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ECOCLUB, Issue 95
majority of our coastline was closed to public and in order to visit friends or relatives who lived in border zones people needed a
visa. Now the real estate development is active in coastal zone, but new laws are protective and without soviet border guard our
coastline doesn’t look as wild now. In order to remind this to Estonians we paddled all Estonian coastline in summer four years
ago and introduced it through our media.
ECOCLUB.com:
Historic events have created certain divides in Estonia, do you see Tourism playing a positive role
in intercultural dialogue & integration of Estonian ethnic minorities?
Mart Reimann: Integration is one of the hottest issues in Estonia at the moment...I think that tourism is playing quite good and
positive role in integration process because in many cases temperamental and open Slavic people are better to serve international
tourists than slow and reserved Estonians and in tourism sector it is possible to see many Estonians and Russian-speaking people
working successfully together.
ECOCLUB.com: Is Tourism a meaningful way to combat unemployment among youth in Estonia? Are there any
special training / internship initiatives?
Mart Reimann:
Due to our enormous economical growth, unemployment among youth is close to zero at the moment. Many
young and active people find attractive and challenging jobs in tourism and there are several schools and courses who provide
tourism training for young people.
ECOCLUB.com:
In terms of E.U. funding for Tourism & the Environment in Estonia, is it so far a good thing, or
"too much of a good thing"?
Mart Reimann: It is true that if you want people with little knowledge to mess everything up just give them money. It is not too
easy to get EU funding and good thing is that applicant backgrounds are well checked. Good projects are funded and EU money
has helped many tourism attractions in Estonia. Most of my favourite ecotourism sites have got some EU support which helped
them a lot.
ECOCLUB.com: As a Tourism Educator, do you see an increased interest for Ecotourism & environmental issues in
Tourism from your students?
How satisfied are you with the level & content & facilities for Tourism Education in
Estonia, and are tourism university graduates easily employed, compared to other disciplines?
Mart Reimann:
Interest for Ecotourism is rising in Estonia and among Estonian students. In university level curricula and
programs are well planned. But in professional school education the level varies a lot. There are many good vocational schools
in Estonia. But during the Soviet time we had many agricultural vocational schools in countryside which nowadays teach
tourism but often the people are the same and the quality level is suspicious. In case of employment in tourism sector the key
factor is that personality is very important, some people can study for years but if charisma is not suitable for tourism service
then it is quite hard to find a job, but who really wants finds jobs quite easily. Many of my former students have created also
their own companies.
ECOCLUB.com: Your family also owns a wonderful, ancient farm, producing milk the traditional way.
Have you considered entering farm tourism? Or do you perhaps prefer to keep life at the farm authentic - i.e. no
tourists?
Mart Reimann:
It is difficult to say that we produce milk in a traditional way. For Estonians traditional farm means 10-20
cows, sheep and other animals, some forest and agricultural land not more than 100 hectares. Also our farm looked 10 years ago
like that. Then we had to take a hard decision: to stop or to extend, because Estonian agriculture has been based on free market
economy with very little support. At the moment we have 120 cows and we cultivate more than 300 hectares and this is the
smallest size to survive. As part of the land we cultivate includes Estonian oldest fields where Estonians have been working for
3000 years I have been using it for agriculture history tours. We start from oldest agriculture settings, look at buildings in my
farm where the oldest building dates from 16- hundreds and end up in modern farm according to all modern standards. I have
not promoted that package actively because at the moment our main tours are nature exploration tours but I see quite high
potential to expose also our farm because in growing urbanization process people are often more exited to see a living cow than
wilderness.
ECOCLUB.com: Some try to justify Hunting Tours in terms of income generation for impoverished communities and
a profitable way to control wildlife overpopulation. What is your view, with reference to the Estonian experience and
practice?
Mart Reimann: As I have gone through large amount of biology in my university studies and worked with nature conservation
some time I can say that hunting is necessary for wildlife regulations. 10 years ago we had serious wolf overpopulation in
Estonia, we had 700 hundred wolves, but an optimum for Estonian size country is 100-200 wolves. I’m sure that this population
