dw_be_responsible

http://www.iblf.org/csr/csrwebassist.nsf/content/f1e2f3r1.html

Responsible Travel Can Be a Force for Good
Financial Times, UK, October 16, 2003

When the United Nations proclaimed 2002 as International Year of Eco-tourism, many non-governmental organisations, and campaign groups that monitor the impact of the tourist industry on the world, raised their eyebrows.

For while its proponents claim that eco-tourism promotes awareness of the eco-system and helps protect local communities, others argue that it can be damaging: it takes tourists into increasingly remote locations that lack sufficient infrastructure, they say.

Opponents claim eco-tourism has cleared the way for more forest destruction and forced indigenous peoples from their traditional lands.

In 1996 a conflict between the inhabitants of Nagarahole National Park, the Adivasis, became a national issue in India. The Karnataka state government leased out land to a division of the Taj Group, a hotel chain that has won numerous environmental awards.

But the Adivasis won a court battle to halt the development, claiming the hotel would deny their rights of access to the forest.

Even if communities are not forced off their land, foreign visitors can prove a disruptive force for remote and fragile cultures, which may start to see traditions disappear and local cultural artifacts commercialised.

Remote communities often dislike being stared at or photographed by tourists and may also become divided, with those who are profiting from the business resented by those who are not. Patricia Barnett, director of Tourism Concern, argues that eco-tourism should only be operated when locals are involved in the planning process.

"Eco-tourism seems to work best when the communities are in charge of who is coming in and how they're will be coming in," she says.

"Communities that have developed their own lodgings often keep the locals away from the visitors because they recognise the problems that can ensue. So the weight of the decision-making has to be with the community and not with those operators who might bring the tourists in."

Part of the problem is that the success of eco-tourism has meant tour operators have used it as a marketing tool to sell packages that may have little to do with minimising the impact of visitors or protecting the environment.

"If you look at the definition of what eco-tourism is, it has great potential in generating a win-win for people, culture and the environment," says Dilys Roe, senior research associate at the International Institute for Environment and Development. "But one of the problems is that many things are now labeled as eco-tourism that don't live up to the original concept."

It is not just the eco-tourism business that is expanding into ever more remote areas. Tourism - already one of the world's largest industries - is expected to double by 2020 and represents a substantial threat to bio-diversity, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme and Conservation International, an environmental organisation.

The scale of its expansion is highlighted by the report, which suggests that tourism in bio-diversity hotspots has increased by more than 100 per cent between 1990 and 2000 - in some areas that growth has been staggering. Over the past decade, tourism has increased by more than 2,000 per cent in Laos and Cambodia, nearly 500 per cent in South Africa, more than 300 per cent in Brazil, Nicaragua and El Salvador and 128 per cent in the Dominican Republic.

"With nature and adventure travel one of the fastest-growing segments within the tourism industry, the earth's most fragile, high bio-diversity areas are where most of that expansion is likely to take place," says the report.

And it is not only eco-tourism that has an impact on these areas. While many hotel chains have environmental policies, big resorts can cause great disruption to local communities in developing countries, and draw upon vital resources such as electricity and water.

Beach properties often occupy coastal areas on which fishermen rely for a livelihood. But they rarely hold legal tenure for the land and can be easily evicted.

Some initiatives are emerging from the industry itself. The International Hotels Environment Initiative, a charity established by leading chains to improve the industry's environmental performance, is now developing guidelines for the responsible siting, design and construction of hotels.

Some argue that, if properly planned, tourism be a force for good. Pro-Poor Tourism, a UK group promoting tourism strategies that benefit the poor, has produced a briefing suggesting how hotels and other tourism suppliers can shift the balance.

Hotels, it says, should encourage supply chain partners to source goods and services locally wherever possible and extend services such as electricity, water and healthcare to locals at minimal cost, because the infrastructure is in place to serve guests.

When it comes to eco-tourism, the International Eco-tourism Society's definition is "responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people".

It advocates educating travellers, working in co-operation with locals, directing revenues to the conservation of natural and protected areas and pressing for tourism zoning and visitor management plans in regions slated to become eco-destinations.

However, the challenge of making tourism sustainable is daunting when confronted with the figures. According to the UNEP report, tourism generates 11 per cent of global gross domestic product, employs 200m people and transports nearly 700m travellers a year.

With tourism a principal export of 49 of the world's least-developed countries and number one earner for 37 of them, the pressure to drive up the tourist business may mean many of the more responsible measures get lost in the rush for revenues.