Beyond Greening - Tourism Watch

Beyond Greening: Reflections on Tourism in the Rio-Process | PositioningpaperCouncil (WTTC) is to enter voluntarily the “carbon emissions market” and to introduce theuse of biofuels (UNWTO, 2007; WTTC, 2009).This means that emphasis is placed on improving efficiency and mitigating the impact ofindividual journeys without addressing the need for real change in the underlying trend,namely the constant and meteoric growth of air travel and long-haul international tourismfrom North America and Europe to East Asia, the Pacific, the Caribbean and the Emirates, theareas attracting the largest share of tourism in the medium term. In Spain, for example, not asingle TNC has reviewed its policy of directing an increasingly large contingent of itscustomers to Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America. Besides the transport factor, thereare currently no plans to install solar energy in any TNC resorts or accommodation sites,which is simply incredible when the vast majority of their establishments are in areas with thehighest annual levels of solar radiation on the planet (the Mediterranean, Caribbean andtropics). What sense does it then make to flaunt a pilot programme to replace incandescentbulbs with an efficient lighting system if it is for resorts with an energy design that iscompletely unsustainable in terms of form, materials used, insulation and refrigeration?Loss of BiodiversityA second environmental factor is the extent to which international tourism contributes to theloss of biodiversity, identified at the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit as another majorglobal environmental challenge. The lack of responsibility of TNCs in this regard is manifestin three decisive areas:- The colonisation and tourism-basedartificialisation of tropical areas with ahigh ecological value as the richest biomasson the planet. This is the case of severaltourism and property developmentprojects in Costa Rica and Indonesia.- The generalised devastation of thecoastline, both in the Mediterranean andin Mexico and Central America. The"residentialisation" of tourism and themassive development of airportinfrastructures, motorways and roadscontinually sacrifice beaches, dune-basedecosystems, wetlands and protected areas. If the extreme urbanisation of the Spanish coastlineis a constant point at issue, the coastlines of Croatia, Turkey, Tunisia and Morocco are comingincreasingly to resemble this model. The huge complex that Barceló and Iberostar are buildingin Saïdia (Rif) at the expense of the Mouluya wetlands, an area "protected" by the MoroccanState 15 , could be seen as a painful example of this "business as usual" development.- A preference for island locations and sites in the tropics, the most ecologically fragile areas ofthe planet. Spanish TNCs are the true owners not only of the Balearic and Canary Islands, butalso of the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Jamaica and Cape Verde (Buades, 2006, pp. 59-119).A logical consequence of this tourism-led colonisation of tropical, coastal and island regions isthe use of the term “natural” as a commercial hook as used in both old and new “resorts”(from Majorca to Brazil and Costa Rica). Protected areas thus become a calling card with15See the website for the Rif NGO Humains et Environnement: www.hee.org22