ECO- TOURISM or ECO-EXPLOITATION?
By Selomi Garnaik
Few days back, I was just scrolling through my social media handle, and came across some captivating pictures of ecotourists spots in India. I went ahead to explore more about those places, and then came across a bunch of disheartening reviews of those places. Some of them have complained about the places being over-crowed and made filthy by the tourists, while some others complained about the how the tourists are causing discomfort for the species inhabiting therein and the local communities being non-cooperative to the tourists. All of this raised several questions in my head.
‘Sustainability is no longer about doing less harm, it is about doing more good’ (Jochen Zeitz). And thus, environmental awareness and consciousness in the present times is understood in terms of travelling to natural areas that conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people. The idea of visiting and experiencing high- quality natural environment and also protecting them from harmful impacts is now an acceptable and marketable one. But, the question remains if, eco-tourism has been really able to meet its objective of balancing economic development with environmental conservation? or has it become a mere marketing tool to generate revenue?
Although, the advertisement campaigns show us a rosy picture of the ecotourists’ sites, but their remains a dark side to the story. No doubt eco-tourism has substantially contributed for building cultural as well as environmental awareness and generate good amount of revenue for conservation projects. However, the commercial factor of eco-tourism has in some ways has over shadowed the real intention to ensure and promote environmental conservation. Extensive eco-tourism may generate profits for the industry, but this has certainly taken a toll on the rich natural environment and the community residing therein.
THREAT TO THE ENVIRONMENT:
It is sometimes over-looked that eco-tourism is a highly consumer-centered activity, and that environmental conservation is only used as a means to further the economic growth. Eco-tourism caters mostly to the urbanized societies and the ‘new middle class ‘alternative lifestyles’. In the search of ‘untouched places’, many new destinations have opened up thus, the human interference in natural environments is now wide-spread. Mega resorts, luxury hotels, shopping centers, golf course are increasingly established in nature reserves in the name of eco-tourism. Such projects, build completely artificial landscapes, tending to irretrievably wipe-out plant and wildlife species and disturb the eco-system. Building more amenities, businesses and accommodation within the tourists’ destinations, damages and destroys the habitat. By damaging the local environment, there is increased pressure on the native species.
As rightly pointed out by Zhou et. al in their study in China, the physical development of protected areas infrastructure creates the biggest concern for the conservation status of some species in China. They also identified that, some species have different threshold values of tolerance to human disturbance, and that creates disproportionate impact on the most sensitive species. The greater the demand placed upon protected areas, the greater the challenge to balance ecosystem integrity against recreational objectives.
The tourists go around these green locations in personal vehicles, rather than opting more cycling or other pool transport system. This adds up to the burden of air pollution in these rich natural destinations. Also, hiking, water rafting, and other adventurous sports can have devastating effects on the environment and wildlife. While, vacation should be an enjoyable and memorable experience, the environment should not get exploited for a stellar photo album.
THREAT TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES:
Eco-tourism claims that, it preserves and enhances the local cultures. However, this does not happen. The ‘demonstration effect’ is where the local patterns of consumption change to imitate those of the tourists and as a result this erodes the authenticity of the local community- their culture, food, traditions, architecture, dress and religion. The tribals are the worst affected as they live close to the nature, and are the ones who host these tourists. Although through eco-tourism tribals have been able to improve their financial condition but on the other hand, have lost their traditional way of life and are sometimes used as a mere tool of attractions to enable tourists to get traditional photos of native people.
Local communities have also failed to meet the infrastructural demands of eco-tourism. For example, lack of sanitation facilities and inadequate garbage management can lead to disposal of sewage in the rivers, resulting in the contamination of wildlife and people using water from it, which can adversely affect their health. A study conducted in eco-tourism destinations such as Ghalegaun and Golaghat of Nepal reveals that, the increase in the number of visitors have led to an increase in the prices of basic goods and huge problems of solid waste management have come up in those areas.
Eco-tourism policies are often put in place, without consulting or taking a consensus from the communities surrounding these areas. If communities are not involved, and do not receive direct benefits, they compete with the industry for natural resources. And this may, increase the pressure on the natural environment and lead to over-exploitation.
Some of the scholars also argue that local people do not necessarily benefit from eco-tourism. Tourism related employment is just over- exaggerated; the locals are left with low-paying service jobs such as tour-guides, food and souvenir vendors etc. In addition to that, they are not assured year-round employment and are laid off in off-seasons. Most money out of tourism is made by foreign airlines, tourism operators and developers and the local people still continue to live under poor conditions.
Looking at the above facts, the question that pops up is — Why does this happen and why are the government authorities so tolerant to this? Although there are endless reasons with regard to why the reality is so disheartening but, one of the reasons is the gross ‘mismanagement’. While governments are typically entrusted with the administration and enforcement of environmental protection, they often lack the commitment or capability to manage ecotourism sites effectively. Private management of tourism sites offers an alternative to the cost of regulation and deficiency of government agencies. The private have a self-interest in revenue generation and less concerned with environment conservation. Regulations for environmental protection may be vaguely defined, costly to implement, hard to enforce and uncertain in effectiveness.
As there are always two sides to every coin, eco-tourism too has its own shortcomings. Eco-tourism as a tool of revenue generation has been very profitable, but on the other hand its environmental benefits are sometimes over-exaggerated in the media advertisements. A lot of investments are put into these projects without local consent and support, despite the fact that they often threaten local cultures, economies and natural resource bases. Critics regard eco-tourism as an ‘ECO-FAÇADE’, a tactic to conceal the mainstream tourism industry consumptive and exploitative practices by greening it. They also argue that, eco- tourism channels out resources from other projects that could potentially contribute to more sustainable and realistic solutions to environmental problems. Eco-tourism a beneficial strategy for conservation and development but there is a need to balance its economic goals with environmental and social objectives by engaging more with local communities.
