Ecotourism's Catch-22

By Doug Mellgren, Associated Press
09:46 AM PDT, May 16, 2007

Ecotourism may be just as environmentally damaging as traditional travel due to the greenhouse gases vacationers are burning to reach remote and pristine areas, industry experts warned Tuesday.

That dilemma has been the focus of the Global Ecotourism Conference in Oslo, a three-day gathering of about 300 ecotourism officials struggling to chart the future of an industry whose success threatens to become its own undoing. Tourism to exotic destinations requires extensive travel, such as long flights and long drives, that scientists say emit climate-warming gases.

"There is no other industry that has more to gain or to lose from climate change," said Alexi Huntley, whose tiny Costa Rican airline, Nature Air, seeks to neutralize the climate impact of its flights by investing in such projects as reforestation to help rinse carbon dioxide out of the air.

Ecotourism — which takes travelers to pristine areas in exotic locales and is intended to help avoid the damaging impact of traditional tourism — has been growing at a rate of more than 20% a year since the early 1990s, about three times the rate of the tourism industry as a whole, according to the International Ecotourism Society, one of the sponsors of the conference.

But the extensive travel often required to reach natural wonders produces climate-damaging greenhouses gases and other environmental damage. That, in turn, could potentially dry out the lush parks and flood the small islands that are drawing the environmentally minded.

"It's the Catch-22 of nature-based tourism," Huntley said.

The conference's delegates were planning to adopt a roadmap for the industry, which will stress the need to focus on sustainable tourism.

"Long-distance travel — especially air travel — is a challenge to all of us. We know that it has serious impacts on the climate," said Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoey, opening the meeting on Monday. "The tourist industry should give priority to developing ecotourism in markets closer to home and to promoting environmentally friendly forms of transport."

"Nature-based tourism requires a lot of travel. There may be six moves in 14 days," said Huntley, of Nature Air.

A draft statement the meeting is expected to adopt on Wednesday said the ecotourism industry needs to focus on sustainable tourism "that entails responsible travel to natural areas and which conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people."

The conference was sponsored by the ecotourism society, the UN Environment Program, as well as Norwegian and international travel, conservation and environment groups.