Sustainable Tourism Issues - Essay Example

Sustainable Tourism This paper will discuss the strengths and limitations of ecotourism, the need for sustainability in conservation of mass tourisms and ways in which sustainability might be developed. Sustainable tourism is the development of tourism without damaging the economy, culture and environment of a country. It ensures positive development experience for tourism companies, tourists and local people. Eco-tourism on the other hand is traveling responsibly to cultural and natural environments by assisting the people’s local cultures and environments well-being for future generations. Ecotourism plays an important role in the development of sustainable tourism; however, it represents only a partial solution to the challenge of ‘sustainable tourism’. Ecotourism unites communities, sustainable travel and communities. It ensures that those who participate in ecotourism provide financial benefits for conservation and empowerment of local people, minimize impact, provide experiences that are positive to visitors and hosts, build cultural and environment awareness (Weaver, 2006).Through ecosystem protection, ecotourism enables biological and cultural diversity conservation promotes use of biodiversity sustainably, through informed consent and participate share socio-economic benefits with local communities. It also enables increase in cultural and environmental knowledge, waste reduction and affordability. Thus ecotourism contributes highly to long term benefits of local communities as well as the environment (McCannell, 1976). However, there has been contention to the level at which environmental impact, local social-economic benefits and preservation of bio-diversity can be considered ecotourism. This is there is a difference in defining ecotourism by some groups, environmentalists and governments. Environmental institutions have defined ecotourism as based on nature, managed sustainably, supporting conservation and educated environmentally (Macbeth, 2005).Governments and tourism companies treat ecotourism as a product based in nature. Some of the definitions given are green tourism, nature tourism, ecologically responsible tourism, bio-tourism among others. These definitions have brought confusion among academicians and tourists, leading to commercialization of tourism schemes that destruct the environment, exploit economically, and culture insensitive (Weaver, 2006). According to one of ecotourism definition, it is the low-impact practice travel that is educational, culturally and ecologically sensitive that benefits communities that are local and host countries. However these standards are not followed by many ecotourism projects. Despite the executed measures still some communities are facing other negative impacts. Some countries are reaping high economic benefits but face negative effects like people being forced to leave their homes, environmental hazards, and violations of human or fundamental rights. There is continuous use of money on ecotourism personnel which doesn’t bring positive results or successful outcomes. Moreover, a lot of it is still used to fund public campaigns to get rid of critics. Ecotourism most of the time fails to fulfill promises of benefits of community-level, changes land-use rights and causes conflicts, destructs the environment, and many social impacts. As many argue ecotourism is not socially beneficially and neither is it ecologically beneficial. Ecotourism has in many ways become a source of conflict over tourism profits, land control and resources. The environment and local people have been harmed as well as continuous conflicts over how profit is to be distributed (Boorstin, 1961). Ecotourism has had an impact on environment directly. Its operations often don’t live up to ideals of conservation. It goes unnoticed sometimes that ecotourism is an activity centered on a consumer and conservation of environment is just a means to further growth of economy. Any slight increase in population exerts pressure on the environment despite the fact that ecotourism is intended for small groups. Thus there is necessity of additional development of amenities and infrastructure. When water treatment plants are constructed as well as lodges and sanitation facilities, non-rewarded energy sources exploitation emerges as well as exploitation of already limited local resources utilization (Wang,1999). When tourist infrastructure is constructed from natural land, deforestation and deterioration of habitat creeps in. Also, when local communities aren’t able to give to the infrastructure demand of ecotourism, the environment suffers. Without availability of enough sanitation facilities, there emerges dumpsite of sewage in rivers, wildlife and livestock contamination as well as contaminating the people who use the water. Garbage and pollution from western lifestyle is cause by population pressures from ecotourism. Ecotourists are not aware of or don’t understand what their visits results to and how they affect the environment despite the fact that they are educated and are concerned about the environment. This is calculated in the food they eat, the toilets they get to flush, the water they drink and so on. They also consume a lot of non-renewable energy they use when they arrive. The activities of ecotourism affect animal and plants habitat e.g. by nature hiking. The trails they mark as well as alternative routes they create contribute to soil erosion and damage of plants. When tourists view wildlife, the animals get scared and thus their feeding and dwelling places are destructed decreasing breeding of some animals and thus endangering the species. Ecotourism also affects the local people in that may foreigners and corporations own most forms of ecotourism and thus local communities receive few benefits. Major profits are taken and pocketed by investors who don’t reinvest in the protection of environment or local economy. There are also a few local people employed in ecotourism and even if they are they can’t afford living in the same areas as the tourists due to low wages they receive. Sometimes environmental degradation is caused by resentment from local people. When people feel they were not well compensated by giving up their traditional lands, they kill wildlife and thus degrading the land. Some if they don’t have source of income they result in degrading the environment to be economically viable. The presence of ecotourists who are rich encourage local people to destruct wildlife by poaching. Ecotourism has also led to displacement of people. In Kenya the Maasai community was moved to create space for a park. Nearly 70% of East African parks or on Maasai land (Kamuaro, 2007) leading to loss of land by the Maasai. Maasai’s were ignorant and the government took that advantage to rob them of huge chunks of land which they graze on which put their only socio-economic resource to risk. The Maasai didn’t benefit economically and neither did it benefit from employment because being illiterate the ecotourism employees better educated workers. The foreign investors who harvested the profits didn’t invest back in the local economy. Some game reserves are created without the knowledge of the local people who are evicted by surprise. The government also manipulates the local people who later resent. . Ecotourism is also a threat to indigenous culture even though it claims to preserve the local culture. Local people have lost their homes illegally and without compensation and being pushed to lands with poor soils, no water, harsh climates and livestock diseases. Parks establishment create harsh survival lives, they deny local people on traditional use of their natural resources. There is also a problem of mismanagement of ecotourism by the government. Governments are located administration and environment protection roles which they don’t commit themselves to manage ecotourism effectively. Environmental protection may not be clearly defined, high implementation costs, and effectiveness uncertainty (Brundtland,1987). Government regulatory agencies make decisions that benefits politics but not environmentally productive projects. The government regulators may become lenient to some influential groups who sway and pressure their interests of the government to their favor. It is important to allow conventional sustainability of mass tourism. This is to allow ecotourists to enjoy their time while respecting preservation of environment and social interest standards. Sustainability of mass tourism allows implementation of responsible tourism activities. Mass tourism can be developed through technology improvement. Improved infrastructure will enable large numbers of people to be transported to their places of interest in a short time. To improve sustainability there should be implementation of regulation and accreditation. There should be enforcement of accreditation procedures by an international or national regulatory board. This should be represented by someone from hotels, governments, guides, travel agents, tour operators, local authority, airlines, and so on. The governments will go by the decisions made by the board to implement sanctions to non-compliant companies by legally restraining them from using the ecotourism brand. Environmental impact assessments can also be used as a form of accreditation, after evaluating feasibility and recommendations given to manage the ecology, and set tourist capacity (Burtler & Waldbrook, 1991) Another way of improving sustainability is through education and guidelines. There should be initiatives of addressing the ecotourists issues and improve their awareness. Ecotourists should also be sensitized to the issues of the environment and their places they visit cared about. Tour guides should be used directly to make them aware. This will enable ecotourism discuss about conservation more confidently (Weaver, 2006). There should also be management of natural resource. The amount of abundant natural resources available in several places in the world is depleted by human habitats and encroached. To allow sustainability, ecotourism programs should be made available for conservation of these resources. Proper management plans and programmes can also be used to prevent the resources from being touched. Another way of developing sustainability of mass ecotourism is the encouragement of tour operators, travel agencies and retailers to take advantage of travel destinations that are ‘green’ (Burtler, 1980).To minimize the impact customers may have on the visited areas, the companies may decide to rotate them for example to bird watching among other activities (Burtler, 1997). Ecotourism unites communities, sustainable travel and communities. . It also enables increase in cultural and environmental knowledge, waste reduction and affordability. Ecotourism most of the time fails to fulfill promises of benefits of community-level, changes land-use rights and causes conflicts, destructs the environment, and many social impacts. Sustainability of mass tourism allows implementation of responsible tourism activities. 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(2006).Sustainable Tourism. UK:Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann Read More