Ecotourism

Ecotourism became popular just about 30 years ago and it is the responsible travel to natural environmental conservation areas and also improve the well-being of the people (Lindsay 1). Some of the aims of eco-tourism reduce the negative impacts on the environment because of tourism while at the same time, providing revenue to support the industry. Ecotourism is also a way of empowering and enriching the local people in terms of job creation and increases sources of income (Boley, and Gary 37). However, the despite the intention, the outcome after tourists visit is not always a positive one. This paper looks into the American culture and the relationship between sustainability and ecotourism.

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In most of the cases, tourists have no idea that they are causing more damage because of their activities during these visits. Take, for instance, when people decide to go on hiking, they have no idea that that through such activities if done repeatedly tend to loosen the soil and increase on erosion (Lindsay, 13). In addition, an increase in population causes a strain in the resources as well as pollution through littering, and such. Unfortunately, this implies that even though tourism is financially beneficial, it does not make sense if it implicates the sustainability of the environment. Therefore, ecotourism is like a short term solution for both economic boosting and tourism. Therefore, it is safe to state that there are both advantages and disadvantages of ecotourism.

Those that advocate for ecotourism believe that it is one of the ways in which we can save the ecosystems. They also believe that it is an opportunity for communities that have biological resources to have sustainable economic benefits instead of having economic strategies that are not fit for the environment. Nonetheless, coming up with a balance between perseveration and the preservation of the environment is a daunting task. In addition, these methods can also cause more environmental problems for the intended regions of the project. For example, at the local level like the coasts, the development of extensive tourism has caused both environmental and socio-cultural impacts along the shore line, affecting the local communities. As such, it is necessary to come up with new conceptual planning in regards to tourism types in the coastal region. For example, one plan dubbed “Ecotourism in the local heritage areas”, was implemented in regions with outstanding natural values and reserves. 

The Main Issue

The connection between the natural heritage areas and tourism go way back many years. Indeed, tourism is critical for the world economy and that is why is it is popular industry around the world. It is a critical part of the gross domestic product and also help to support employment. More than 10% of the earth surface is natural heritage areas, wild, and parks (Lindsay 13). Moreover, there are areas such as the coast, marines and reserves which play a major role in boosting tourism. However, it is important to note that tourism is causes pollution, erosion, loss of habitat, and even modification. There are social negative impacts such as loss of culture, heritage, and the values of the local people. The main problem to sustainability is how to manage natural heritage areas while at the same time, promote tourism (Chiu et al. 123). Although this is hard, it is not impossible because there are implementation that can help to ensure that natural assets are sustainable for future generations. The relationship between tourism and sustainability is complex but it is important to consider the need to establish and manage natural heritage areas. In reference to the coastal areas because they are the most attractive sites for tourism, and the method in which controls tourism development should consider the fact that there is rapid development of hotels and towns and this greatly affects the natural state of the beaches. Take, for instance, littering of plastics on the shore is harmful to marine life. 

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Challenges in Ecotourism Implementation

Heather, in her article provides that there lacks a standard set of guidelines that can help to implement ecotourism. It is because there is no system of accreditation which green business can be put. For example, the two largest programs for providing certification are, the Certificate of Sustainable Tourism (CST) in Costa Rica and the Nature Ecotourism Accreditation Program ( NEAP ) in Australia are run by just the local authorities (Hill 23). Although the latter is a major establishment, there is going to be an International Standard in the near future. However, the main problem with implementation is that there is no adequate policy or a body of laws that promote the need to sustain the environment when it comes to eco-tourism. At the same time, not all efforts that are put in eco-tourism aim to benefit local communities and ecosystems. According to tourism writer Deborah McLaren, eco travel is not only environmentally destructive, but also economically exploitive, green washes travel, culturally degrading, it paves way for environmental claims that are not responsible. Unfortunately, this is prevalent through the tourism industry and such, there is the necessity to study reasons of failure and success as well.

Practical Experiences

To sum it up, sometimes tourism causes overcrowding and this severely damaged natural habitat such as islands, the shores and also the marines. Because there lacks enough enforcements of limiting visitors by the governments, it becomes hard to sustain the ecosystem. When we promote tourism only for the visitors to view a few endangered species can cause major imbalance and extinction of endangered species (Boley, and Gary 39). These failures can take place because there is no organization as well as commitment to conservation goals. The main advantage of ecotourism is employment opportunities for the local people, yet those who won tourism operations are private organizations. As such, they do not make any effort to consider the local people. When revenue comes it goes to private investors instead of benefiting the community. In addition, the resources in the environment are diminishing because of ignoring the needs of the marginalized populations. For example, there are reserves that visitors must go through villages that have trash allover, and people living in shanties. It goes to show that the people there do not get any benefits from the tourists and they have no intention of protecting the reserve (Lindsay 23). It is no surprise that in some places locals do not want anything to with tourism development efforts because they fear that they will disrupt their lives. In addition, they do not want to welcome any social changes like for instance, replacing the traditional life with convectional lifestyles. Therefore, despite that there are campaigns for eco-tourism, there needs to be more effort in ensuring that the environment is safe and the local communities are benefiting for the sake of the eco-system.

Works Cited

Boley, B. Bynum, and Gary T. Green. “Ecotourism and natural resource 

conservation: the ‘potential’for a sustainable symbiotic relationship.” Journal of Ecotourism 15.1 (2016): 36-50.

Chiu, Yen-Ting Helena, Wan-I. Lee, and Tsung-Hsiung Chen. “Environmentally 

responsible behavior in ecotourism: Antecedents and implications.” Tourism management 40 (2014): 321-329.

Lindsay,  Heather  E.  ,  Ecotourism  :  The  Promise  and Perils  of  

Environmentally-Oriented Travel, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, 2003

Hill, Jennifer, and Tim Gale. “Ecotourism and environmental sustainability: An 

introduction.” Ecotourism and Environmental Sustainability. Routledge, 2016. 21-34.

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