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

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Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature • Economic carrying capacity is the ability to absorb tourist activities without displacing or disturbing traditional local activities. Mark (1995) recommended using indicator measurements such as satisfaction-enjoyment, education learning, attitude-belief change and behaviour-lifestyle change of visitors to minimise negative impacts from ecotourism. Oliver (2001) has suggested other parameters in ecoturism monitoring. These include: • Amount of budget per capita allocated by government for conservation and environmental management purposes • Percentage of the protected areas’ surface in the country • Ratio of number of tourists to the number of local residents • Evolution of the number of tourism enterprises • Number of tourism enterprises that posses an eco-label • Number of tourists per surface of protected areas • Number of rare species in ecosystems that are ecotourism destinations. However, implementing these above mentioned-indicators is not easy. It is really difficult to fix the guidelines for the 4 aspects of carrying capacity. It depends on the efficiency of tourism planning and management. For example, higher number of tourism can be accepted if tourism is well managed. It also depends on the kind of tourists. It can be said that the higher conservation awareness of tourists, the less impacts to environment or the more carrying capacity. Therefore, ecotourism operator needs to concern much on capacity building. Some papers have made guidelines based on empirical studies for tourism activities (Megan, 1993; UNEP & TIES, 2002). These include how to educate 38
Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature visitors before and during the tour in order to prevent environmental and cultural impacts; how to provide local communities with the knowledge they need to carry out their own business and prevent negative impacts from accumulating. 3. CASE STUDIES 3.1. Ecotourism in Galapagos Islands 3.1.1. Introduction to the Galapagos Islands The Galapagos Islands are a cluster of volcanic islands located in the Pacific Ocean about 1000 km off Ecuador’s coast. There are 13 large islands, 6 Figure 5: Map of Galapagos (www.ecoudorexplorer.com/html/galapagos_map.html) smaller ones and 107 islets and rocks. The total land area is about 8000 square kilometres. islands The are volcanic in origin and several volcanoes are still very active. The Galapagos is a province of the republic of Ecuador, and the capital is Puerto 39
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University of Aarhus ECOTOURISM AS A WAY TO PROTECT ...

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