Posted by: Megan Epler Wood
on Nov 27, 2011
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In September 2011, the Planeterra Foundation released an important video on the role of tourism in developing countries.
In the video you will learn that tourism support 10% of all economic activity on the planet. It supports 8% of all global employment, and 1/3 of all commercial exports in the world.
Please see this video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5kLmcqHA_g
Posted by: Megan Epler Wood
on Nov 12, 2011
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In the last 6 months, Planeterra Foundation has been very busy developing new projects in Cusco and Macchu Picchu, and other valleys near the Inca Trail, the Galapagos Islands, Thailand, Kenya, Guatemala and soon Chiapas, Mexico!
Our website is presently being revised, but our blog is now becoming more active on projects with voices of all of our project managers represented!
Check out the first in the series, which I wrote on Chiapas. Learn how orchids of Chiapas may become a valuable new value added product for Planettera to support conservation of the rain forest and to assist local people.
Posted by: Megan Epler Wood
on Aug 22, 2011
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Environmental Management of International Tourism Development class E-118 attracts top authorities.
Registration is continuing for this unique course which provides access on-line to cutting edge speakers in a small class setting. http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k81368
Houshang Esmaili, Senior Engineer at San Francisco Airport will present on achieving carbon neutrality without off-site offsets. He will discuss the airport's waste and water management protocols, which are the most advanced in the U.S.
Posted by: Megan Epler Wood
on Jul 20, 2011
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Harvard Extension Environmental Management of International Tourism Development Course Breaks Ground with Student Research and Mapping Tool
Sustainable tourism expert, Megan Epler Wood, will again teach the Environmental Management of International Tourism Development as part of Harvard Extension’s Sustainability and Environmental Management program. Now in its second year, the course has received top reviews from students and Epler Wood received a commendation for excellence in teaching from the Dean of Harvard Extension for the 2010 course.
This year students will utilize Harvard’s WorldMap digital mapping program to begin to document environmental management issues for tourism worldwide. Epler Wood’s students will be the first to map international tourism impacts on a global scale using the new mapping tool developed by Harvard’s experts at the Center for Geographic Analysis. Special training on using WorldMap will be included in the course curriculum.
Posted by: Megan Epler Wood
on Jul 14, 2011
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Planeterra, an international non-profit organization based in Toronto, Canada is accelerating its capacity to support a growing number of sustainable development projects worldwide, in places where Gap Adventures and its travel industry partners operate adventure and cultural tours.
Founded in 2003 by Gap Adventures’ owner and founder, Bruce Poon Tip, Planeterra intends to break new ground by backing long-term solutions in key travel destinations worldwide. By leveraging small-scale businesses, creating ecosystem-wide solutions, and supporting essential human needs, Planeterra puts the people and places travelers visit at the center of its agenda.
Posted by: Megan Epler Wood
on May 07, 2010
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Business Pioneers Forge Green Tourism Models
Ecotourism 20 Years Ago
Ecotourism entrepreneurs grafted their own interest in wildlife and ecology to the growing market for specialty travel, and tapped a client base that was ready to see the world’s last unmolested ecosystems. These pioneers carried binoculars, watched birds as second nature, and were more likely to be found crawling on the ground to observe insects and mushrooms than scaling dramatic peaks.
Posted by: Megan Epler Wood
on Apr 08, 2010
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April 8, 2010 - Burlington, VT USA
Megan Epler Wood, the founder of The International Ecotourism Society (TIES), is initiating a new short-course, Global Sustainable Ecotourism Development, at the University of Vermont, July 12-16, 2010. This course is being launched in honor of the 20th anniversary of TIES. In the past 20 years, ecotourism has emerged as one of the most dynamic and discussed tools for sustainable development. In the last 10 years, the field has been enriched by a vast array of disciplines, particularly economic development and social/pro-poor development techniques. Its broad and successful application as a rural economic and sustainable development tool is based on a set of methodologies that all students and development practitioners require to be successful.
This course will look at ecotourism as a business model first and foremost, which requires a complex series of business approaches to deliver sustainable development benefits. It will review the big picture of tourism development impacts and strategies to deliver high quality, low impact results. It will teach a holistic approach to planning and tourism development that reviews governments’ and international donors’ role in rural land development, stressing bioregional planning as a key tool to move rural areas into a more thorough process for sustainable regional development. Students attending Global Sustainable Ecotourism Development will learn new, more sensitive field based approaches that rely on a broader set of academic expertise and disciplines than associated with the topic in the past. The course will help students to understand how tourism can play a broader role in sustainable development, and help transition economies away from destructive development practices
Posted by: Megan Epler Wood
on Apr 07, 2010
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Ecotourism Society Launched in 1990 to Assist Parks
Ecotourism 20 Years Ago
In 1989, hundreds of thousands of acres were being added to park systems to conserve ecosystems around the world. International conservation was going into high gear, driven by the rude fact that development was accelerating in the most vulnerable and biodiverse regions of the planet. Conservationists were talking more about preserving the Amazonian rain forest, and less about “saving the panda.”
As conservation objectives were being ramped up, parks had jumped from being places for family recreation to becoming a global tool to preserve the last “great” endangered places. Costa Rica was winning awards for conserving the highest percentage of park land in the world. But, the large majority of new protected areas worldwide were simply lines delineated on maps. These under protected areas and fledgling parks became known as paper parks.
While conservationists were thinking big, there was, unfortunately, little funding on the ground. There was vision, and conservationists were quick to start raising funds to make these fledgling parks real. But national budgets were short and economic resources within park agencies exceedingly tight. Economic activity in these biodiverse zones was usually ranching, forestry and mining, or subsistence agriculture; none of which were park friendly.
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