Australian Alps - Natural Area of Tourism and Conservation - Case Study Example

Natural Area Tourism and Conservation: A case of the Australian Alps Name Course Tutor Unit Code Date Introduction Tourism stands among Australia's key industries. It is a key source of foreign exchange and income as well as an important job creation activity.  In addition, the industry has had massive impact on the country’s built plus physical environments. However, the paradox arising from tourism is that a lot of its clear-cut values have happened to be endangered by many visitors seeking out to travel around them. There have been various developments within the tourism sector in the recent past, including nature-based tourism and conservation efforts, all aimed at coming up with measures of conserving tourist attractions. Conservation essentially is the preservation, cautious management and safeguarding of the environment either natural or cultural. It covers the protection of particular sites or works-of-art along with specific species or areas. Still, conservation has special implication for different people, which is why managing conservation is often difficult and divisive. A lot of the conservation concerns of the Australian Alps are manifest of these difficulties (Buckley, 2010b: 13). With the Australian Alps recognized as an important area for all to benefit from, tourism for conservation has become a key centre of attention. The positive reception and understanding of the need for conservation is not recent. Before time, people have been disturbed as regards the natural state of the world and the position of human beings in it. This paper comes out to point out the challenges bedevilling the balance between tourism and conservation of the Alps. It also proposes the most fitting measures that can be deployed to solve this problem (Buckley, 2010a: 45). Challenges Facing Tourism and Conservation of the Australian Alps Since the recognition of the Australian Alps and the proposition of conservation efforts, the state governments have not offered the adequate financial support. Land set aside for conservation reasons calls for sufficient financing from all stakeholders. At present, financing is offered through initiatives by conservationists mainly through collections from individuals or charges on visitors (Buckley, 2010b: 57). This is not enough. Lack of satisfactory financing has attracted difficulty on how to encourage incessant land use in clash with nature conservation. Another challenge is the responsibility of governments in the tourism industry also the need to build up first-class working relations and affiliations stuck between the public and private sectors. Conservation of the Australian Alps occurs in government guarded and secluded areas, for instance, national parks and state forests. There arise moral, fairness and resonating business grounds as to why the trade industry has to chip in to the partial safeguarding and running of these areas (Buckley, 2010a: 65). The moral quagmire is linked to the tourism industry investing where their settled philosophy is by contributing to conservation of natural areas. On fairness terms, if the private sector tourism activities engendering a profit from a public reserve, either through use or through marketing or alliance, then there must be a monetary return to the public entity managing the protected natural area. At length, from a sound big business point of view, it makes good sense for conservation activities to play a part in guarding natural areas they are operating in and which are a main centre point of their dealing. There is also the challenge of dealing with weeds along with feral animals. Wild plants usually start invading parts of exposed land where indigenous plants have either been removed or died. A number of widespread weeds in the Australian Alps comprise Twiggy Mullein, Scotch Thistle, Yarrow, Black Willow, English Broom, White Clover, Dandelion, Sorrel, and Himalayan Honeysuckle. In addition, the invasive Orange Hawkweed has lately been discovered breeding in a small number of parts of the Australian Alps national park. The control of wild plants and feral animals offers heavy trouble to national park managers as well as private landholders. The management of pest species is a community-wide predicament that calls for attention from corner to corner of all land tenures as well as regionally (Sekhar, 2003: 338). Untamed animals are an acknowledged danger to natural, cultural and leisure ideals of the Australian Alps. These animals destroy plants, engender soil attrition, temper with water quality, and more destructively eat inhabitant animals and compete with them for food and shelter, spread illness and are capable of harassing neighbouring domestic farm animals. The main feral animals that are a cause of distress in the Australian Alps include the Red Fox, deer, Black Rat, Common Starling, European Brown Hare, House Mouse European Honeybee, European Rabbit, feral dogs, horses, pigs and cats (Buckley, 2010b: 145). Fires in the Australian Alps are expected occurrences and are essential for the long-standing wellbeing of numerous Alps vegetation species. Nonetheless huge landscape fires create disputes in the community as regards the running of these natural areas and, particularly, the administrative strategies applied by national parks agencies, for instance those that occurred in 2003 (Buckley, 2010a: 136). For a long time, people have been visiting natural areas apparently of leisure and sightseeing. However, a number of changes have taken place in the last decade. There has been an increase in visits to various natural areas; a lot of economic development experts have more and more seen natural-area visitation in the light of offering employment in some regions, or scanty development, in other industries; various conservation and resource management practitioners ever more perceive natural area visitation as a way for increasing natural area finance as well as providing akin reimbursement, mainly to people living close to natural areas; and there has been escalating consideration of getting better the sustainability of all tourism actions, plus those transpiring in natural areas (Tosun, 2006: 494). More importantly, tourist studies plus subjective reports point to a lot of tourists considering it vital for their trips to contribute to preservation and local progress. However, this is not imperative for all tourists; thereby presenting extra impetus for businesses and governments to sustain conservation and development efforts. This is also defeated by a widespread observable fact that tourism conservation can engender both symbiosis and divergence between the actors. The probability for tourism and conservation to end in symbiosis between protection of natural areas and business development has far and wide been publicized; however, the possibility for disagreement must not be mistreated. Natural area managers and tourism conservative dealings have a mutual interest in protecting the natural environment, yet, there time and again is conflict concerning the point at which tourism endangers this conservation (Tosun, 2006: 502). There is also the challenge of bringing into play sensible ecologically sustainable tourism. There is substantial public speaking in tourism and intellectual circles in relation to conservation in the tourism industry but no sufficient ultimate guidance of how to transfer the theory into actual action (Buckley, 2010a: 33). Tourism conservation organizations as well as tour operators require realistic and reasonably doable actions regarding modern technologies, methods and measures that will allow them to suit the principles of tourism conservation and be at the front position of top practice tourism conservation. The challenge of ensuring that tourism tenders valuable understanding of environmental, cultural plus resource management principles cannot be ruled out. Interpretation has got to be more than simply conveyance of information in one direction; it should be about justification, inspiration, aggravation, exposure and thoughtful in a way that individually involves the tourist in an attractive and pleasant style (Buckley, 2010b: 155). This is easier said than done, even in head to head circumstances, but for the most part when interpreters have to depend on a non-personal approach like signage and fliers. Still this is the test of explanation, and a key objective for tourism, to develop people’s outlook and conduct towards their surroundings. In a lot of occurrences this might be the most important input of tourism and conservation, by divulging a wider cross-section of the society to the requirement to price and save from harm their natural and cultural areas, assets and legacy. Possible Measures to Minimize the Negative Impacts According to Tosun, (2006: 495), the reasons for regional tourism growth include: Swiftly growing income levels Freer cross-border travel Increased leisure time Vibrant trade and investments Government promotion measures Political steadiness in many of the region's countries Tourism contribution to economic growth of host countries Many of these factors are expected to continue meaning there is continued tourism growth at present and into the future. Time and again there is a clear line between what people regard as helpful and harmful in terms of tourism's outcomes upon Australia's physical environments. Even as doing away tourism all in all would sound out of the question, minimising its impacts and finding a balance between monetary gains and environmental conservation, is something that must be worked towards (Tosun, 2006: 500). In order to defeat the problem of wild plants, scientific studies have shown the literal location, stretch, life cycles as well as biology of numerous weed species. Using this information, the most excellent means of control should then be applied to each one species. Some control methods take account of hand weeding, motorized elimination plus the cautious use of recognized herbicides. Community tutoring for visitors to the Australian Alps too would help to prevent the increase of wild plants and individuals are encouraged to report any notice of weed invasion to the responsible people (Sekhar, 2003: 341). Books, classification photos, notice boards at tourist centres plus wayside signage all help boost consciousness of the trouble. In prospective progress, including road construction, walking tracks as well as ski slopes, should be positioned away from plant habitats in danger of extinction to play down the impending weed attack at the same time as scientific studies in progress and a proactive move by park management aspire to successfully manage and deal with the weed invaders. Lots of diverse strategies can be brought into play to manage the numbers of undomesticated animals including education programmes, transfer, trapping, gunfire and use of toxins (Tosun, 2006: 499). As regards containing large landscape fires, one point of view is that cutting down indigenous forests and paving way for domestic grazing cut the strength and rigorousness of such fires. On the other hand, scientific studies confirm that logging does not lessen fires. Intense re-growth subsequent to cutting down forests can in reality add to fuel loads (Buckley, 2010a: 78). So do domestic animals which selectively graze, as a result reducing the additional juicy, fire resistant vegetation and encourage the intensification of forested, combustible shrubs. In addition, it is imperative that the picky requirements of each natural area tourism conservation approach, in terms of required facilities, scale of involvement, group sizes, level of indulgence, ecological settings taken to be indispensable, among others, are understood and set free. As with any structure of tourism it is imperative to modify the tourism product to the client. Any mismatching of the tourism product and the tourist possibly will brutally lower the ability to deliver on the main values of tourism (Sekhar, 2003: 340). There is also the need to make certain indisputable cultural with social sustainability. Real dedication by the tourism industry to cultural considerations in terms of appreciating as well as learning from what went before and linking and operating in company with native communities, upholding their cultures and beliefs. In communities where western and traditional cultures exist jointly, the tourism industry has the prospective to make available genuine guidance on issues of cultural uprightness and better synchronization and amalgamation linking the cultures. Socially, tourism has got to be inclusive of indigenous communities by making sure that their actions are contemplative of society desires and goals, and do well to those communities wherever doable in terms of economic improvement and work formation (Buckley, 2010a: 123). Reasonable running of cultural heritage is reliant on meticulous awareness plus consideration of the numerous heritage places and items, their values and their importance. It is, for that reason, essential to appreciate the significance of heritage places and objects to the people, families or communities that bred them plus the in progress character of literary connections (Tisdell & Wilson, 2012: 100). National park managers have got to: Balance the variance between safeguarding of natural along with cultural values and between diverse cultural values Distinguish and deal with the unified nature of scores of natural and cultural values Engage the community in heritage managing Deal with the danger to the material conditions of heritage places and structures Augment the community’s perception and positive reception of heritage places Conclusion Tourism has had massive impact on Australia’s built together with physical environments. With the Australian Alps recognized as an important area for all to benefit from, tourism for conservation has become a key centre of attention. However, there have been lot of conservation concerns of the Australian Alps and other natural areas (Tisdell & Wilson, 2012: 243). These include lack of adequate financing, cooperation between the government and the private sectors, wild plants and feral animals, fires and appreciation of the environmental, cultural and heritage values of natural area tourism amid increasing tourism demand. In order to achieve a better balance between tourism and conservation of the Australian Alps, it is imperative to appreciate the wealth of knowledge from scientific research as well as the full involvement of indigenous communities (Sekhar, 2003: 346). References Buckley, R.C., 2010a, Conservation Tourism, Wallingford, CAB International Buckley, R.C., 2010b, Safaris can help conservation, Nature 467: 1047 Sekhar, N. U., 2003, Local people’s attitude towards conservation and wildlife tourism around Sariska Tiger Reserve, India, Journal of Environmental Management, 69: 339-347 Tisdell, C. and Wilson, C., 2012, Nature-Based Tourism and Conservation: New Economic Insights and Case Studies, Edward Elgar Publishing Tosun, C., 2006, Expected nature of community participation in tourism development, Journal of Tourism Management, 27: 493-504 Read More