Eco-Tourism

The value that Ecotourism offers to a community includes environmental education, biodiveristy maintenace, local job creation, protected area justification and additonal sources of income. Common pool resources become the main business commodity to draw tourists, so protection of those local natural resounces is critical to the success of the project.

There are three key approaches to ensure sustainble systems and protections are in place, and the first critical one is impact monitoring to track the degradation of the site in order to make changes to further safeguard it. There also needs to be a balance of private gain with public managment through zoning, GIS and by-law restrictions. Finally, there should be controls in place on the number of visitors to avoid overcrowding and inavertant environmental damage. Advisory committees can be set up to develop tools such as signage, visitor centers, naturalist guides and printed materials that can be used as codes of conduct to protect the resources.

Ecotourism has become extremely valuable and countries such as Coasta Rica and Botswana have turned it into both a main export and potentially the largest source of foreign capital. By protecting their natural biodiversity, these countries attract scientists, bird watchers and informal naturalists while promoting conservation. Wilderness Safaris operating in Africa, build their luxury retreats so that they can be entirely dismantled without leaving anything behind, and where they do develop infrastructure, it is often given back to the community in land lease deals that include training the local people to continue running the business. This empowers marginal commnunties to prosper from their natural resouces and thus become environmental guardians for long term sustainabilty.