Responsible Tourism - is there such a thing?
The way that the travel business comes over in much of the media these days makes it tempting to think that the most responsible thing to do, in environmental terms, is not to travel at all!
© Keith Grant/Nature Portfolio
Crimson-collared Tanager
© David Dennis/Nature Portfolio
Mountain Gorillas |
Indeed a fair bit of the escape-to-the sun style tourism can be justly criticised as directly damaging to the local culture and environment, never mind the indirect effects of the greenhouse gas emissions involved in getting there.
But there is another side to tourism - one that brings huge benefits to local cultures and communities, and that can be essential to protecting the natural world. National Parks and wildlife reserves around the world were often set up with high ideals in mind - and yet the growing economic pressures on them would be a constant threat to their very survival without the counter-balancing effect of income from tourists. The same can be said of the protection of historical monuments and landscapes. Who can doubt that the survival of many habitats, such as the East African savannahs, and of individual species like the Mountain Gorilla, is now absolutely dependent on tourism. And we must not neglect the more intangible benefits we bring, for example in educating local people (and ourselves!) to appreciate the importance of the wildlife, culture or historical monument that we have come to see. So the challenge for all of us involved in the travel business is to manage what we do to maximise the local environmental, cultural and community benefits that we bring, and to minimise the damage that we do. And that is where Responsible Tourism comes in. |