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

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Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature With global growth in the tourist industry, ecotourism could be an important tool to protect biodiversity. Ecotourism has existed for 30 years, and the concept is frequently used to refer to “responsible”, “sustainable”, “conservation” or “low-impact” tourism. The idea of ecotourism has been widely used recently all around the world. This is the case because tourism forms important part of the world's economy. In the twentieth century, world trade steadily gave way to a system increasingly dominated by services, telecommunications and financial transactions. Travelling and tourism are now the most important parts of the service industry (Mercer, 1996). At the same time tourism is a major source of foreign exchange earnings for many developing countries (UNEP, 2002). The number of travellers increases year by year, and within the tourism industry ecotourism is the fastest growing segment. Because of the increasing importance of ecotourism worldwide, the United Nations has declared the year 2002 the INTERNATIONAL YEAR OF ECOTOURISM. One of today's major environmental challenges is the protection of the biodiversity, and ecotourism could well play a very important role in the protection of biodiversity. Moreover, ecotourism could fulfil needs of people living in the places which attract tourists. In this report we will discuss the above statements. May 2002, the World Ecotourism Summit took place in the city of Quebec. The major objective of this summit was to review the potential contribution of ecotourism to sustainable development (World Ecotourism Summit - Québec, 2002). The summit was expected to be the largest ever meeting between all stakeholders involved in or affected by ecotourism (UNEP, 2002). One of the aims of the Quebec summit was to deliver the Québec City Declaration on Ecotourism and to elaborate a set of conclusions. Recently, the first results from the summit have been published, where 1,100 delegates, from 6
Ecotourism as a sustainable way to protect nature 133 different countries participated. The document will be officially tabled at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in August 2002, in Johannesburg. This report is being carried out at a time when ecotourism is at a crossroads. After years of confusion and uncertainties, this year is supposed to bring more rules, regulations and recommendations on planning, development, management, marketing and monitoring of ecotourism activities, with a view to ensuring long-term sustainability. In this report will call ecotourism in question. Is ecotourism environmentally, culturally/socially, and economically sustainable How to manage and control ecotourism correctly And prevent that the word is not being abused. These are the questions we would like to put in focus. 1.2. Structure and limitation Chapter one introduces the project and gives some information on ecotourism, and it outlines the issues to be discussed in the report. Chapter two will give an overall introduction to ecotourism. Below, different aspect of chapter two is outlined. • Ecotourism is a wide-ranging word, and there are a lot of different definitions of ecotourism. This chapter will describe definitions of different branches in the tourist industry, and different definitions of ecotourism. But with the main focus on the UNEP definition. • It will look at ecotourism as a sustainable development concept and present some guidelines of basics element in ecotourism. Furthermore, ecotourism will be contemplated as a part of the tourism industry. 7
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