Ecolodge Membership Strengthens

First of all we would like to thank two quality members:

Apani Dhani Lodge of India, that renewed their Ecolodge Membership

and

Koshi Camp of Nepal that have successfully completed their Trial Membership and now are a full Ecolodge Member.

We also warmly welcome the following new Ecolodge Trial Members:

Click on the links to visit them, virtually and then literally!

ECOCLUB Co-sponsors Community Tourism Conference
We are co-sponsoring and participating in a March 2002 conference organised by Ron Mader and Planeta.com on Community Tourism. ECOCLUB Members are most welcome to register and participate. Click here for more information

ECOCLUB Community Livens up !
We are very excited because more and more members find their way to the ECOCLUB Community. and use it to find information and network with other Members. Remember, you may subscribe to one or more of the Community's Forum, so as to receive a notification each time a new posting, or a reply to your posting occurs. If you are a registered member, you also have access to a personal inbox where other members can send you private messages. Plus, you can also publish and update your profile.

We have selected below two interesting postings from the Student Forum:

"Ecotourism on Farms" 
Posted by stevengillespie
Message URL: http://www.ecoclub.com/forum/DCForumID13/27.html

Greetings ecotourism colleagues, My name is Steve Gillespie. I'm currently doing a PhD at Glasgow University (Scotland) in 'ecotourism as a diversification strategy in farming communities'. The research aims to assess the success of ecotourism on farms and identify how farms can use ecotourism to increase resilience. My research is based on encouraging ecotourism in a rural region of Scotland called Dumfries and Galloway. Does anybody know of any studies of ecotourism on farms, perhaps in western Europe or on a similar latitude to Scotland where similar environmental conditions or farming practices prevail? Dumfries and Galloway is 25% forestry and 70% agriculture with a population of 140,000. Agriculture within the region consists of a mixture of crops, sheep and cattle farming. Any help would be most welcome! All the Best, Steve

"Importance of eco-tourism for sustainable management of natural resources"
Posted by pronab
Message URL: http://www.ecoclub.com/forum/DCForumID13/28.html

Hello everybody ! I Mr Pranab J P Master in Environment Sciences form Bharti Vidyapeeth Institute on Environment Education & Research, Pune, India. Presently working on Sustainable management of Natural resources leading to the PhD at Dept of Business Administration under University of Tezpur, Assam, India. Now I am seeking your expert comment as well as suggestions on my work and also looking for further information and some reference material, specially research papers previously done on this topic. So I would like to request you to kindly help me in this regard. Details of the study is as follows : 
AIM : Sustainable management of natural resources with a special reference to eco-tourism. 
STUDY AREA : Assam in particular
OBJECTIVES:
1. Study of economic potency of natural resources in Assam area.
2. Role of eco-tourism in socio-economic development of the area.
3. How eco-tourism can help in sustain the natural resources and also can provide a sustainable livelihood to the local community.
4. How eco-tourism can be best utilized to promote public awareness for the conservation of natural resources including
biodiversity. Thanking you, With warm regards. PRANAB J P

TRAVEL AND WIN
To encourage bookings at all our Member Ecolodges, each and every one of which deserves your fullest support, especially in these troubled times, we are offering a surprise gift to anyone that books through ECOCLUB.com and then stays at an Ecolodge Member. When you return, simply contact us to claim your gift.
Details of this offer at http://ecoclub.com/gift.html

Susan, a Member from Iowa, USA claimed her surprise gift, by sending us this Ecolodge Report: "We enjoyed our stay in Hana very much. It was very peaceful and beautiful, I hope we can go back soon. The drive there was an experience in itself and something to be remembered always. It was interesting to learn about the eco-system and efforts to preserve it."