ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF ECOTOURISM*
Ralf Buckley
Introduction
Eco-tourism is a rapidly developing new forms of tourism, the tourism industry is currently a hot topic. Eco-tourism as a sustainable development of tourism in practice forms, is considered the first to achieve sustainable tourism development, the inevitable choice, and in the context of universal importance to the world and the rapid development and will be 21 international tourism mainstream. Thus, the real meaning of eco-tourism must be studied in light of laws and regulations and management measures for tourists and eco-tourism has become a major ecological education in schools. In order to protect our natural landscape and cultural heritage so that the development of green tourism as a sustainable industry.
Connotation of Eco-tourism
Eco-tourism is a thoroughly new type of traveling which comes into being and is advocated due to the influence that traveling has on the environment.The concept of earlier eco-tourism refers to the idea of “returning to nature ” and “going back to plainness ” in tourism,which stresses the exploitation of natural sightings in tourism development. In recent years,Eco-tourism is defined by International Eco-tourism Society as traveling with double responsibilities of reserving natural environment and the life of local people.What the Eco-tourism stresses is the protection of natural sightings, and it can be called sustainable traveling. Frangialli,General Secretary of World Tourism Organization of UN,pointed out in the world Eco-tourism summit, “Eco-tourism and its sustainable development bear imminent tasks in three aspects: economically,stimulate the economy and cut down the number of the poor; socially,create jobs for the vulnerable groups; environmentally, provide necessary financial report for the protection of natural and cultural resources. All those involved in Eco-tourism should work with joint effort for the realization of the three objectives. ” Eco-tourism has a lot in common with sustainable development, to be specific.The objective of the former is to realize the latter.
Environmental Impacts of Eco-tourism
Ecotourism is widely touted for its positive impacts, actual or potential, for communities and conservation as well as for companies and consumers. In arguing for access to protected areas, for example, tourism lobbyists and ecotourism operators commonly argue not only that they will take steps to minimize their environmental impacts, but that ecotourism also generates benefits. However, protected areas also provide very significant benefits for the tourism industry.
Every year more of the planet's natural resources are consumed or contaminated by its human population. Human survival needs drinkable water, breathable air and usable biological diversity. Natural ecosystems are the world's primary reservoirs for each of these. Ecosystems worldwide have been modified by human activities to various degrees. Areas of near-pristine wilderness and other little-modified environments are continually reduced. Areas of nearly completely modified environments, such as city centres, garbage dumps, mines and monocultures, continue to expand. The much larger areas with significant but not total modification, such as rural residential, broadacre pastoral and logged native forests are also continuing to expand, and to encroach on the least-modified areas. To arrest
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and reverse these trends will only be possible with large-scale and far-reaching changes in human social structures and human behaviour. However,without such changes in the short term,far larger disruptions will be forced upon us.
The single most critical component of any long-term strategy for sustainability, and indeed human survival, it hence to maintain representative areas of the world's various ecosystems in a reasonably intact and functional state. This, of course, is the principal aim of the global system of protected areas, including World Heritage Areas, Biosphere Reserves, national parks and other conservation areas. However, on their own, parks are not enough to prevent continued loss of biological diversity: first, because they are too small and not fully representative; and, secondly, because they are not fully protected. Currently, there are other areas of public and private lands outside the protected area system, which contribute significantly to conservation of biodiversity and air and water quality. There include:polar, high montane, desert and marine ecosystems where there are few people; forests,woodlands and rangelands which are used for timber and livestock production but which none the less retain much of their original character function and biological diversity; and tribal and community lands where human lifestyles do not involve intensive modification to the natural environment.
As human population and resource consumption continue to grow, however, all these unprotected areas are subject to increasing exploitation and modification, as logging ,agricultural clearance and similar impacts accelerate. In particular, some of these areas are contiguous with conservation reserves,and increasing population pressures are leading to land clearance and settlement right up to reserve boundaries, and sometimes encroachment within reserves themselves. In areas where protected area boundaries are not well defined or patrolled on the ground, such encroachment may commonly include poaching,illegal harvesting, small-scale settlement and sometimes military manoeuvres. However, even in areas where national park boundaries are well established and enforced, encroachments can still occur.In some cases, relevant legislation may allow certain classes of development outside park boundaries can increase the pressure of weeds, pathogens, feral animals, water pollution and fire sources around the perimeter of the the protected area, and these can the spread inside the protected area without further human intervention.
Conservation of representative ecosystems can therefore be improved either by adding to the protected area estate, by improving the effectiveness of protection in existing reserves, or by reducing modification to land outside reserves so as to improve its conservation value.
In purely financial terms,it would be within the scope of the world economy for richer governments and corporations simply to buy all the remaining areas of high conservation value worldwide at current market prices,and declare them as protected areas.However, for many political reasons,this is very unlikely to happen.Many protected area management agencies don't have enough money to manage their existing estate,let alone add to it.The total area of national parks and similar reserves worldwide has continued to grow slowly,and funding for some protected are management agencies has increased significantly over recent years.However,on a global scale,public protected areas are increasingly short of funds.At the same time,they are subject to increasing human pressures,both from around outside their borders,and from increasing visitor numbers and expectations.As a result,only the largest and most remote protected areas can simply be set aside to survive on their own.Most require continued management action to control ongoing conservation threats;and these management actions require operational funding.
Note that whereas a significant component of this funding is required for managing visitors,most parks agencies cannot solve funding shortfalls simply by closing their gates and keeping visitors out,for basic conservation management,including control of fire,feral 2
animals and weeds.Most parks don't have gates:and if there are no rangers to stop them,people will continue to enter and exploit protected areas,legally or not.
In addition,few parks agencies have a legal mandate to close parks to the public completely,except in very unusual circumstances;though they generally do have the power to impose a wide variety of specific restrictions.Even where the legal mandate exists, e.g. to limit numbers or ban particular historical uses,such as horse-riding or snowmobiles,it can be difficult for parks agencies to impose such restrictions in practice,unless they first muster strong political support from groups who favour conservation and low-impact recreation only.In addition, although the legal and financial systems that support parks and their management agencies can survive short-term political opposition,laws and budgets are themselves human social constructs and need continued political support to survive in the longer term. Parks agencies therefore need to maintain political constituencies who the greater the external pressures they face,the more such support is needed.
Such political support may derive from four major groups,namely those who support protected areas for:existence values,conservation and global ecosystem services;local ecosystem services such as drinking water supplies;individual recreational opportunities;and commercial opportunities,such as tourism.The first two of these groups have little or no negative impact on specific protected areas.However,the former provide rather diffuse and generalized support,rarely linked to marginal electorates or practical powerbrokers.The second is relevant only for a limited number of protected areas,such as those associated with municipal water catchments.
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