Ecotourism

Question 1

UNWTO, 2018

Answer 1

International tourist arrivals were up by 7% in 2017 reaching a total of 1.3 billion individuals

Question 2

Bottrill, 1995

Answer 2

Define ecotourism as “nature-based tourism that does not result in the social, environmental or economic negatives often associated with mass tourism”

Question 3

Bramwell and Lane (2005)

Answer 3

Offers poorer countries in the GS an opportunity to generate profit, diversify their economies, all whilst protecting their local rich biodiversity

Question 4

Honey, 2002

Answer 4

Ecotourism is widely adopted

By the mid 1990s the USAID had 105 projects totalling $2bn

Question 5

What did Brockington et al. 2008 say ecotourism was portrayed as?

Answer 5

A magical bullet capable of hitting multiple targets at once

Question 6

Orams, 1995

Answer 6

Ecotourism is very difficult to define - having a large spectrum

Question 7

Mowforth and Munt (2003)

Answer 7

“Win-win-win” - people, tourists and nature
Pro-poor
Conservation as SELF-FINANCING and supporting local livelihoods

Question 8

Wallace and Pierce, 1996

Answer 8

Direct economic benefits
Complement existing practices (such as fishing and farming) allowing for diversification
This provides resilience should any industry suffer a reduction

Question 9

Outline the theory of ecotourism

Answer 9

Local communities should be directly involved, participating in management and development
The money made, should act as an incentive to not destroy nature, and as an alternative to negative activities such as poaching
This works by basic economic theory whereby if maintaining attractive landscapes (through things such as footpaths) is essential for business to operate then it will be protected

Question 10

Does ecotourism go against or with fortress conservation?

Answer 10

Against in that it encourages human non-human interaction

BUT money from it can often be put towards fortress conservation

Question 11

Where is ecotourism on a spectrum? (W. Reference)

Answer 11

Part of a BLUE-GREEN conservation effort - environment values within existing social, economic and political spectrums
Miller, 2000

Question 12

Is ecotourism neoliberal?

Answer 12

It is a market-based approach, and it is often run by private sectors
But not inherently neoliberal as it existed before the neoliberal turn

Question 13

Examples of studies who advocate ecotourism

Answer 13

Adams and Hulme, 2001; Salafsky et al., 2001; Boo, 1992

Question 14

Lindsey et al. 2007

Answer 14

Serengeti national park got $6million from entry fees, which can be reinvested into conservation

Question 15

Zambrano et al. (2010)

Answer 15

Lava Rios Eco-Lodge, Osa Peninsula Costa Rica
Interdisciplinary approach - interviews and remote sensing
Found that lodge has made substantial contributions to both local livelihoods and environmental conservation, including the highest rates of reforestation of all areas in the Osa Peninsula

Question 16

Gary et al. (2013)

Answer 16

Population of mountain gorillas has increased steadily for over 20 years at Bwindi National Park

Question 17

Salafsky et al. 2001

Answer 17

Review of community enterprise projects in Asia
Found that in areas where modest changes were required to meet targets (such as preserving a small important migration corridor) ecotourism could help provide the needed economic incentive and work to preserve biodiversity

Question 18

Moscardo et al. (1996)

Answer 18

Ecotourism is a market based approach - therefore competes for business and conservation is not its primary goal
This study interviewed ecotourism lodge owners in Amazonas, Brazil found that profit was their primary motive - conservation and community development as secondary considerations

Question 19

Neves-Graca, 2004

Answer 19

Azores
Boats used for whale watching emit high-pitched underwater sounds which disrupt whales sonar
Especially problematic for tourists who arrive whilst whales are sleeping or breast-feeding

Question 20

Duffy, 2002

Answer 20

Belize

Dredging to create sandy beaches for tourists has been detrimental for aquatic habitats and wildlife

Question 21

Kreg et al. (2003)

Answer 21

Controlled burning, clearing of vegetation, artificial water points etc. Have led to ecological changes and decreased resiliency in tourism-oriented projected areas and game ranges in KwaZulu-Natal

Question 22

Quote on the effects of infrastructure

Answer 22

The effects of establishing a small-scale hotel or food outlet in a remote location can have the same impact as building a Hilton in a large town or city (Duffy, 2002)

Question 23

Aylward, 2003

Answer 23

Kawzulu-Natal Province, South Africa
None of the private game ranches, which averaged 4000km2, were large enough to maintain viable populations of buffalos, lions, elephants, hippos or African wild dogs

Question 24

Carrier and Macleod, 2005

Answer 24

Ecotourism bubble
Based on Marxist theory of commodity fetishism (1867)
That commodities created in capitalist systems have the context of their creation destroyed
Here exists in the fact that ecotourism relies very heavily on air travel - which is a huge contributor to climate change - and yet the locals are often portrayed as the threat to nature, and ecotourists as its saviour

Question 25

Why is the presentation of ecotourism as a “win-win-win” particularly damaging?

Answer 25

Because if people think things are “being-done” then it may prevent the call for action for necessary hard conservation policies being implemented (Duffy, 2002)

Question 26

Outline the positive development impacts (2)

Answer 26

1) Active pathways e.g. jobs - main benefit is income - ecotourism is recognised as a major provider of employment, especially in remote areas where there are few other opportunities (Duffy, 2002) - the monetary value though hard to quantify has been recognised as making a significant contribution to household finances (Pattullo, 2005)
2) Passive pathways e.g. revenue sharing, and infrastructure

Question 27

Reid, 2003

Answer 27

Ecotourism can be seen as economic imposition on poorer states
Part of wider globalisation movement to provide economic benefit for private, foreign companies
Leads to elite capture and local exclusion

Question 28

Duffy, 2002 (on economic imposition)

Answer 28

Ecotourism fits into the neoliberal free-market and is favoured by those who lend money e.g. world bank
It does not challenge current development paradigms and thus acts as an opportunity for hegemonic powers to legitimise a switch to free-market policies in the GS

Question 29

Spenceley, 2008

Answer 29

Tanzania
Partnership between ecotourist businesses and local people often replicates problems of mass tourism
Elite capture and locals just left with menial labour

Question 30

Boo, 1990

Answer 30

Positives that do occur are felt on very small spatial scales as schemes are remote and locally owned
Fail to help regional or national development

Question 31

Uneven distribution within the community

Answer 31

Sandbrook and Adams, 2012

Benefits are skewed by many factors such as gender (Sinclair, 1997), Education (Leon, 2007), wealth (Blake et al., 2008)

Question 32

Belsky, 1999

Answer 32

Study of intra-community impacts
Gales Point Manatee, Belize (1992-1998|)
Politics of class, gender and patronage inequities
E.g. class - those running the B&B versus those not - only those directly involved felt they were benefitting - then conflict - other people would refuse to pay the electricity as this supported greedy tourists
While there were benefits only a few households who were directly engaged benefitted
But didn’t argue against ecotourism! “We do not argue that CBNRM should be abandoned, the lesson is that analysis must move beyond over simplification of community”
Also ideological imposition - thought that tourists would convey a conservation ethic, but instead the locals felt like they were always making religious confessions

Question 33

Barrow and Muphree, 2002

Answer 33

Communities are not homogenous units that need to be intervened in and developed

Question 34

Outline ideological imposition

Answer 34

Ecotourism is not just an economic imposition but an ideological one based on a preservationist view or nature
Exclusionary e.g. Swidden, pastoralism and hunting - privileges non-consumptive uses

Question 35

Buscher et al. (2012)

Answer 35

Ecotourism is a form of green-washing

Question 36

Debord, 1967

Answer 36

Not selling reality but “derivative nature”

The idea of spectacle - the mediation of relationships between people and the environment by images

Question 37

MacCannell (1973)

Answer 37

Staged authenticity

Question 38

Nelson, 2008

Answer 38

Tourism is thus both an opportunity and a threat for rural communities
Tourism increases the incentives for other, usually more powerful actors to encroach on and appropriate local lands and resources
But it also creates the opportunities that rural people need to diversify their livelihoods and generate economic and political capital to support themselves in the long run

Question 39

Tumusiime and Svarstad, 2011

Answer 39

The reality at Bwindi is somewhere between the contradictory narratives of success and failure

Question 40

Ashok et al. (2017)

Answer 40

Development an assessment process to evaluate the sustainability of ecotourism using a pilot study in Kanchendzonga National Park, India
Based off a combination of previous literature, participatory workshops, and expert elicitation
4 principles, 8 criteria, and 58 indicators were developed as a framework of analysis for assessing sustainability

Question 41

Wilkinson, 1992

Answer 41

It is clear that tourism will not disappear so the issue is not whether tourism is beneficial or not, but how it can be carried out in a more environmentally, socially and culturally sensitive manner

Question 41

Kiss, 2004

Answer 41

The best conservation strategy for any given site must be developed based on a realistic, hardheaded assessment of the options, including their feasibility, cost-effectiveness, social impacts and sustainability
Financial and technical resources are too scarce to waste on wishful thinking