Three Exemplary Organizations Propagating Ecotourism Standards
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Posted on Jun 10, 2008 - 10:00 AM
By: Guest Writer
Whether you’re a tourist or a worker in the tourism industry, your decisions may have more of an impact than you think on the environment. Recently, an international seminar in the U.K. brought together thirty high-level tourism and environment officials to examine tourism issues. The press release that concluded the seminar included a statement from the head of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) noting that the global tourism industry has a key role to play in confronting the challenges of climate change. The responsibility in tackling this potential was placed on all members of the industry – providers and consumers alike.
So what does being a responsible traveler entail?
Enter, the concept of ecotourism - defined by The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) as, “responsible travel to natural areas that conserves the environment and improves the welfare of local people”. As the responsible traveler, or ecotourist, this means that you as the consumer are making informed decisions to participate in activities and stay in facilities that maintain sustainability in practice.
Of note here—with regards to being an ecotourist—is the United Nation’s newest endeavor to support their claims of tourism being an important industry to the environmental future: the Green Passport. It’s an interactive website that will take an interested party through everything, from trip planning and preparation, to arrival back home with tips and guidelines on how to make responsible choices while traveling. It takes a very pragmatic approach, and offers valuable resources on finding specific eco-friendly businesses in the area you wish to travel.
Another site to check out concerning responsible traveling is Ethical Traveler, a grass-roots alliance uniting everyone who sees travel as a positive force in the world. They make note to include adventurers, tourists, travel agencies, and outfitters, or anyone who wishes to make a difference. The alliance organizes campaigns and provides information about human and environmental concerns in tourism destinations around the globe. It is a great way to become aware about some of the less obvious effects of tourism.
One of the means behind a company promoting itself as “green” is to find a certification program to associate itself with. Unfortunately, there is a lack of internationally standardized “green” certification for new and old facilities to abide by. This is one of the greatest challenges to making decisions as an informed consumer. International environmental certification programs are important in ensuring that hotels are actually taking action to reduce their environmental impact and not just paying a membership fee and advertising themselves as “green” without doing much or anything at all to minimize their impact. Small steps like these—a membership fee and a self checklist—are all that is required in some cases, providing no real source of verification that the company is actually “green”. For an example of a reputable certification process that actually makes the facility accountable for their policies, check out Green Globe –its requirements include on site assessments of the place applying for certification.
Of course, creating international standards is easier said than done; it requires cooperation, organization and resources for enforcement at local and national government levels. It also requires demand, which is generated through pushing consumers towards making greener decisions. By educating people, initiatives like the Green Passport are well on their way to helping achieve these goals.
To further understand the importance of international certification standards, consider the concept previously outlined in Neutral Existence’s article regarding carbon offsets on transportation, which stated that merely planting trees which are carbon neutral and not negative is not enough to offset the mass amounts of carbon emissions from air travel. To just advertise to a tourist that they can spend, say, an extra $37 on an airline ticket to offset their emissions, (approximate cost of offsetting from Toronto, Canada to London, England), and go along their merry way without needing further consideration of their eco-footprint is a dangerous way to create over-consumption habits. Similarly, the lack of real standardization for a company to advertise itself as green can lead to consumption of services from companies that do not actually make real efforts to give back to the local communities and at least conserve, if not improve, the surrounding environments.
So, as a consumer, take advantage of the resources out there propagating ecotourism such as the ones mentioned above (Green Passport, Ethical Traveler and reputable certification companies like Green Globe), or put forth your own efforts to research the facilities and services you are using in your travels. Either way, be aware of what footprint you are leaving as you explore new areas of the world. Remember, your decisions do make a difference! Tourism providers will have to answer to market demands, so if consumers are noticing and supporting real green efforts, more will start to emerge.
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Nicole McCallum is the Co-Founder of TheGreenRocket.com and an Honors Economics and Global Studies student at Wilfrid Laurier University. For more articles regarding ecotourism, check out TheGreenRocket.com’s ecotourism section and look out for its upcoming ecotourism series!
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