Ecotourism Goes Beyond Nature and Wildlife

In recent years, the growth of interest in responsible travel has outperformed tourism. Ecotourism is one of term which ultimately affects every kind of traveler. When people think of Eco-tourism they think of visiting an exotic natural landscape where everything is organic and the motto “Take only pictures, leave only footprints”. Many people make mistake in assuming that ecotourism is all about conserving nature and wildlife by any means necessary, but if a destination or business’ tourism development strategy does not actively provide concrete financial people, it’s not truly ecotourism. In simple words, the meaning of ecotourism is travel that makes a positive impact on both the ecology and economy of a given destination.

Ecotourism goes beyond nature and wildlife, it also includes local people. The ecological impact include human beings as the part of environmental sustainability.

Although widely consider being a sustainable way to see the world and learn to appreciate nature and local cultures, ecotourism can often perpetuate the same negative practices that it strives to educate again. The form of “Sustainable Tourism” is generally promoted for reasons involving economic benefit to developing countries.

The question is how to make ecotourism truly sustainable?. Then I found Martha Honey book about “Ecotourism and Sustainable Development: Who Own Paradise?”. Based on this book, ecotourism is defined as responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the welfare of local people and these benefits are often overstated. Instead of increasing economic flow to developing nations, the brunt of ecotourism’s economic benefits is focused in the travel agencies and providers located in the developed nation tourist depart from.

Honey presents an overview of the ecotourism industry and a first-hand account of ecotourism projects around the world. Honey distinguishes ecotourism from other terms such as nature, adventure and wildlife tourism as the only type of tourism that explicitly incorporates both a commitment to enhancing the natural environment as well as contributing to an improved quality of life for communities around the tourism destination.Honey puts forward seven criteria with which to distinguish legitimate ecotourism from ‘green washing’ and ‘ecotourism lite’. These criteria are: 1) travel to natural destinations; 2) minimize impact; 3) build environmental awareness; 4) provide direct financial benefits for conservation; 5) provide financial benefits and power for local people; 6) respect local culture; and 7) support human rights and democratic movements.

Green travel is being aggressively marketed as a win-win solution for the Third World, the environment, the tourist, and the travel industry, close examination shows a much more complex reality.

This book contains ten chapters, which move between a general history and description of ecotourism and detailed cases. The first three chapters cover generalities about ecotourism including the origins and evolution of the field over the past twenty years. The following seven chapters are country studies which cover Africa and the Americas, but which unfortunately neglect Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. Honey’s country studies include Ecuador (the Galapagos Islands), Costa Rica, Tanzania, Kenya, Zanzibar, South Africa, and the United States.

Honey concludes each of her seven country study chapters by evaluating each country according to the above seven criteria. At the conclusion of each chapter, she provides an ecotourism scorecard, rating each place on its adherence to the original principles. There are many practices dissected in these chapters and the operative standards of ecotourism begin to emerge, including involvement of local people which heritage ecotourism benefit from as well. Although some sites are doing a better job than others, Honey says that no place has yet realized the potential ecotourism and what is needed are clear standards and better monitoring procedures.