University of Aarhus ECOTOURISM AS A WAY TO PROTECT ...

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Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature Table 1: The global market share of tourism (first two collums are numbers of tourists in 1999,2000) In many countries tourism has become the major source of foreign exchange earnings. For 38% of the countries in the world (especially developing countries), tourism is the main source of foreign currency. A sensitive introduction of alternative (nature based) tourism could contribute to develop their economies without all the negative environmental impacts that all the developed countries have already experienced. In the view of ecotourism there is a fair possibility that ecotourism, if properly introduced, would be a way to follow up on the economical development of already "developed" countries on the one hand - while avoiding the mistakes that "developed" countries have already made (the high pressure on resources and the environment) on the other hand. 20
Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature 2.5. Certification of ecotourism Summarising the conclusions from the previous parts, there is a strong need for some kind of regulation within the ecotourism industry to achieve the aims properly. The ecolabeling (Buckley, 2001) or environmental certification in tourism (Font, 2002) would be a one way to regulate ecotourism from the international level to the national or the regional levels. At first sight, the easiest and most commonly used level, at which regulations may be set up (e.g. in the form of economic instruments), is the national level. But there are several reasons why this scheme is not always applicable for ecotourism purposes: • The definition of ecotourism is still not clear for governmental negotiation • And even in the case they are taking an active attitude towards regulation, this is limited to national boundaries, which makes it inefficient due to the international nature of the tourism industry (Font, 2001). Consequently, some kind of volunteer agreements at the international level – such as ecolabels - are the most appropriate. The voluntary approaches are certainly the best way to ensure long-term commitments and improvements, and putting the tourism industry on the path of sustainability. And the international volunteer agreements are generally a very good way to motivate the national governments to take action (Töpfer, 1998). The purpose of the ecolabels is to certify that specific efforts have been made to reduce environmental impact (UNEP, 1998), more specifically that the ecotourism provider (travel agency) is actually behaving according to the rules, which were set by ecolabel certification schemes. 21
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University of Aarhus ECOTOURISM AS A WAY TO PROTECT ...

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