Green Fork in the Road (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine, March 2003

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Green Fork in the Road (Cont.)

REVOLUTION OF THE MIND

Espen: How big is this phenomenon? At what rate is ecotourism growing? How do we help Outside readers understand how to measure this against the larger universe of travel?

Martha Honey: The conventional wisdom during the 1990s was that ecotourism was the fastest growing sector of the tourism industry. But this is really a revolution of the mind. I look at ecotourism as the most profound innovation in tourism, perhaps ever. It's a concept that has to do with both what the tourist gains from the travel, and also what they give and what they leave behind in terms of real benefits for communities and conservation.

There are relatively few tourists whose buying decisions are actually driven by the benefits their tourism gives back to the environment and to the local community. Everybody else is working with an uneducated marketplace that doesn't really care.

Costas Christ: I believe that ecotourism is the single most significant event to occur in the history of the travel industry. And I'm not comparing it to the creation of an airplane or something like that. But it is literally challenging conventional travel the way we know it. We are being asked to try and harness one of the world's largest industries, an industry that is growing at a very significant rate. The World Tourism Organization talks about the number of tourists doubling in size by the year 2020. This is an industry that consumes vast amounts of natural resources. What we're seeing is a growing pattern of tourism that is moving increasingly into areas of areas of high biodiversity—the last wilderness areas on our planet. Left to its own devices, this travel industry has the potential to do devastating damage to the earth. To all those Outside readers who seek adventure and seek nature as a form of solace through travel, the large-scale tourism industry in its fastest growing sectors of nature and adventure travel has the potential to, as the cliche goes, kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

So where does ecotourism come in? It's not just a trick. It's about a philosophy and a set of principles and practices that if properly put in place can turn the potential for a negative into a positive, and indeed help transform an industry that has had devastating consequences for biodiversity and indigenous cultures in places like Cancun, Mexico, and other mass travel destinations on our planet. Hopefully it can harness the economic part of the industry so that it makes lasting contributions both to conservation and some of the world's poorest people, who happen to live in areas where tourism is growing the fastest.

This is somewhat controversial, and I'm sure even within our own group we'll hear differences of opinion. Not everybody embraces it. But if we are going to make a lasting contribution to protecting endangered species and expanding benefits to some of the earth's poorest citizens, I believe we need to take the principles of ecotourism and paint them across the broadest canvas of the travel industry as possible.

Oliver Hillel: We've got to think about what mainstream and conventional tourism can learn from ecotourism. How can we make the broader industry do what's already happening? There's a very nice attraction in Costa Rica called Rara Aves, which is basically a private reserve linked to a lodging facility. Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic is a much, much bigger resort, but it also has a private preserve. I may be exaggerating, but I do think that people are learning. The mainstream industry is learning from the ecotourism pioneers. They're taking the lessons learned in ecotourism and applying them at a broader level.

Andy Drumm: I think today's ecotourists can be compared back to the Australian Aborigine walking the song lines to sing the creation into existence. Ecotourism in a global economy is doing something similar by visiting the natural areas of the world and giving them value in the global economy. Many areas that aren't being visited are in fact being eroded. Ecotourism is often the economic justification for the survival of important biodiversity in protected areas. The ecotourist is very often a de facto ally of local people who are being marginalized in their regular economic relations with the mainstream economy.

Espen: Stanley Selengut, as an ecotourism businessman, do you have something to teach to the larger travel business? Are they interested in hearing it?

Stanley Selengut: I think we take the lead in all kinds of stuff, things like alternative energy systems and recycled building materials. We were the first people to go into things like flow restrictions to conserve water because these things are really necessary for surviving in remote places. But I don't think there's a hotel being built today that doesn't use many of these principles.

Espen: Michael Kaye, what kind of dialog does ecotourism have with the mainstream travel industry?

Michael Kaye: There are relatively very, very few tourists whose buying decisions are actually driven by the benefits their tourism gives back to the environment and to the local community. Everybody else is working with an uneducated marketplace that doesn't really care, and it's very, very widespread. I have never once been asked about the environmental friendliness of any place that the groups have gone to, or that the individuals have gone to.

Costas Christ: I think what you're saying is a half-truth in one sense. Recently Conservation International sent a group with you on a wonderful trip, and we specifically selected your company because of your track record, and we talked to the clients about why we selected your company. Maybe they didn't ask you directly, but I think the key thing is that we in this case are selecting individuals like you because of the outstanding record your company has with the principles of ecotourism.

Michael Kaye: I've said only half-jokingly that ecotourism is like communism: it's such a really good idea that somebody ought to try it.

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