the role of tourism in natural resource management in the okavango ...

has become a matter of great contention in some areas in recent years. The
beaches of some resort developments along the Mediterranean coasts of Greece
and Turkey, for example, are used by rare turtle populations as breeding grounds,
whereby clutches of eggs are laid in chambers dug out of the sand. In certain
resorts, conservationists have taken to distributing multi-lingual leaflets warning
tourists not to lay towels on the sand (which can reduce the temperature of the eggs
incubating beneath), not to use beach umbrellas (which can spike whole clutches)
and not to light bonfires at night (which can disorientate hatchlings trying to reach
the sea) (Greth, 1989; Morrison and Selman, 1991; Pattullo, 1996). This example
demonstrates both the strength of feeling that can be generated against tourism
impacts, and the profound impacts of seemingly innocent and relatively passive
tourist activities. Similar fears over tourist disruption to important breeding grounds
have been expressed by, for example, Erize (1987) with reference to cruises to the
Antarctic, and Walker (1991) when considering the management of Heron Island in
the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, for sea-bird and sea-turtle breeding areas.
Even in the non-breeding period, animals will still experience stress from the
presence of tourists. Many of the animals (including birds) in mountain forests, for
example, are severely disturbed by the activities of skiers and walkers. In trying to
escape the tourists, the rapid use of their energy resources can result in starvation if
the disturbance is frequent, especially during harsh winter months (Pattullo, 1996).
The disturbance caused by tourists, amongst others, is thought to be responsible for
an 80% decline in the giant petrel population of Ardly Island in the South Shetland
Islands of Antarctica (Tribe et aI, 2000). The insensitivity of tourists towards nesting
penguins is also noted in the study, where these animals were deliberately disturbed
for wildlife photography. The almost daily disturbance by tourists of cheetah
populations in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania, has seriously affected these
animals (McLaren, 1998).
In certain areas, the sheer rarity of the plant and animal communities results in their
destruction even before tourists arrive. Such is the case for the island of Saint Martin
in the West Indies, where plans to construct a land/sea link to facilitate tourism
development destroyed many of the unique plant communities of the island through
colonisation by incoming alien species (Monnier, 1987). Similarly, the unique flora of
the Tiede National Park in Tenerife, Canary Islands, is at risk from exotic seeds
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