Thursday, December 04, 2003
Tourism causes environmental stress
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
As we in the US worry about such environmental issues as Alaskan oil, Rust Belt factory smoke output, and, particularly in New York, about the government hiding from us the toxic contents of the haze emanating for months from Ground Zero after 9/11/2001, it may be interesting to note how environmentalism is faring throughout Planet Earth. As a side note to the hiding of Ground Zero information, this is what governments have done in all the wars of our memory. The superstructure, while praising the heroic efforts of the soldiers and workers, and the positive attitude of the population, worries about early pension applications and about class action lawsuits, as the heroes get older and experience symptoms of emphysema and other disorders that might be attributable to their selfless exposure to the poisons.
Okay, the world environment. The headline news of the researchers toiling for the Conservation International and UNEP (Environmental Program), whose 1000 delegates were conferencing in South Africa during September 2003, deals with 25 “biodiversity hotspots, ” threatened by tourism, the mainstay of income for many LDCs (Less Developed Countries) . Island cultures, arid countries and tropical forests put under pressure by economic development due to tourism are the majority of those impacted. Typically, stress on the limited water supply causes damages to the environment and the aspects of nature tourists have come to enjoy, and the visits cease, but the destruction has been done.
The critics worry us that tourism has grown out of proportion. It now generates 11 percent of the world’s GDP, employs 200 million people and yearly transports 700 million international travelers, a number that was 10 million in 1960 and should double by 2020(!). The guess is that, in its full implications (construction, food, vehicles), tourism numbers might be even higher, superseding other industries as the world’s main income generator. In the past decade the count of visitors has grown 20-fold in Laos and Cambodia, five-fold in South Africa and three-fold in I Brazil, El Salvador and Nicaragua, more than doubling in Dominican Republic.
In 49 LDCs it is a principal export (#1 in 37). But it uproots indigenous people, causes social and cultural disruptions, and destroys nature. There is a need to protect nature’s biodiversity by integrating tourism planning. Some 700 plus threatened species of nature remain totally unprotected: 223 bird, 140 mammal and 346 amphibian varieties..
As an outsider, one wonders whether the tourists are getting too much unilateral criticism. Runaway economic development, industrialization attempts and population growth, trends that have destroyed fragile sub- Saharan agriculture, do not seem to come in for criticism from this group of ecologists. The fact is that funds from tourism and environmentalist enthusiasts awakened by what they have seen on trips account for substantial funds volunteered to protect the areas. While Cancun was inhabited by 12 families before 1970, it is now visited by 2.6 million vacationers a year. Tourism has brought money to help in feeding Mexico. The barrier island’s mangrove and inland leafy forests may have been cut and sewage treatment is inadequate for the settlements, but there would not have been any, and no wages at all except for the foreign money.
Herewith some statistics of conservation. A total of 102,102 areas are protected , such as World Heritage Sites and biosphere reserves, 1.4% of the planet’s land area, 18 million square kms, a little more than all of Russia, or a little less than the US and Canada combined. In Europe there are 43K protected areas, 18K in Northern Eurasia, 13K in North America (just over 18 percent of its land area) , 9K in Australia/New Zealand, 9K in Africa, and some 4K in marine areas.The largest ten are Greenland’s National Park (348K sq. km, equivalent of California, Oregon and Nevada combined), Texas-size An -Rub-al-Khali wildlife area in Saudi Arabia (247K sq. km), the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia (132K sq. km), the same-sized Northwestern Hawaii coral reef ecological system , nearly same-sized Amazonia forest reserve in Colombia, Quiang Tang nature reserve in China (96K), Cape Churchill wildlife system in North Canada (54K), another Saudi northern wildlife protection system (39K), the Alto Orinoco-Casiquare biosphere reserve in Venezuela/Bolivia (Maine-size, 8K) and the similar, Velo de Javari in Brazil. Much of the national recognition of nature’s needs for protection has come after 1960, and much of it is in name only. That leaves the ecologists unsatisfied, particularly since five of the 14 biomes, or major terrestrial ecological communities identified in a key 1992 World’s Park meeting have not been protected. The tropical humid forests of Amazonia are 23% protected, and the warm and arid deserts (e.g. Sahara), the rain forests and the “mixed island systems” (Indonesia) are well. But, lake systems, temperate grasslands, cold winter deserts (Gobi), temperate leaf forests (North America, North Europe), needle leaf forests (Scotland, Scandinavia) have not secured protected area status. The rich countries are not taking care of themselves.
As we in the US worry about such environmental issues as Alaskan oil, Rust Belt factory smoke output, and, particularly in New York, about the government hiding from us the toxic contents of the haze emanating for months from Ground Zero after 9/11/2001, it may be interesting to note how environmentalism is faring throughout Planet Earth. As a side note to the hiding of Ground Zero information, this is what governments have done in all the wars of our memory. The superstructure, while praising the heroic efforts of the soldiers and workers, and the positive attitude of the population, worries about early pension applications and about class action lawsuits, as the heroes get older and experience symptoms of emphysema and other disorders that might be attributable to their selfless exposure to the poisons.
Okay, the world environment. The headline news of the researchers toiling for the Conservation International and UNEP (Environmental Program), whose 1000 delegates were conferencing in South Africa during September 2003, deals with 25 “biodiversity hotspots, ” threatened by tourism, the mainstay of income for many LDCs (Less Developed Countries) . Island cultures, arid countries and tropical forests put under pressure by economic development due to tourism are the majority of those impacted. Typically, stress on the limited water supply causes damages to the environment and the aspects of nature tourists have come to enjoy, and the visits cease, but the destruction has been done.
The critics worry us that tourism has grown out of proportion. It now generates 11 percent of the world’s GDP, employs 200 million people and yearly transports 700 million international travelers, a number that was 10 million in 1960 and should double by 2020(!). The guess is that, in its full implications (construction, food, vehicles), tourism numbers might be even higher, superseding other industries as the world’s main income generator. In the past decade the count of visitors has grown 20-fold in Laos and Cambodia, five-fold in South Africa and three-fold in I Brazil, El Salvador and Nicaragua, more than doubling in Dominican Republic.
In 49 LDCs it is a principal export (#1 in 37). But it uproots indigenous people, causes social and cultural disruptions, and destroys nature. There is a need to protect nature’s biodiversity by integrating tourism planning. Some 700 plus threatened species of nature remain totally unprotected: 223 bird, 140 mammal and 346 amphibian varieties..
As an outsider, one wonders whether the tourists are getting too much unilateral criticism. Runaway economic development, industrialization attempts and population growth, trends that have destroyed fragile sub- Saharan agriculture, do not seem to come in for criticism from this group of ecologists. The fact is that funds from tourism and environmentalist enthusiasts awakened by what they have seen on trips account for substantial funds volunteered to protect the areas. While Cancun was inhabited by 12 families before 1970, it is now visited by 2.6 million vacationers a year. Tourism has brought money to help in feeding Mexico. The barrier island’s mangrove and inland leafy forests may have been cut and sewage treatment is inadequate for the settlements, but there would not have been any, and no wages at all except for the foreign money.
Herewith some statistics of conservation. A total of 102,102 areas are protected , such as World Heritage Sites and biosphere reserves, 1.4% of the planet’s land area, 18 million square kms, a little more than all of Russia, or a little less than the US and Canada combined. In Europe there are 43K protected areas, 18K in Northern Eurasia, 13K in North America (just over 18 percent of its land area) , 9K in Australia/New Zealand, 9K in Africa, and some 4K in marine areas.The largest ten are Greenland’s National Park (348K sq. km, equivalent of California, Oregon and Nevada combined), Texas-size An -Rub-al-Khali wildlife area in Saudi Arabia (247K sq. km), the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia (132K sq. km), the same-sized Northwestern Hawaii coral reef ecological system , nearly same-sized Amazonia forest reserve in Colombia, Quiang Tang nature reserve in China (96K), Cape Churchill wildlife system in North Canada (54K), another Saudi northern wildlife protection system (39K), the Alto Orinoco-Casiquare biosphere reserve in Venezuela/Bolivia (Maine-size, 8K) and the similar, Velo de Javari in Brazil. Much of the national recognition of nature’s needs for protection has come after 1960, and much of it is in name only. That leaves the ecologists unsatisfied, particularly since five of the 14 biomes, or major terrestrial ecological communities identified in a key 1992 World’s Park meeting have not been protected. The tropical humid forests of Amazonia are 23% protected, and the warm and arid deserts (e.g. Sahara), the rain forests and the “mixed island systems” (Indonesia) are well. But, lake systems, temperate grasslands, cold winter deserts (Gobi), temperate leaf forests (North America, North Europe), needle leaf forests (Scotland, Scandinavia) have not secured protected area status. The rich countries are not taking care of themselves.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 5:31 PM 
