University of Aarhus ECOTOURISM AS A WAY TO PROTECT ...

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Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature 3. Since the year 2000 they require from affiliates that their operations comply with Agenda 21 10 standards. The Green Globe 21 uses the following "Green global path" through the ecolabeling process. When applying, a company passes three levels of certification: 1. Affiliation: it is registered by Green Globe, receives information on how to improve sustainability etc. they are also promoted on the Green Globe Website 2. Benchmarking: the companies submit measurements to Green Globe, they are supposed to make annual improvements of performance. 3. Certification: they develop environmental a management system, they pass a confidential sustainability audit report, and are allowed to use the logo with a "tick" (Green Globe 21 Path, 2001) It seems that the Green Globe 21 is now turning on the right way to be the global ecolabeling certification scheme respected by all authorities, the tourism industry and consumers. 2.5.2. National Ecotourism Accreditation Program of Australia Another ecolabeling scheme is the National Ecotourism Accreditation Program of Australia (NEAP) which is an example of a regionally oriented ecolabeling program. This program has been initiated by the tourism portfolio in the Australian government as a part of ecotourism-related initiatives (Buckley, 10 Agenda 21: is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organisations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment (United Nations Division for Sustainable Development, 2001) 24
Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature 2001). (The conditions in Australia are completely different from other areas due to the high level of environmental interest - the initiative came just from the government). NEAP´s principal difficulty in its early stages was a relatively low industry sign up. Perhaps because of low publicity only rather few providers were able to qualify for this accreditation, which is based on well-defined substantive criteria. Currently, this system is still fighting with limited reach within the Australian ecotourism sector. They developed a three tiered accreditation system - nature tourism, ecotourism and advanced ecotourism. As NEAP stated in their presentation on the www.eco-tor.org guide their major concern is: "accepting applications to provide ecotourism operators and protected area agencies with the opportunity to meet minimum standards for providing or conducting genuine ecotourism operations". They also assist affiliated companies with the development of ecotourism products and recognise the best sustainable practise. There are differing opinions about the future of NEAP, some say that NEAP, appropriately customized to different environments and countries, could become the basis for the Green Globe 21 within the specialist ecotourism sector world-wide (Buckley, 2001). Green Globe 21 continued its expansion plans by associating with other schemes like Green Leaf, Green Key and Caribbean Alliance for Sustainable Tourism (Font, 2002). 2.5.3. Other Tourism Ecolabels As mentioned above there are more than 100 ecolabels, but only few of them are really important and relevant for ecotourism purposes. As an example of another scheme within the group of international attempts is: 25
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