Interview: Brad Nahill, Director & Co-founder, SEE Turtles

Details: Written by ecoclub.com; Published: 05 July 2017; Hits: 577

"We haven’t seen a lot of evidence that there is a major connection between the illegal trade of turtle products and drug traffickers, though it is possible. The situation really depends on the country, we have seen places where enforcement seems to be working fairly well, such as in Belize and parts of Costa Rica, and other places where there doesn’t seem to be any enforcement like in Nicaragua especially"

Brad Nahill is the Director & Co-founder of SEE Turtles. He has worked in sea turtle conservation, ecotourism, and environmental education for 15 years with organisations including Ocean Conservancy, Rare, Asociacion ANAI (Costa Rica), and the Academy of Natural Sciences (Philadelphia). He has also consulted for several ecotourism companies and non-profits, including EcoTeach and Costa Rican Adventures. Mr Nahill is a co-author of the Worldwide Travel Guide to Sea Turtles, Chair of the Awards Committee of the International Sea Turtle Society, and has authored several book chapters, blogs, and abstracts on turtle conservation and ecotourism, and has presented at major travel conferences and sea turtle symposia. Brad Nahill has a B.S. in Environmental Economics from Penn State University and taught a class on Ecotourism at Mount Hood Community College.

Interview: Florian Kaefer, Sustainability Leaders Project & The Place Brand Observer

Details: Written by ecoclub.com; Published: 04 July 2017; Hits: 398

"The real change in the next years regarding tourism sustainability is going to happen at the destination level. Destinations are the ones most affected by the not so pretty consequences of more and more tourist arrivals"

Dr Florian Kaefer is the Founder and Editor of The Place Brand Observer and the Sustainability Leaders Project, based in Girona near Barcelona, Spain. He holds a PhD in Management Communication from the University of Waikato, New Zealand and an MSc in Sustainable Development from the University of Exeter, UK. As a researcher, journalist and entrepreneur he is "on a quest to demystify Place Branding" and to connect academics with practitioners. His main interests are in the reputation and perceptions of places, sustainability and tourism.

ecoclub.com: You have researched tourism sustainability at the highest academic level and also interviewed over a hundred sustainable tourism leaders, as you call them, during the past years. The problem is when few follow the leaders, when real followers are even fewer than the leaders. Do you feel that large, mainstream, tourism businesses are finally following? Have they finally understood and endorsed the concept of sustainability and its linkages with climate change or do they mostly go through the moves without implementing serious changes, mostly for image-making purposes?

Florian Kaefer: At the moment we have both: tourism businesses whose sustainability initiatives aim at creating or maintaining a positive reputation in the eyes of stakeholders, and those who are taking bolder actions because they have understood that sustainability is no longer just about being a responsible corporate citizen or about promoting a ‘green’ product or experience.

Especially for tourism businesses and destinations, being sustainable - as much as possible - is about remaining competitive, surviving as industry and maintaining legitimacy in the eyes of those in charge of ensuring the livability, attractiveness and reputation of destinations, be they cities or rural regions.

For a long time, tourism got away with being a laggard in the sustainability sense because we all treasure our vacation time, which is also the time during the year where we want to disconnect and not worry about all those things. In addition, promotional campaigns in tourism have done a great job emphasising the beautiful, exotic and exciting, so unless you live in a tourist destination or make a conscious effort to look behind the scenes, you won’t notice the bad and ugly.

But I also think that we are now at a stage where we’ve realised that tourism activities will never be entirely sustainable, for instance, due to air travel which in many cases is necessary to reach a destination, especially islands. That’s why we now hear the more cautious terms Responsible Tourism, or – as South Africa’s Heidi van der Watt explained in her interview with the Sustainability Leaders Project, Better Tourism.

Book Review: "Country of Contradictions: Costa Rica - Early Ecotourism"

Details: Written by ecoclub.com; Published: 24 June 2017; Hits: 229

“Country of Contradictions, Costa Rica: Early Ecotourism”

Author: Rexford Govorchin

Amazon, Kindle eBook Edition & Paperback, August 2016, ISBN: 978-1520715193

An engaging, first-person narrative of Costa Rica’s budding Tourism sector during 1979-1984, a particularly turbulent time for Central America, a mix of business history and historical novel. It reveals the close connection between the emergence of Costa Rican Ecotourism and the boom and bust fortunes of Lineas Aereas Costariccenses (LACSA), the flag carrier at the time. We follow the author's exertions at an incredibly detailed, almost daily, level - most probably based on well-organised diary notes. Rex Govorchin, the narrator, was a Marketing Manager for LACSA from 1979 until he was dismissed in 1984 as the airline was about to go bust, hit by competition in the context of the new US Open Skies policies as well as higher oil prices after the Second Oil Shock.

Survey finds one in three souvenir shops sell illegal products made of turtleshell

Details: Written by SEE Turtles; Published: 14 June 2017; Hits: 277

Beaverton, OR, United States - 3 May 2017: One tourist at a time can help save the critically endangered hawksbill sea turtle from extinction. A report on a recently concluded three-month survey of nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean identified more than 10,000 turtleshell items for sale at more than 200 souvenir shops and vendors, representing more than 30 percent of places visited. Though the international trade of hawksbill turtleshell has declined over the past few decades, this report shows that strong demand for these products continues in the region, which has a significant impact on efforts to recover the species.

Interview: Rob Rankin, Managing Director, Vagabond - Small Group Tours of Ireland

Details: Written by ecoclub.com; Published: 08 June 2017; Hits: 355

Rob Rankin receiving certificate from EcoTourism Ireland's Mary Mulvey

"Certification is required to ensure that greenwashing does not occur and Tour Operators like ourselves are held accountable to processes and procedures"

Rob Rankin is the Founder and Owner of Vagabond, the first Irish tour operator to be gold certified by EcoTourism Ireland. Originally from Scotland, he has lived in Ireland for many happy years. Mr Rankin is an outdoor enthusiast and also a keen amateur historian with an MA in Modern History, thus running Vagabond is the perfect vocation for him. He is married, "with three small children, four goldfish and a snake", which we are told are kept in different rooms!

ecoclub.com: How did you get the inspiration for this novel tour operation model and why did you choose Ireland?

Rob Rankin: Vagabond Tours were established in February 2002. Myself and my wife Amy had been travelling in Southern Africa. While there, we saw the safari and ‘overland’ tours that were so popular and realised that a more adventurous way of seeing Ireland would be a fantastic experience for visitors. Ireland may not have the lions, elephants and deserts of Africa, but it certainly has plenty of great scenery, fascinating history and a few wild creatures running loose. Just what you need for a good safari. Since 2002 Vagabond has grown steadily year on year, building an excellent reputation within the Irish Tourism industry and with customers abroad. We have won several awards and been featured in numerous articles in publications around the world.

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