bank and the United Nations as a way of financing progress for developing countries.
However, despite this, overall revenue has been falling of late and the new eco-tourism market appears to have come to the rescue. But to the rescue of whom? Large airline companies and tour operators, or local host communities? Unfortunately, the aspect that has been best documented is the negative impact that tourism in general has had on cultures around the world. It would appear that, tourism not only has not delivered the social and economic returns anticipated by local communities, but has added even greater challenges for them to address.
In the film Ancient Futures, learning from Ladakh Helena Norberg-Hodge describes Ladakh as a wildly beautiful desert land high in the western Himalayas: place of few resources and an extreme climate. Yet for more than a thousand years, it has been home to a thriving culture. Traditions of frugality and co-operation, coupled with an intimate and location-specific knowledge of the environment, enabled the Ladakhis not only to survive, but to prosper. Then came development. Now in the capital, Leh, one finds pollution and divisiveness, inflation and unemployment, intolerance and greed. Centuries of ecological balance and social harmony have been compromised.
So, can ecotourism provide what tourism has not? Can ecotourism really provide individuals with an endless array of destinations, while enhancing the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of the host nation? In order to be able to consider these questions, it is important to define what is meant by ecotourism.
The defining of ecotourism
Although there is no universally accepted definition, The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), the oldest organisation in the industry, suggests that ecotourism has the following components:
- Active minimization of environmental and cultural impact
- Education on, and raising of, awareness about, the environment and natural history
- Provision of financial benefits for future conservation
- Improvement of the welfare of the local people
- Sensitivity to the host countries’ political, social and environmental conditions
- Prioritisation of human rights and labour agreements
Using the template offered by TIES, it is worth examining what two of those goals might mean in practice. Take for instance, ‘active minimization of environmental impact’. Can encouraging consumers to travel, usually by plane, all over the world be said to be the ‘active minimization of environmental impact’? This activity might be countered by carbon-offsets, but even here, the results are dubious at best.
For instance, the publicized incidence where one initiative did indeed plant 1,000 trees, but unfortunately with no follow-up maintenance, these self-same trees were all dead a year later. Making an assessment of how many trees should be planted in order to offset the carbon generated by nearly 68 million annual international nature-seekers is likely to be purely an intellectual exercise. Despite tree planting being heralded as the panacea, their carbon sequestration capacity is not reached for many years, and in fact, trees are outperformed by temperate grasslands, which sequester 236 tonnes per hectare as against tropical forests at 123 tonnes. There is no unified approach to this issue based on such sound science as there is.
Similarly, ‘Improvement of the welfare of the local people’. What operator or eco-tourist is really aware of the impact they have on the wellbeing of its host community? For instance, how many would know that the bottled water which they are drinking might be produced at the expense of local subsistence farmer’s ability to irrigate crops during the summer drought, as is the case in one spa town in Europe? Would they also be aware that the water bottling company is a large multi-national whose profits will be going to another nation? And what would they do if they knew, risk gastrointestinal ailments in order to support local farmers. It seems unlikely. Any meaningful response to such a situation would have to be participative and co-ordinated.
The ecotourism industry is being driven by consumers, who, in turn, are responding to concerns over human impact on the environment and destination cultures. However, as there is currently no certification process, what the term means in practice is a lottery. For example, the simple use of building insulation can be considered ‘eco’, and therefore enable the operator to be described as an ecotourism destination, as in the case of one hotel listed on the internet. The consumer himself, is not much wiser, and is happy to leave the responsibility to the service provider. The result is a growing niche market in tourism (at a rate of up to 30% annually) which has indifferent standards and is ill-regulated.
As it stands at the moment, there is nothing ‘eco’ about tourism. It is truly an oxymoron.
However, engaging in the discussion of whether or not ecotourism is of value, misses the underlying reason why communities are resorting to tourism to generate income. Tourism, eco or otherwise, provides only short-term respite from the eventual long-term collapse of the community, unless the root cause of this development is addressed.
Addressing the root cause
The development of tourism is a response to the fact that most other ways of generating the standard of living wanted, are played out. The loss of other income potential stems from the loss of natural capital: the unsustainable management of the community’s natural resources. The same is true for both developed and under-developed countries. There are examples of collapsed communities from the United States to the Philippines and they all have their root in the loss of the ability of the local natural environment to support the standard of living required by its population. Unless initiatives in such communities include land restoration and sustainable management as a priority, then any income-generating activity will only provide short-term results at the expense of long-term wellbeing.
The encouragement of an additional seasonal population into an area that already cannot support its own residents seems very short-sighted. The economic returns will be short-lived, unless those visitors are actively involved in creating long-term sustainable social, economic and environmental benefits. The tendency, at the moment, is for tour operators to decide and apply such goals as they see fit. The local community neither sets the standards nor insists upon compliance. There is no community initiative concerning safeguarding natural resources, nor community agreement as to how that might be managed.
Encouraging community initiative
Encouraging local self-determination is something that is accepted in many areas, but not so far, in tourism. Communities who are marginalized are driven by consumer demand and respond even at the expense of long-term wellbeing. For example, a Ghurka office traveling to meet his officers and their families in the Himalayas stated 20 years ago that the impact of tourism left the local population with nothing to eat in the winter but potatoes. However, this doesn’t have to be the case.
For example, the La Plata County Community Development Department, in Colorado, have just initiated a Land Use Net Benefit Programme, which is involving both local government and all the stakeholders in the creation of community goals which both safeguard the environment and the quality of life of the diverse residents, both indigenous and immigrant. The focus is to ensure that every action creates a social, economic and environmental net benefit to the community. Exactly the same template could be applied to those wishing to offer or benefit from tourist activities, but the collective initiative must come from the local community. It is they that must apply the standards and ensure regulation.
This may even involve placing limits, rather as the Bhutanese have done: something that is an anathema in developed countries. A small independent initiative has done just that: limited tourists to the number that is environmentally sustainable. A mountain lodge in southern Spain outlines the parameters that will operate at the lodge, based on each policy and strategy being sustainable. The income from the lodge is used to restore and sustainably manage the local natural resources and support environmental education.
The concept of net benefit must be applied throughout. A popular claim is that tourism brings economic wealth to the local community, but if this money is not spent on local initiatives that also support the environment, this wealth is short-lived. If tourists use large multi-national supermarkets, rather than the local family market, then the income benefits global corporations, not the community. Similarly, if local residents support international or national enterprises rather than local concerns, this economic wealth is leached once again. Keeping incoming wealth circulating for as long as possible within the community is of pivotal importance, and must be part of any tourism strategy.
Tourism’s place in sustainable development
Tourism as a part of an income generating strategy must go hand in hand with a community initiative to regulate the impact on natural resources. Failure to do so, simply produces short-term gains at the expense of long-term wellbeing. This regulation needs to be applied by the community itself: those who are most acquainted with local conditions and challenges. This requires initiatives such as those in La Plata County, where all the local stakeholders are involved in creating a future that is simultaneously socially, economically and environmentally sustainable for the community.
Failure to do this will simply find ecotourism falling into disrepute. It will be viewed as another clever marketing scheme to boost sales in a flagging industry. However, with local communities ensuring that tourism genuinely provides a net benefit to the community, may ensure that it can provide short-term gains that also support long-term prosperity.
