Ecotourism too harms environment

The idea is to be friendly to the environment; but traveling to the far-off ecotourism spots produces greenhouse gases.

22 May, 2007

Ecotourism could be as damaging to the environment as traditional tourism owing to the greenhouse gases that vacationers help generate when they travel to remote, pristine places.

The damage caused to the environment by ecotourism has been the focus of discussions at the Global Ecotourism Conference held in Oslo, Norway, on May 14-16, 2007. At the three-day gathering, ecotourism officials strived to plan the future of the ecotourism industry, the success of which threatens to become its own undoing.

There is no other industry that has more to gain or to lose from climate change, says Alexi Huntley. Incidentally, the Costa Rica-based Nature Air, owned by Alexi Huntley, calls itself the first airline with zero net carbon dioxide emissions because of investments in projects such as reforestation to help keep the air clean.

Ecotourism – which mainly involves travelling to pristine areas meant to avoid the damaging impact of traditional tourism – is gaining in popularity, according to The International Ecotourism Society.

Ecotourism, says the International Ecotourism Society, is growing at around three times the rate of the traditional tourism industry as a whole.

Now experts on the travel business are concerned that the extensive travel often required to reach virgin places produces greenhouses gases that harms climate and causes other environmental damage. That, in turn, could harm the lush national parks and small, exotic islands and such other locales that attract those fascinated by pristine nature.

A statement adopted at the Oslo said the ecotourism industry needs to focus on sustainable tourism “that entails responsible travel to natural areas and which conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people.”

According to Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoey, who opened the conference, “long-distance travel, especially air travel, is a challenge to all of us. We know that it has serious impacts on the climate.”

Wolfgang Strasdas, professor of ecotourism at the German University of Applied Sciences in Eberswalde, said it would be easy to eliminate trips to exotic destinations but that would spell disaster for poor regions and countries that depend on tourism to sustain their economy.