The Unfenced Desert Towards a strategy for eco ... - Nwrc.gov.sa

The global importance of tourism and the potential role of eco-tourism in
protected area management.
“Protected areas can be especially important for development when they [inter alia] provide income and
employment, notably from tourism.”
Caring for the Earth (IUCN et al 1991)
“This rapid expansion [of tourism] represents both a threat to fragile ecosystems and an opportunity for
harnessing resources for conservation and community development.”
Russell Mittermeir, Conservation International (quoted in: Sweeting et al. 1998)
Any way you look at it, as a result of global trends for increasing wealth and leisure time,
and decreased travel costs and restrictions (Ceballos-Lascurain 1996), tourism has
become a massively expanding industry of global importance. A number of statistics and
predictions abound including, to cite just a few: by the 1990s tourism was on par with oil
as the largest (legitimate) business in the world (Honey 1999); in 1997 613 million
international tourist arrivals world wide generated U$448 billion (Sweeting et al. 1998);
the World Tourism Organisation (WTO) predicts that in 2000 travel spending will reach
U$4.2 trillion, and by 2010 there will be over 1 billion tourist arrivals per annum (WTO
website). The economic impacts are massive; tourism is now the number one employer,
providing jobs for some 230 million people - 10% of the global workforce (World Travel
and Tourism Council (WTTC) website). Although the statistics relating to domestic
tourism are poor, the evidence suggests that more than 3 billion people travel within
their own country each year (Sweeting et al. 1998). No wonder then that many countries,
particularly developing nations, are actively encouraging tourism development as a means
to create employment and generate foreign currency.
But as the industry has grown, its character has changed. The average tourist has become
older, better educated and better informed, with an increased awareness of what is
available, and seeking more authentic environmental or cultural experiences. Such
visitors will select sites that have not been degraded by insensitive tourist development.
There has been a decrease in visitor interest in sun/sea/sand, and an increase in visits to
less developed sites of natural beauty, along with increased host disillusionment in the
high social and environmental costs of mass tourism. Consequently the fastest growing
sector of the tourism industry is nature-based tourism; this has been defined as any
tourism that is directly dependent on the use of natural resources in a relatively
undisturbed state - even if that use is neither wise nor sustainable (Ceballos-Lascurain
1996). In recent years 40-60% of international tourists are estimated to focus their travel
on the enjoyment of nature (TES website).
The growth in this sector threatens the very resource on which it is building, but also
provides an opportunity to garner benefits for both conservation and community
development. The combination of threat and potential benefits lead to pressure from a
number of interests, including scientific and conservation bodies, tourists and the travel
industry itself, for more environmentally aware nature tourism. Attempts were made
from the late 1970s to apply the principles of sustainable use to nature-based tourism.
The concept of “ecological tourism” or “ecotourism” emerged in the early 1980s;
defined expansively by the IUCN’s Ecotourism Programme as:
“environmentally responsible travel and visitation to relatively undisturbed areas, in order
to enjoy and appreciate nature that promotes conservation, has low visitor impact, and
provides for beneficially active socio-economic involvement of local populations”
(Hector Ceballos-Lascurain 1996);
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