• Alex Savin
• March 31, 2022
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Environmental Impacts of Ecotourism

Ecotourism has been developing in the past years due to the rise of ecological awareness. With tourism being the strongest and fastest-growing industry globally, it was expected that ‘the green’ would start implementing eco rules there. Ecotourism has its benefits to our environment and the economy of the areas with ecotourism.

What is Ecotourism

Ecotourism is a form of tourism visiting fragile, pristine, and usually protected areas, intended as a low impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial tourism. Its purpose may be to educate the traveler, provide funds for ecological conservation, directly benefit the economic development and political empowerment of local communities, or foster respect for different cultures and human rights. Since the 1980s, ecotourism has been considered a critical endeavor by environmentalists, so that future generations may experience destinations relatively untouched by human intervention. Several university programs use this description as the working definition of ecotourism.

Ecotourism is not merely an alternative to mass tourism, nor is it the only alternative. The literature on nature tourism and the environmental impacts of the industry dates back to the late 1970s. Tourism is now the world’s largest industry, and it has an increasing impact on protected areas. Our understanding of these mechanisms, their ecological impacts, and our capacity to manage tourism in protected areas lags behind the growth of tourism to protected areas.

A rapid growth in nature tourism and tourism to protected areas has coincided with a shift in protected area management strategies towards integrated development. Tourism is one means available to protected area managers seeking to increase the economic value of a protected area and offer sustainable opportunities for economic growth to local people.

As the fastest-growing sector of the tourism industry, ecotourism offers tourism companies and Third World destinations alike the prospect of capitalizing on the comparative advantage of these nations in terms of unspoiled natural environments. Such development should benefit destinations more in small-scale, local involvement with fewer adverse impacts. The opportunity for these countries to enhance their development potential by harnessing their natural resources without, at the same time, destroying them cannot be denied. However, what is essential is the recognition that, without an adequate understanding of underlying factors and careful planning and management, ecotourism may include unsustainable aspects.

Ecotourism Can be Profitable

Within the new array of ‘green’ products and services, ecotourism claims to combine environmental responsibility with the generation of local economic benefits that will have a development impact and serve as conservation incentives. Financial incentives are imperative for nature conservation, particularly in remote and ill-monitored regions where a weak state presence hinders the use of alternative tools of environmental regulation. In the following, the link between tourism, local benefits, and conservation is conceptualized and analyzed empirically, using data from the Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve in the Ecuadorian Amazon region, near the border of Colombia and Peru. Three Cuyabeno indigenous groups have developed different modes of tourism participation, ranging from autonomous operations to pure salary employment. Quantification of local cash flows from tourism allows for a comparative analysis of income structure, spending, and the impacts on regional development and conservation attitudes. It is concluded that tourism has provided significant additional income in the study area.

Counter to common belief, the mode of participation is less decisive for local income generation than the tourist attraction of the natural site, the degree of tourism specialization, and the level of a local organization. However, as a conservation incentive, the effectiveness of tourism income depends on the incentive structure inherent in the mode of participation and on the substitution versus complementarity of other productive activities: only if tourism changes to labor and land allocation decisions will it have a local conservation impact. Under which circumstances the conjectured link between tourism, local incomes, and conservation is likely to be effective. This leads to some general lessons for government policies, the design of integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs), and several site-specific recommendations for improving incentive structures.

Sustainable Tourism

This study explored the conservation benefits of environmental management practices and nature experiences at a major Australian ecotourism resort. To achieve this purpose, the study investigated changes in tourists’ environmental knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and behavioral intentions between pre-visit and post-visit stages. Overall, there were few statistically significant differences between the pre-visit and post-visit samples. This study found, however, significant effects of (1) visitor awareness of, and (2) involvement in, the environmental management practices, and (3) participation in nature tour activities on environmental attitudes and behaviors. It is suggested that awareness of in-resort environmental practices and satisfying experiences in ecotourism accommodation may reinforce visitors’ favorable environmental attitudes, thus increasing their interest in further ecotourism experiences. Through these cumulative effects, ecotourism accommodation could achieve its educative goal.

First, during the industrial revolution, the movement of populations en masse to cities and urban areas with improved transport enabled large numbers of people to leave their cities for recreation in rural, mountainous, or seaside areas. It can be said that the environment of places has contributed to the birth and progress of tourism (Mathieson and Wall 86, p94). Ecotourism, more than any other form of tourism, depends on the environment of a destination. Of course, the growth of all forms of tourism leads to modifications to the environment. Ecotourism strives to keep these modifications to a minimum. To do this, it is important to take account of these modifications and assess their impacts on the environment.

Ecotourism is the Future of Tourism

Ecotourism is beneficial on many levels. It helps people take care of their environment and preserve many species of flora and fauna. Still, it also helps underdeveloped countries strengthen their economy providing income and new working positions.