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Tourists in the Amazon. (Photo by R. Butler)
ECOTOURISM
Ecotourism is rapidly becoming a leading way for developing countries to bring in foreign revenue by preserving
their rainforests. Eco-tourists pay to see a country's natural beauty, not the destruction caused by short-run exploitation. Money spent directly in the local economy helps give economic value to forest preservation. The locals, along with
the government, can see the importance of keeping the forest intact. Most tourists are willing to pay directly for preservation in the forms
of park entrance fees and donations.
Ecotourism can provide local people with economic assistance by offering them employment opportunities as wildlife
guides and rangers for parks, and as workers in the service force of hotels and lodges. This employment provides
a relatively even flow of income often higher than they would receive from selling their marginal, small-scale
agricultural crops at market. With eco-tourism, income is earned from preserving the ecosystem, and forest clearing
is discouraged because it is detrimental to income. Similarly, ecotourism can reduce the need for poaching and
hunting of forest animals for income. For example, in West Africa, former poachers are hired as park rangers since
they have intimate knowledge of local animal wildlife. Ecotourism also provides the opportunity for intellectual advancement for locals educated as wildlife guides. With an education, their children will have a better chance
of breaking out of their subsistence lifestyle and improving their livelihood. Finally, local communities can earn
supplementary income from the fabrication of handicrafts.
While ecotourism is promising, it must be carefully developed and well planned, because short-term development can doom rainforests just as logging has, with extensive damage to the environment. Several countries, including Costa Rica and Malaysia, are facing adverse effects from tourism (it can no longer be considered "eco"-tourism). Costa Rica is one of the best examples of a tropical country developing its ecotourism potential to its fullest. Every year, hundreds of thousands of foreigners visit Costa Rica's many national parks, making tourism the country's third largest industry behind coffee and bananas. However, some of the parks are being overwhelmed by the mass numbers of tourists and are consequently losing species which seek out areas away from noisy, intrusive humans. Meanwhile, in the Bornean parts of Malaysia, Sabah, and Sarawak, environmentalists are concerned over extensive new development for tourism. Construction requires locally cut wood, resulting in deforestation, while pollution and sewage are a problem in otherwise pristine environments. A mass inflow of tourists can also be damaging to forest trails and frightening to wildlife.
To be sustainable, ecotourism requires careful planning and strict guidelines; short-term development can doom
forests as easily as unsustainable logging. Too many people, inadequate facilities, and poor park management can spell
the end for the "eco" in ecotourism. Eco-tourism, when carried out in a sustainable fashion, can be very
beneficial to local people, the economy, and the environment. It should not be restricted to legally protected
areas, but should also be promoted in natural areas that lack protection. The presence of tourists, when properly managed, protects the area from over-exploitive activities.
Coup leaders sell out Madagascar's forests, people
(01/27/2010) Madagascar is renowned for its biological richness. Located off the eastern coast of southern Africa and slightly larger than California, the island has an eclectic collection of plants and animals, more than 80 percent of which are found nowhere else in the world. But Madagascar's biological bounty has been under siege for nearly a year in the aftermath of a political crisis which saw its president chased into exile at gunpoint; a collapse in its civil service, including its park management system; and evaporation of donor funds which provide half the government's annual budget. In the absence of governance, organized gangs ransacked the island's biological treasures, including precious hardwoods and endangered lemurs from protected rainforests, and frightened away tourists, who provide a critical economic incentive for conservation. Now, as the coup leaders take an increasingly active role in the plunder as a means to finance an upcoming election they hope will legitimize their power grab, the question becomes whether Madagascar’s once highly regarded conservation system can be restored and maintained.
Palm oil both a leading threat to orangutans and a key source of jobs in Sumatra
(09/24/2009) Of the world's two species of orangutan, a great ape that shares 96 percent of man's genetic makeup, the Sumatran orangutan is considerably more endangered than its cousin in Borneo. Today there are believed to be fewer than 7,000 Sumatran orangutans in the wild, a consequence of the wildlife trade, hunting, and accelerating destruction of their native forest habitat by loggers, small-scale farmers, and agribusiness. Gunung Leuser National Park in North Sumatra is one of the last strongholds for the species, serving as a refuge among paper pulp concessions and rubber and oil palm plantations. While orangutans are relatively well protected in areas around tourist centers, they are affected by poorly regulated interactions with tourists, which have increased the risk of disease and resulted in high mortality rates among infants near tourist centers like Bukit Lawang. Further, orangutans that range outside the park or live in remote areas or on its margins face conflicts with developers, including loggers, who may or may not know about the existence of the park, and plantation workers, who may kill any orangutans they encounter in the fields. Working to improve the fate of orangutans that find their way into plantations and unprotected community areas is the Orangutan Information Center (OIC), a local NGO that collaborates with the Sumatran Orangutan Society (SOS).
New rainforest reserve in Congo benefits bonobos and locals
(05/25/2009) A partnership between local villages and conservation groups, headed up by the Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI), has led to the creation of a new 1,847 square mile (4,875 square kilometer) reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The reserve will save some of the region’s last pristine forests: ensuring the survival of the embattled bonobo—the least-known of the world’s four great ape species—and protecting a wide variety of biodiversity from the Congo peacock to the dwarf crocodile. However, the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve is worth attention for another reason: every step of its creation—from biological surveys to reserve management—has been run by the local Congolese NGO and villages of Kokolopori.
