Ecotourism Project

1
Ecotourism Project

• Project plan November 4
• What do you intend to do?
• How do you intend to do it?
• Field visits completed December 2
• Where have you gone?
• What have you seen?
• What questions did you intend to answer?
• What questions remain?
• Draft due December 18
• Written Project due January 13
• Oral Presentation January 13

2
More on protected areas
3
Ecotourism intersections with conservation

• WWF
• Protected area management
• Sustainable development in buffer zone areas
• Environmental education for consumers
• Influencing policy decisions
• Most urgent point ? protected area management

4
Questions for planning

• How does a protected area plan for ecotourism?
• Where are the examples?
• Where are the models?
• Where are the guidelines?

5
Ecotourism Diagnostic and Planning Guidelines

• Why develop a strategy/plan?
• To guide the development and management of
  ecotourism
• Why?
• To ensure the protected area is not overrun by
  tourists
• To establish mechanisms to generate employment
  and revenue for the protected area and
  surrounding communities
• To create opportunities for environmental
  education for visitors
• To allow protected area managers to either
  encourage or discourage ecotourism as appropriate
  both in and activity

6
Ecotourism Diagnostic and Planning Guidelines

• 3 phases for this strategy
• Assess the current tourism situation and
  potential
• Determine a desirable tourism situation and
  identify steps to reach this situation
• Write an ecotourism strategy document

7
Phase 1 Assess the current situation

• Features inside park boundaries
• Issue areas are natural resources, park
  infrastructure, visitation, and park personnel
• Bridges outside park boundaries
• Issue areas not in the park managers immediate
  jurisdiction that also directly or indirectly
  impact tourism within the park

8
Phase 1 Assess the current situation

• Features inside the park boundaries
• the parks natural resources
• the visitation info and levels
• the park infrastructure
• the park personnel
• Bridges outside park boundaries
• Interaction between the park and local
  communities
• Infrastructure within the country (this park
  others)
• National perspective (legal, policy, budgetary)
• Private sector involvement

9
Phase 2 Determine desirable tourism level and
create a plan

• Workshop or set of workshops
• 1st evaluate obj. of tourism to the park
• 2nd reach a consensus on activities
• 3rd create an ecotourism strategy (action plan
  outlining necessary steps)
• 4th establish a monitoring system

10
Phase 2 Determine desirable tourism level and
create a plan

• Who is invited to the workshops?
• Reps from the park, community, tourism industry,
  MoE, MoT, and environmentalists
• Features inside park boundaries
• Monitor the ecological impacts of tourism
  conduct inventories for sites/ecosystems/or
  species
• Create a system to record visitor stats plan
  series of visitor surveys
• Create a master plan of current and future
  infrastructure in the park list priority
  activities (use local products and services)
• Decide on skills for park personnel decide on
  level of training in tourism management

11
Phase 2 Determine desirable tourism level and
create a plan

• Bridges outside the park boundaries
• Continue interaction with communities reps in
  tourism development plans
• Provide assistance / support to communities
• Be sure communities are benefiting
• Decide what regional dvlpmts to be built
• Lobby appropriate groups
• Decide on potential coordination with other
  tourism attractions

12
Phase 2 Determine desirable tourism level and
create a plan

• Bridges outside park boundaries
• Name the party that is officially in charge of
  tourism management in the park
• Determine tourism zones for the park
• Determine entrance fee for the park
• Examine the national budgeting system for the
  parks
• Determine budget allocations within the park
  itself
• Decide which tour operators to work with
• Decide what info the park wants or needs about
  tourism demand
• Provide assistance and support to communities
  that want more info
• Decide how to promote and market the park

13
Phase 3 Write an ecoutourism strategy document

• Record the info, publish it, and distribute it
• ? This will become the official ecotourism plan
  for the area.

14
For the Exam

• ? if you were to change the current definition of
  ecotourism and specifically to incorporate the
  perspectives of a biocentric environmental
  scientist, how would you do it? What would be
  your new definition? (karim)
• ? each of you, looking back to your own region
  (however you define region), how would you
  devise an ecotourism strategy?
• Name the major reserves in Lebanon Propose the
  creation of a new reserves
• Look into transformation of industrial area into
  an ecotourism / conservation / - impeding
  environmental health

15
Environmental, economic and socio-cultural
impacts of ecotourism
16
Misrepresentation of ecotourism

• Accidental misrepresentation
• Deliberate misrepresentation greenwashing
• Lack of effective accreditation schemes
• Publics lack of familiarity
• Absence of restrictions on the use of the term

17
Question to class

• How would you identify when the travel industry
  is greenwashing and when it is really Green?
• note engage in active listening.
• Then what to do?
• Interested in doing a survey of Lebanese hotels?
• Time 15-20 minutes

18
Direct Benefits of EcoTourism

• Role as an incentive for promoting and
  rehabilitating natural environments
• Potential for funding that it provides to manage
  and enhance protected areas and other ecotourism
  settings
• Assistance provided by ecotourism to manage and
  improve ecotourism venues and to act as
  environmental watchdogs

19
Indirect benefits of EcoTourism

• Increased support for environmentalism and
  protected areas
• Environmental benefits derived from protected
  areas established/kept for ecotourism

20
Borneo

• One of the worlds most biodiverse areas
• w/ a decrease demand for local products, tourism
  emerged as new market for biodiversity
• Partnership between ecotourism
• agency and local community
• 1996 26 families - 82,000