Experiences with ecotourism

Ecotourism can be defined as "responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the well-being of local people" (The International Ecotourism Society, 2007)

The ecotourism market has become a rapidly growing segment of the tourism industry, with approx. 30% increase in revenues annually. Great! More people are traveling greener! But a simple search landed me with countless results! I am just wondering if anyone has had any experiences with eco-friendly or sustainable tourism and/or ecotravel companies.

Thank you.

there is no such thing. all tourism has a negative impact on the environment or the destination.

if you want to be eco, stay at home.

Probably suicide or at least sterilisation is to be recommended to be better ECO...

Just another way to guilt trip you and scam more cash from you

Antarctica and North Pole used to be secluded from other inhabited parts of the world. Years back, some people travelled and installed some things over there. Is this good for eco? It aint..Now the glaciers are melting, lots of avalanches, landslides, etc stuff. Eco tourism is just an other business.

I aint whining or complaining. We take something and get something. Thats just a evolutionary process and thats how it is. But it should be balanced, to be optimal and proceed.

At some point, after millions of years, I guess you can see the smog on mars, venus, etc planets too. Hope the earth's @ss will still be in shape without any world wars happening and meteors or asteroids striking.

Maybe Eco Tourism can be termed as going to other place and taking a dump there (eco-friendly). LOL

So this was a waste of time.

Thanks for nothing!

Your welcome.

I've seen lots of companies across Europe that claim to be eco-friendly by using public transportation. In that case, my tours qualify. However...I think it's pretty much bullshit.

Mike's right, the majority of these eco-tourism things are there paying lip service to the environment while charging you (the mug) more money because you are experiencing these wonderful things in a natural environment and saving little squirrels at the same time. The problem you have is that they tend to be set up by businesses or business people, for whom the term sustainable development has the emphasis on development (ie growth / profit), whereas an environmentalist puts the emphasis on sustainable (limiting use of resources. I remember being lectured to about environmental economics and getting into an argument with the visiting speaker on just this point as he was basically misunderstanding the whole process and putting a financial value onto environmental resources.

So is ecotourism a real, caring business, whereby the impact on the environment is minimised to such an extent that you can truly say you did no harm? Or is it just a piece of blatant greenwashing from one of the most destructive and polluting businesses in an attempt to tap into a growing market of people who are prepared to pay extra because they think that they are helping the environment? You make your own decisions wahoo, but listening to the trade body that represents this sector and taking there word as gospel is perhaps not the place to finish your research.

It depends on how you define "ecotourism." Many "Adventure Travel" tours call themselves ecotourism. My wife & I have done many "ecovolunteer" projects, which I consider ecotourism. we pay money, of course, but with the outfits or brokers we go through, at least 75% of that monex goes directly to support whichever project we are participating in. I started a thread about this in this forum Ecovolunteering. We have worked on a cheetah project in Namibia, a snow leopard project in the Altai mountains in Siberia, a river otter project in Brazil, an elephant project in Kenya, and a rhino project in Swaziland. The goal of the Elephant project, for example, was to work with the local land owners and population to open a migration corridor between the two parts of Tsavo National park, which is shaped like a horshoe--Tsavo East and Tsavo West. Along with working with the local population, observation of the elephant herds, identification of individual elephants, etc. were among the other activities. We work directly with the scientists on the projects and it is a win-win sitation. The scientist collect much more data than they would ever be able to collect on their own, and the volunteers get to do things they would normally never get to do on a "normal" "eco-vacation."

In Namibia, the goal of the project was to develop a methodology do accurately estimate the numbers of cheetahs by evaluating prey density, tracking of the cheetahs, overall counting of animals in a specific area, etc. Among our duties were checking box traps that were set up to capture cheetahs in order to radio coallar them for satellite tracking and hand-held tracking devices, actual tracking of collared cheetahs, water hole observation to count animal activity, game drives on a set patern to count animals, tracking with Bushmen, etc. We worked directly with the two scientists running the project as well as with graduate students to support their work. Defintely a win-win situation and I can't recommend the experience highly enough.

Naturally, this type of "vacation" is not for everyone, but if you are into conservation, want to have all the benefits of a safari (in africa, at least) and feel like you are doing your part, it is an excellent way to travel.

(_)ß

Well said and...Du hast leben/You have a life, mann..!

As they say in Scouts, take nothing but memories and leave nothing but footprints. Its that second part that is the bitch when you jet around to these eco thingies.

Interesting topic Wahoo. Vacation travel will continue, and so of course there is room for "greening" the process. In my case, I am a huge proponent of organic farming and foods. There are now many hotels and B&B's that cater or specialize in these meals. Next trip we will be staying at one of these places.

I "aplogise" for my extensive use of "quotation marks" in my previous post. I shall endeavor in the future to avoid "overusing" this grammatical "flair" so as not to "offend" any "sensitive" readers.

Not true, it's just that they're carbon footprints...