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THE EASY PART IS OVER The first World Ecotourism Summit, is already behind us.
Organized by UNEP and the World Tourism Organization, the four-day summit was
attended by 1,200 delegates from 133 countries. In the words of UNEP Tourism
Program Coordinator, Oliver Hillel "it signaled that ecotourism, in
practice, can contribute to poverty alleviation and environmental
protection". In the Summit declaration
, called the Québec Declaration on Ecotourism, that will be
presented later this year at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in
Johannesburg, we find a mostly sensible, if rather harmless wish-list containing
propositions
about changes that need to be made by all sides involved. What will however prevent both
the Quebec and Johannesburg events from going down in
history as little more than talking shops, or even worse talking shops
overshadowed by the World Cup? Nothing less than genuine
political will, by governments, to first of all read
(!)
and then implement the summit recommendations.
Recommendations are usually agreed in the form of international treaties,
signed by governments, ratified by national parliaments and then either enforced or
ignored on the ground. So
is
it time for an International Ecotourism / Sustainable Tourism Treaty? Unfortunately
not! The simple explanation is that there is no political will by governments to
impose at this point in time, regulations with teeth, on the tourism conglomerates, airlines, hotel
chains and mass tour operators that dominate the international tourism
industry. Government-imposed regulations and constraints are out of fashion, especially now that there is
this international boogie that even in the mind of the most unabashed supporters
of the invisible hand of the market, justifies supporting airline monopolies and
handouts to conglomerates. And which source-country government would dare upset the
magic, cheap-holiday formula which keeps its citizens happy for the other 11 months
of the year? At the same time destination country governments compete between themselves, who will
sell their country faster, and cheaper to the tourism giants, who will sell publicly
owned tourism assets to the highest bidder, who has the most smiling and
hospitable "locals" and most virgin beaches and now forests to
"package" and offer to the tourism masses, who will hire the best
advertisers to create the best illusion and sweep under the carpet all sorts of
dirty linen such as human rights abuses, displacements, social exclusion,
pollution. All in the name of "modernisation",
but really for profit by shady apparatchiks in key posts. This folly of a policy
is sold as solving pressing short term cash-flow problems, but it is really a
perpetual mortgage with
huge interest which will accelerate indebtedness and inequality
in and between countries through dependency on ever-growing tourism
monopolies. It takes real leaders to be able to convince their
people of the importance of working for long-time prosperity, and of saying no
to patronage, but the world supply of leaders runs a huge deficit at the moment. Don't wait for them though, YOU, we, they, we can all start implementing today the
summit recommendations,
and the ecotourism principles by ourselves, while travelling and at home ! And if
the followers lead, the leaders will follow ! And let big brother call it
"self-regulation" ! Cum Grano Salis
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