Eco tourism – ask the locals
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By Sarah Sabaratnam New Straits Times 3 March, 2004
WHEN the concept of eco-tourism was introduced in the late 1980s, it had the dual objective
of alleviating poverty among local communities while promoting biodiversity conservation.
Yet, two decades later, there are very few examples where these objectives have been met.
In a discussion on "Sustainable community-led eco-tourism" at the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Malaysia this week, participants felt that although eco-tourism could be of benefit to local communities, the commercialisation of it by big tour operators has led to its downfall. In fact businesses have hijacked the whole concept for their own economic gains.
Once business comes in, local people no longer stand a chance at benefiting from eco-tourism — so much for poverty alleviation.
"Eco-tourism is an important economic opportunity for indigenous peoples and local communities, but it has to be from the ground up as opposed to the top-down approach," says Arthur Manuel, spokesperson for the Indigenous Network on Economies and Trade.
This means it should be by the people and for the people.
The most successful eco-tourism models are the ones where the community decides how the project should be carried out and developed. "We decide how to get support, who to get support from. We sit together as a community to work out how the eco-tourism project should be developed," says Mohd Hashim Abdul Hamid, from Sabah's Lower Kinabatangan Model Ecologically Sustainable Community Tourism project. The result of such an approach? "The income goes directly to the community and in our experience, since we started the project three years ago, our income has increased." Businesses, on the other hand, turn people into commodities.
Increasingly, local people and especially the indigenous people and their territories are being promoted as part of the attraction — and without their knowledge.
"My community resents being promoted as part of tourism without our prior informed consent," says Benson Venegas, from the Talamanca Initiative, in Costa Rica.
Participants gave examples of how their pictures were promoted in brochures, and their communal lands used as tourist attractions, without their permission.
Sometimes local people are asked to be part of an eco-tourism project, but they don't have a say as to which parts of their culture, or of themselves, they are willing to present to tourists.
"We are being forced into tourism that is disrespectful," says Ana Lucy Bengochea, from Honduras.
"They want to show us as dancing monsters. We don't want this," she said.
Rukmini Paata Toheka, head of the Organisation for Ngata Toro Customary Woman (OPANT) of Indonesia, reiterated this point.
"Eco-tourism should be on our terms. It should respect the traditions and cultures of the community being visited. It should meet local needs." She warned that eco-tourism should always be a supplementary income provider, and not the only income provider for communities, given its vulnerable nature. "It is part of our economy, not the only economy we rely on." Another participant, from Honduras, called on governments to ensure that eco-tourism is a regulated industry that respects local people and protects biodiversity through legislation.
He asked that local communities involved in eco-tourism projects to be given ownership. "We decide how we want to do it. It should be a voluntary process. We decide what we want to show, and which parts of our culture we want to show." Nelson Lemus Ceuz, from Colombia, felt compelled to add: "We want respect, privacy. We don't want a capitalism model, but something that empowers us, and is nature based."
Guidelines may not reflect concerns
IS eco-tourism dead? Can there be "sustainable" tourism? These are among many questions being asked at the Seventh Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, which Malaysia is currently hosting.
The proposed Guidelines on Biodiversity and Tourism Development are up for discussion this week and some parties are concerned.
"The history and process by which the guidelines were prepared was a rushed initiative," says Anita Pleumarom, from the Tourism Investigation and Monitoring Team.
Few open discussions took place. Much of the text for the guidelines was prepared behind the scenes without much input from delegates.
The resulting document does not reflect the existing concerns about tourism and especially eco-tourism.
"Tourism can have a bad impact on local people and on the environment, especially if it is controlled by private entities." Which is why some quarters would prefer if the guidelines were legally binding rather than voluntary.
"Only then can there be greater accountability by private corporations," says Pleumarom.
Eco-tourism was started as an agent to benefit local people and to protect biodiversity.
Unfortunately, eco-tourism takes people off the beaten track and into previously untouched biodiversity rich areas. The result: damage to biodiversity hotspots.
When Umphang, an eco-tourism destination near the Thai-Myanmar border became famous, someone had the bright idea to develop air routes into the pristine area.
"It is now experiencing problems with overdevelopment," says Pleumarom who has focused most of her work in Thailand.
"Current enforcement in most countries is not enough to protect such areas from damage to biodiversity." The guidelines should then acknowledge that these are real concerns that must be addressed, but they do not.
There is also the threat of bio-prospecting and thus bio-piracy in biodiversity-rich areas accessible by tourists.
"In Vietnam, a British NGO went into protected areas and collected samples for three months. They took some species back to England. It is still not clear what was done with the species." The guidelines do not address the need for appropriate mechanisms to deal with these threats.
Another concern, she says, is that the guidelines were prepared in 2001 but much has happened since then.
"Sept11 changed a lot of things and the business of eco-tourism was foremost among them," she says.
Aside from this, fears of more terrorist attacks, the war in Iraq and the SARS outbreak have proven that tourism is a very economically vulnerable industry.
The local people who were supposed to have benefited from eco-tourism found themselves in dire straits. Even the tourism giants suffered.
"It is not a reliable economic growth industry. Some businesses have actually acknowledged its fickle nature, especially those who were hard hit after 9/11." There are many risks involved, and the guidelines should acknowledge this, says Pleumarom, instead of promoting tourism as though it is a reliable industry.
She calls on delegates to take a step back to review the guidelines, taking into account the developments internationally over the last few years, before making any decision on the guidelines.
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World Islamic Tourism Mart / Malaysia
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