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ECOCLUB® |
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ISSN 1108-8931 |
International Ecotourism Monthly |
Year 4, Issue 42, Nov. 2002 |
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THE EXPERT showcases the knowledge of our Expert Members who volunteer free advice to other Members of ECOCLUB.com on their topic of expertise.
The term ECONATION, as well as ECOTOURISM is relatively new in the industry. According to experts there are two important definitions. First of all, Econations should give priority to measures that will decrease the impacts on both nature and culture. But more importantly, as some experts indicate, the establishment of an Econation requires a complete change in people’s attitude towards the environment and culture. In either case however, scholars do agree that an Econation, and thus Ecotourism will only be successful if a high level of community participation is established. Issues such as partnership between all stakeholders, the involvement of local communities in the decision-making process, are key in setting the standards for a successful Ecotourism product. In this particular case a Bottom-Up Approach, i.e. local communities being in control of the Ecotourism product, is of extreme importance. As part of the process in establishing an Econation, local communities need to be empowered. But moreover, local communities must get the necessary tools, such as Training and (Environmental/Conservation/Visitor) Education, and thus setting a sound base for creating AWARENESS on the importance of both nature and culture. Furthermore, local communities need to be involved in the constant monitoring and evaluation of tourism impacts on nature and culture. Social Impact and Environmental Impact Assessments are key! The establishment of an Econation requires more however. Both Private and Public Sector have their role to play.
No need to say that
legislation, licensing, monitoring and evaluation are an aspect in
which both the public sector and local communities are involved. The
Private Sector on the other hand, should lead by example in its
operations. New Management Techniques whereby companies put emphasis
on Recycling, Re-use, Replace, Reduce, the Re-engineering of their
operations, Retraining and Re-education employees, Rewarding them, and
the enforcement of Environmental Management Systems (EMS), need to be
prioritised. After all eco-conscious guests from Europe and North
America will choose those destinations (country or hotel) that have
the protection of the environment and the welfare of local communities
as a top priority.
A number of development projects of varying magnitudes have been undertaken in Lesotho since the country's independence in 1966 in an effort to lessen its economic dependence on South Africa, especially in relation to food imports and employment. However because of the continued mismanagement of the limited resource base the dependency problem seems more acute. While the problem of unemployment and poverty may not be completely eradicated in the near future, a proper management of resources such as water, land and people, could improve the situation. In particular a major threat to development is the rapid deterioration and/or degradation of ecosystems both due to natural and anthropogenic influences.
Lesotho is a mountainous country with a lowest point at around 1400 m above sea level and a highest point around 3400 m. It has a unique potential for tourism which has till the present not been fully explored. However that potential is dependent on the proper management of the land resources. About three quarters of the country is the Highlands, which are primarily used for range. The overuse of the rangeland is believed to be the major cause of land degradation. It has been suggested that more livestock has been kept than can be supported by the range. On the other hand, culturally, the wealth of a Mosotho is based on the numbers of his livestock; as a result, the concept of de-stocking has received resistance. In order to save the rangelands it is being proposed that Basotho invest in nature-based tourism as a form of earning income and reduce the number of their livestock. The extent to which they will buy this idea is not known, but it is crucial that they are made to understand that if nothing is done, all the rangelands will be lost and so will the livestock and other resources as well. The other major resource of the mountains is water. Lesotho is renowned for its pristine waters. The Lesotho Highlands Water Project is a major project, which is harnessing the water from the mountains through tunnels into South Africa where it earns revenue for Lesotho. Major developments such as these often affect the communities within which they occur in a negative way. There are a number of other projects which are underway mainly in the area of biodiversity conservation. These projects will also affect local communities in some negative ways. It is important therefore, that a good environmental base line data is available to assist in the planning and implementation of major development projects. This is where EIS plays a crucial role. If the spatial information has been captured in an EIS, land use potentials of various areas can be determined so that resources are used appropriately. The information would also assist to ensure that to a large extent local communities are not adversely affected. Because of the problem of poverty and unemployment, there is need to
optimise the use of all resources that the country has. The question of
where, how much they are and their condition can be efficiently addressed by
an EIS. We all read in the everyday press, see in TV and talk between us, about the enormously negative impact of our civilization and our life assisting facilities on the overall condition of the environment that goes worst and worst. It is a very big mistake for each one of us to believe that the whole matter is only subject to governmental actions, no matter of the Country or the Continent. Each one from us is totally responsible for his behaviour against the environment as well as for the "environmental education" we are giving to our kids. It is not fair for us to express worries about "our kids future" and in the same time we don't teach them simple and effective ways of protecting it. It goes without saying that the main portion of this negative impact comes from the developed world, where we are all used to face some everyday catastrophic actions we do, as natural, normal and …innocent… The mind of the readers of this article, may have already been directed to huge industrial chimneys extracting their poisonous fumes, maybe to heavy traffic highways and roads across the globe with thousands of dark smog producing exhausts or even to the hundreds of jet aircrafts crossing every minute the seven skies, adding their engine exhaust gases to the overall threatening picture. Yes, these are major problem producers, but, also your small or big town's power production plant is contributing to the whole problem and I am sure that nobody from all the readers of this lines have ever thought that he or she is also contributing a little to this, while washing the hands, taking a refreshing shower, or by just watching TV in one room, having let (without any reason) the lights "on" in many other parts of the house, or is expecting the flat to be enough cool (or warm) while in the same time one or more external doors are almost closed or even…half open.
It is so simple but yet so difficult to teach millions of the Earth
inhabitants that if somebody can wash his hands by consuming i.e. 10 litters
of tap water instead of 25 litters, the calories included in the warmed
portion of this water multiplied by millions can give huge figures of energy
conservation in household level, in district level, nationwide or why not…worldwide,
thus automatically meaning much-much less quantities of unwanted gases in
the skies. Only for washing our hands! Please dear friends, consider the
warm showers that most peoples are taking daily or even more times a day
depending to the climate zone and please simply think that a shower at a
consumption rate i.e. 8 litters of water per minute, is tremendously
different from a shower with another shower head, consuming 20 or 25 litters
per minute. Why I say this? Because having been involved in the water and
energy consumption minimization technologies for years, I have arrived to
the result that it is one of the biggest mistakes of humanity, is to take as
"standard" or "normal" the nonsense consumption rates
that most manufacturers of the world are designing in their products
(faucets, bath mixers and showers, hand held or wall mounted). The point is
that all these unexcused consumption rates are not contributing to better
feeling or more effective washing, as most of this water is just going
unused in the waist pipelines while there are many water saving parts,
offering much better results and feeling. An effort to locate and adopt good
quality and effective water saving systems in every country's market, is
very well paying back and apart from the satisfaction that you are
contributing to the so valuable environmental protection, you will see your
money coming back multiplied many times, from the water supply and energy
supply bills minimization…
To the best of my knowledge there are very few existing projects that really deal with ecotourism as part of sustainable regional development planning in an integrated way. This will be a significant direction once it is better understood through demonstration of successful examples and case studies. We hope that the plan that we are implementing will continue to be one of these over time. At this stage we are becoming involved in a course that is being organized by the Ministry of Agriculture for rural villagers interested in taking part in the implementation of the plan at the local level. They will be exposed to a whole range of possibilities and potentials for an individual to become active in an environmentally responsible but still profitable way. This will include subjects such as local environmental management techniques, organic produce production, environmentally friendly/green building, energy economy and low environmental impact energy options, tourism business management and marketing. In short the idea is to provide tools that make real economic sense, including the environmental dimensions of cost and benefit. The thrust of this program is to give grass roots meaning to the goals of the plan. Implementation is an ongoing learning experience which requires continuous monitoring and adjustment since we can never predict all the outcomes of intervention. In other words whatever plans and strategies we make have to be flexible enough to be able to absorb new developments and cope with the unpredictable elements and changes in conditions over time. It is extremely difficult to be more precise about this in a few sentences other than to state the principle and point to the tools that can be effective in this regard. A key element is ongoing environmental management by dedicated, informed and caring people in the public sector on the one hand while, on the other, one needs to be able to guide private sector initiatives to a position where they can see that environmentally responsible activity can also provide long term profitability. In other words we have to work on ways that bring environmentally sound tourism activity (integrated with other economic activity) into the mainstream of things for long term sustainability to become a widespread reality. This requires creativity, experience and a lot of patience as well, especially at the political level. Do not be discouraged by that, though, the effort will be worth it! I would begin by building up a general picture (or data base) of the region that you plan to work with. Are you making a plan for the entire island? You will want to quantify the nature and scope of existing tourism facilities and activities and identify their connectivity to the rest of the economy and the ecological platform that the region represents. As mentioned, planning and implementation of plans means intervention in an existing situation. Before doing so you need a good geographic, ecological and economic understanding of what exists. You also need to build up a picture of the various stakeholders in the area so that one can understand peoples' motivations and aspirations. It is important to create a forum where the stakeholders can express themselves. We work with a core steering committee and a series of ad hoc assemblies according to the needs of various interest groups and situations. This framework has to be designed and carefully managed. A point to which I would pay special attention revolves around the question of carrying capacity. This is an often quoted expression but in my experience very little understood because it is not sufficiently tied to concepts of environmental management. Carrying capacity is very heavily influenced by how things are done. Environmental management techniques can increase the carrying capacity of an area many times over. A rather dumb example could be a beautiful picnic spot: Compare the carrying capacity of the spot in terms of ability to absorb people and stay attractive if there are no regular garbage removal services and basic maintenance activities with the situation where these are regular and well managed. Similarly, a single house discharging raw sewage into the sea is unlikely to cause irreversible damage but an hotel would have a different effect - treat the hotel sewage before it goes to the sea and the picture changes dramatically. The question is therefore not whether the sea has the carrying capacity to support the hotel but how the hotel relates to the sea in terms of the load that it imposes. I believe that sound environmental management will play an ever increasing role in sustainable development programs. Environmental management costs money; it has to be fully factored into feasibility studies from the beginning. I would also take a good
look at the subject of environmental certification as a tool for encouraging
individual businesses to pursue their activities in an environmentally
appropriate fashion. There are also several pilot programs running for
regional destination certification of environmental quality.
Ecotourism is a new concept in India. It is just catching up and many state governments are trying to develop some of the destinations of natural beauty under this concept. However, the concept is not yet well understood and many of us are worried that some serene places and also protected forests may get disturbed and ruined under this buzzword of 'Ecotourism'. We are cautioning the governments about such a disaster. The Ecotourism planning of any natural region needs to be handled with utmost care. In fact, any tourism should be Ecotourism in India where natural and cultural heritage is the country's main asset. As of today, I am not aware of any special efforts for ecotourism on any of the beaches in Karnataka / Tamilnadu / Maharashtra. In general, most of the beaches in these states are less developed and in that sense, they are protected from any assault of tourism. Sometimes, less tourism is the best solution to achieve ecotourism! And this has inadvertently worked out positively for the beaches in India. There are two beaches worth mentioning in this context. They are in Maharashtra. One is Tarkarli near Malvan and the other is Ganapatipule near Ratnagiri. Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation (MTDC) has developed these two spots for tourists. The MTDC resorts are good even though they are not specifically designed with ecotourism concept. Tarkarli is near the Sindhudurg Marine National Park. It also has a heritage site of Sindhudurg Sea Fort. The MTDC resort is developed with low profile, local architectural character and local cousine. All fancy and glamour is avoided. It could be further improved with definite ecotourism concepts. However, it is one of the most popular beach resorts in India. Ganapatipule also has unique feature of the Sacred Forest and Temple adjacent to the beach. The MTDC resort, though large, does not disturb the serenity of the place. It also follows the local character and in that sense, has followed ecotourism norms. Many of us are worried
about the 'Ecotourism' craze in the government and there is a sense of worry
that some entrepreneurs may misuse these places of natural beauty under this
brand name. However, we are also optimistic that the tourism developments
will go in a right directions due to the overall international awareness in
Ecotourism. |
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