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

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Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature Encouraging tourists and tour operators to give donations is another way to increase income for national parks. Tourists and tour operators may very voluntarily pay if they recognise that their money can contribute to the conservation of parks (Stefan, 1999, UNEP, 2002). The Costa Rica tour operators have donated US$ 25,000 to the Costa Rica Park Service in the early 1990s, US-based tour operators help to establish 100,000 ha rain forest for biodiversity research in the Peruvian Amazon (UNEP, 2002). Furthermore, income from local people who participated in ecotourism activities sometimes also contributes to protect national parks. In Brazil, community-based ecotourism has provided 20% of net profits needed for the management of the reserve (WWF, 2001). Finally, ecotourism aims to hire locally staff businesses (Megan, 1993) including local office, field staff, transport - vehicle & boat rental services, accommodations - hotels, lodges, camps and restaurants; it also consume local supplies from food and craft vendors but avoid all products made from rare species. While conventional tourism doesn’t consider much to benefit for local people, economic business is largely in hand of city-tour operators. In general, ecotourism employs local people in many activities and has created wide range of jobs. From these activities and jobs, local communities can improve their income. Sven (2000) show that ecotourism in Amazon has brought much benefits for local people, especially from food, handicraft selling and cultural services. In Nepal, the local communities have participated in different ecotourism activities, 1,100 villagers have been employed by hotel industrial and of 104 local people (74%) were trained as a nature guides with their salary to be increased by 36% afterwards (Marnie, et. al., 1998). Up to now, tourism activities have globally created about 200 million jobs (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2000). 30
Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature In short, economic benefits have been generated from different stakeholders in ecotourism activities. This may contribute significantly to maintenance costs of protected areas and would help to reduce the need for economic investment for conserving biodiversity from governments. Furthermore, the benefits generated from ecotourism particularly improve the livelihood of people. Specifically, it has raised the local living standard and made local people become more involved in conservation. Conservationists also believe that ecotourism may help protect nature and generate economic benefits for local residents (Honey, 1999, Amanda, 2001). David (2001) stated that “Without income flows, it may be more difficult to justify to some politicians and legislators the continued existence of protected natural areas strictly on less tangible grounds such as protecting watersheds, preventing climate change, preserving biodiversity or saving such areas for future generations”. 2.6.2. Ecotourism as a benefit to local education In empirical activities of ecotourism, it is suggested that educating both local residents and visitors are necessary to get success in the ecotourism industry. Ecotourism has to become an integral part of sustainable ecotourism and a major secondary goal of management protected areas (Stefan, 1999). At the Conference on Sustainable Development of Ecotourism in Desert Areas, about 200 people from 21 different countries agreed that information and awareness raising in ecotourism should be concerned, particularly local populations, guides, foreign tour operators, accompanying staff, and tourists (Bouchdjira, 2002). Public involvement or public participation in the planning stage of ecotourism projects is one of several ways to educate local residents. It is strongly recommended in tourism development projects (Diduck, 1999; Stephan, 31
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