Ecotourism

Sustainability. Conservation. Awareness. These are some of the goals of ecotourism, a form of tourism to natural destinations, whether mountains, rainforests or coral reefs. It requires careful planning of facilities and park management in order to prevent damage to the environment or exploitation of the local people. For tourists, eco-friendly tourism means exploring nature to learn about the natural environment, contributing to local communities and supporting conservation efforts. This includes the opportunity for employment that tourism provides, as well as initiatives such as national park entrance fees.

The destinations for ecotourism are usually pristine, with a diversity of flora and fauna. World Heritage listed sites are popular for ecotourists for this reason.

Rainforest Ecotourism

Rainforest ecotourism involves helping to aid the conservation of rainforests and generating employment for locals through sustainable tourist activities. This means tourist activities must be carefully planned to avoid damaging the environment. Some national rainforest parks get overwhelmed with the mass numbers of tourists, are affected by pollution and deforestation due to construction, and native wildlife can be scared away with all the noise and the presence of too many humans.

It is an important issue as the rate of tropical rainforest destruction is escalating around the world, despite increased awareness. Some of the immediate reasons for rainforest loss is logging, shifted cultivators, overcutting for fuelwood, large dams, mining and industry, tourism, cash crops and cattle ranching. ‘Shifted cultivation’ refers to farmers who have moved into rainforest areas to establish small-scale farming operations, usually landless peasants. As a result, some have estimated up to 60% of tropical forest loss.

Of course, these are more symptoms than the root cause for deforestation. Underlying causes revolve around the push for development, overconsumption, colonialism and exploitation by industrialised nations, poverty, overpopulation. It is social and economic policies implemented for ‘development’ that leads to unsustainable commercial logging, tourism or landless peasants moving to the rainforest because of a lack of land reform.